Primary and Secondary Sources

At Lincoln Middle School, 7^th graders use textbooks to learn about science. What is the textbook?

• Primary source

• Secondary source

Elena has to write an essay about Sam Houston for her Texas history class. She uses articles from Wikipedia and another encyclopedia. What is she using?

• Primary source

• Secondary source

Jill’s mom has audio recordings of her grandparents telling stories about when they were kids. Jill’s family loves to listen to these at gatherings. What are they listening to?

• Primary source

• Secondary source

Cindy is creating a website about WWII for her Social Studies project. She finds photographs of soldiers in her textbook. What are the photographs?

• Primary source

• Secondary source

Sean watched a documentary about the Civil War to help him with his homework. What is he watching?

• Primary source

• Secondary source

Answer explanation

Although documentaries contain primary sources, they are selecting and interpreting the primary sources. Because of that, they are typically not considered to be primary sources as a whole.

Ian was at summer camp a few years ago and found an arrowhead that was made by the Comanche Indians. What is the arrowhead?

• Primary source

• Secondary source

• Artifact

Two sisters found an old wedding dress in their attic. Their father said it belonged to his grandmother. What is the dress?

• Primary source

• Secondary source

• Artifact