Archival Literacy: Active Learning and Teaching with Primary Sources
Kate Black and Sheli Saltsman, University of Kentucky
It opened my eyes to the people living back then and I could begin to picture it in my head.
The materials presented showed me how divided our country was for and against the war.
The materials allowed me to see uncensored thoughts and feeling of not only citizens but soldiers as well.
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In Special Collections at the University of Kentucky Libraries we have been engaged in using our
archival collections to teach students how to “read” primary documents and to connect their analysis to
larger themes in their course. The excerpts from student evaluations above came from freshman enrolled
in the “History of the Vietnam War” after attending one of our archival literacy classes. Their comments
illustrate one of our framing principles for most of our history classes: use the concept of multiple
perspectives to introduce students to one of the historian’s greatest tasks: managing and grappling with
competing narratives. Tom Holt in his Thinking Historically: Narrative, Imagination and Understanding
writes that:
[T]he documents students work with should be genuinely open to multiple interpretations and
open ended questions….By learning to construct their own narratives, students will learn to
critique others’ narratives. History, then, becomes an ongoing conversation and debate rather
than a dry compilation of “facts” and dates, a closed catechism or a set of questions already
answered. There is within it “a place to invent.” (p. 15-16)
When we use the concept of multiple perspectives to design an archival exercise for history students we
are almost seamlessly led to active learning techniques. “Doing History” as pedagogy scholars Linda
Levstik and Keith Barton call it, requires us to move beyond a show and tell approach. Instead we design
experiences in which students are engaged in analyzing and evaluating the raw materials of history—by
asking questions, by making connections, by reading between the lines in order to “[work] around and
through the gaps.” (Holt, p. 15) It is during this process that students (historians) begin to experiment with
narratives, trying them on for size.
The exercise you will participate in, as students in the class “History of the Vietnam War,” is organized
around multiple perspectives: Soldiers at War, Citizens at War, and Memories at War. We want to
explore how Kentuckians experienced the Vietnam War.
We will divide you into small groups and, with your group, you will make your way to stations (see next
page) with archival/primary source material that documents various viewpoints. Along the way, your
group will take notes, using the worksheet provided, and consider these questions: 1) Who are the
narrators and in what context are they speaking or writing? 2) What points of view are being expressed in
the archival materials under review? 3) How has your view of the Vietnam War been challenged,
enhanced, modified, or otherwise shaped by this encounter with these primary sources? Finally, at your
last station, your group should select one document that raises a question, poses a contradiction, or reveals
a cultural or political tension. At the end of class, each group will share what they selected and talk about
how it contributes to or even complicates a particular viewpoint or perspective.
Station 1
a)
Soldiers at War
Selected letters from Jim Gibson, a soldier stationed in Cam Rahn Bay, Vietnam, writing to his
wife, Linda, May 1970-March 1971 from Wade Hall Collection of American Letters
(2009MS132)
b) Clip from The Long Road Back , a documentary film based on oral histories with Kentucky
Vietnam Veterans from the Louis B. Nunn Center for Oral History’s Col. Arthur L. Kelly
Veterans Oral History Collection. Plus transcripts of interviews with Robert M. Watters, May
16, 1985 (1985OH221) and John Oldham, April 2, 1985 (1985OH95)
Station 2
Citizens at War
a)
Selected letters (April-August, 1970) from Kentucky constituents voicing opinions on the
Cooper-Church amendment (Congressional legislation aimed at reducing Nixon’s power to
unilaterally wage war and at stopping the flow of U.S. troops into Cambodia) from the John
Sherman Cooper papers (80M1); articles (April-July, 1970) from the New York Times
regarding the amendment
b)
Clippings from the University of Kentucky’s student paper and other local newspapers,
May, 1970 regarding the shootings at Kent State and the burning of the University of
KentuckyR.O.T.C. Building from University of Kentucky Archives (2001UA025). Plus
transcripts of interviews with student activists in the Louis B. Nunn Center for Oral History
Charles T. Wethington’s Oral History Project: Sue Ann Salmon, December 1, 1978
(1970OH122); Jim Embry, November 14, 1978 (1979OH119); Steve Bright, c. 1977
(1977OH002)
Station 3
Memories at War
a) In Country: a Novel, by Kentucky writer Bobbie Ann Mason (excerpt from First Edition)
“Centered,” poem by Appalachian poet George Ella Lyon
“Happy Birthday Captain America –to a Vietnam Vet on his Fortieth Birthday” poem from
Appalachian Studies, by Appalachian writer Anne Shelby
b) “Cloud of Red,” song written and performed by Kentucky Vietnam veteran Jack Wright
“Night Patrol,” song written and performed by Kentucky Vietnam veteran Nick Stump