Abstract
This chapter describes the development and refinement of three undergraduate primary source instruction sessions exploring social justice topics at Champlain College, a small predominantly white private college located in Burlington, Vermont. In these sessions, students analyzed how local history, community memory-making, and the role institutions of higher education have played in both perpetuating and disrupting dominant cultural narratives. The coauthors discuss key sources featured in each session, lesson formats and classroom activities, pre- and post-session assignments, and instructor and student reflections.
Keywords
Primary Source Instruction, Social Justice, Trauma-Informed Pedagogy, Colonialism, Local History, Cultural Taxonomy, Epistemology, Racism
Document Type
Book Chapter
Publication Date
2025
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International License.
Recommended Citation
Donnis, E. and Yacubian, F. "Primary Source Instruction as a Social Justice Pathway." From Interrogation to Integration: Centering Social Justice in Special Collections, Archives, and Preservation, edited by Kim Hoffman and Rachel Makarowski, Association of College and Research Libraries, 2025, 247-267.
Included in
Information Literacy Commons, Social History Commons, Social Justice Commons, United States History Commons
