Teacher Resources for At Work in the Archives: Place-Based Research and Writing

Overview and Teaching Strategies

Teaching undergraduates to write with archives is rewarding and pedagogically sound. Benefits for students include strengthening critical thinking skills and developing greater awareness of how scholars use sources to make meaning. Archival research has benefits for teachers as well, providing unique opportunities to learn from and alongside your students. While this shift in pedagogical roles may seem a bit alienating initially, we’ve found engaging in archival research and writing to be quite liberating. Teachers and students worry less about plagiarism and disinterest in assigned topics. Additionally, teachers don’t face burnout because each term brings a new set of students with widely divergent interests. Pretty quickly, students take on roles as subject matter experts and begin to see vital connections between their personal lives and academic work. As archival researchers ourselves, we share our experiences working in the archives with our students—stories of serendipity and curiosity, moments of blending our personal interests with rhetorical activism—in ways that invite and encourage students to join ongoing scholarly conversations.

The recent surge in scholar-teacher works dedicated to writing with archives provides good starting places for considering how you might add archival research to existing courses or redesign curriculum to focus on primary research. See, for example, The Archive as Classroom: Pedagogical Approaches to Digital Archive of Literacy Narratives (edited by Katie Comer, et al), an open access collection of scholarly essays, assignments and exercises associated with the Digital Archive of Literacy Narratives (DALN) —a collection of over 7000 distinct oral history narratives. The teacher-authored chapters in this unique digital-born collection address storytelling, globalization, digital composition, building a vertical writing curriculum, allowing research subjects their own voices, literacy sponsorship, research methods, performance, serendipity, and researcher positionality. Jane Greer and Laurie Grohman’s Teaching Writing and Rhetoric at Museums, Memorials, and Archives likewise offers a collection of articles penned by teachers experienced in designing archival assignments; the contributors address pedagogy affiliated with local, public collections and artifacts. And Lynée Lewis Gaillet and Michelle Eble’s Primary Research and Writing: People, Places, and Spaces is a first-year writing textbook completely grounded in archival and primary praxis. (See also works by Bahde, et al; Enoch and VanHaitsma; Graban and Hayden; Hayden; and Daniel-Wariya and Lewis).

Specifically, first year writing classes grounded in archival research:

• ask students to see themselves as experts and share their passion and knowledge;
• avoid plagiarism and patchwork writing;
• blend community writing and service learning with original research effortlessly;
• invite students to research local artifacts, business and government records, and workplace collections;
• introduce students to library investigation in engaging ways—through special collections and with digital materials;
• encourage students to research writing in the disciplines through exploration of oral histories, conducting interviews and surveys, and in analyzing commercial holdings;
• correlate primary research with digital research and writing;
• provide opportunities for students to engage in local rhetorical activism;
• introduce undergraduate students early in their college careers informally to a variety of research methodologies/lenses;
• poise students to examine the ethics of preservation and research;
• explore the implications of researcher credibility and potential claims to speak in community spaces;
• exercise critical thinking skills and bridges the gap between synthesis of knowledge and development of new ideas; and
• stretch students’ acumen of the terms “evidence” and “expertise.”

Primary and archival research does not dilute traditional research and writing goals. For us, the class goals and outcomes remain the same as in traditional first year writing courses. Students learn to form research questions, evaluate secondary sources, develop rhetorical strategies designed to inform and persuade target audiences, test hypotheses and data, and construct arguments written in convincing prose. Yet, in this approach, they move beyond canned assignments that ask them to engage in patchwork research and writing on topics that may not interest them. Instead, students begin every project by considering their own interests and knowledge—writing as insiders and community members. We have found that the panicky feeling to get up to speed and say something original about a topic dissipates, drastically reducing plagiarism incidents. 

Archivist-teachers reiterate this overview in their disciplinary conversations about the merits of introducing students to working with primary materials, noting that “users who encounter primary sources gain a unique perspective on the subject they are studying,” and identifying several “core concepts” students encounter, including:

• analytical concepts, including hypothesis, analysis and critical thinking;
• theoretical concepts surrounding evidence, power, authenticity, materiality, context, and authority;
• ethical concepts around privacy, intellectual property, culture, and copyright; and
• practical skills that reinforce other forms of research and include “finding, accessing, gathering, and handling of materials” in various contexts. (SAA-ACRL/RBMS)

At its heart, writing with archives not only encourages but insists upon interdisciplinary topic selection and research (given the range of student experiences). Because all projects focus upon local communities, questions of archive building and assessment, as well as stakeholders’ interests in the collected materials, this pedagogical method inherently and organically guides students through the rhetorical processes of audience consideration, articulation of the writer’s relationship with the subject matter, and evidence for crafting a convincing (and in many cases, quite passionate) message. Below, you will find first a list of questions and heuristics that are designed to help students understand the unique nature of archival sources and research methods, to take on the role of expert investigator, and to get started selecting topics to investigate. Next, we offer several sample assignments that you can easily adapt for different locales, to accommodate available physical and digital collections, to adjust for students’ level of expertise, and to encourage integration of primary and secondary research. These assignments may be scaffolded in courses completely grounded in archival investigation or adopted within traditional first year writing standard curriculum as stand-alone projects.

Discussion Questions

1.Archival research asks us to look at a wide variety of resources both to glean topic ideas and to shed light on local topics. In what ways might we appropriate everyday spaces, places, and artifacts as sites for archival and communal investigation? Make a list of communities to which you belong (or perhaps, groups you wish to join). What materials, places, and knowledge could you analyze and discuss to make others better aware of that local community? Keep in mind that archivists expand notions of “text” to include a wide list of materials such as letters, pictures, clothing, monuments, government documents, meeting records, and physical artifacts.

2.While most people conjure up physical spaces when imagining the possibilities for conducting archival research, digital archives offer an accessible and reliable way to investigate community topics as well—and provide an excellent and inexpensive way to begin archival exploration given the nature of finding aids and the increased number of digitized collections. What are the advantages and limitations of examining archival materials online for your specific topic? How might you blend traditional research methods and digital archival investigation to expand the efficacy of your investigation and to corroborate findings?

3.How does your “positionality” or relationship with materials and communities you choose to research influence the ways you interpret and report findings? Before taking on a project, think carefully about why you want to research this event, community or set of artifacts. What is your goal, and who is your audience? How will you respond to found materials that don’t fit your hypothesis or perceived ideas about a community?

4.How does “presentism” —your own cultural practices and twenty-fist century perspective —influence your readings of historical events? Relatedly, in crossing cultural, racial, political, and gendered borders, in what ways do we need to take care—particularly in terms of representation of groups to which we don’t belong? 

5.Archival and primary research never works in isolation from traditional secondary investigation. Whether engaged in historical, community event, or workplace inquiry, researchers must rely upon secondary research to contextualize research topics, corroborate findings, and test solutions and claims. After you have initially examined physical or digital collections, make a list of secondary sources and agencies whose findings will help locate the materials you’ve found and provide a backstory of the communities you are studying.

6.Findings in archival research can easily be adapted for multiple audiences. In your past writing course(s), you have likely been asked to tell the story of your research findings and experiences from a traditional perspective or in an academic genre. Begin now to think about ways you can adapt your findings for members of the community you are studying, for community outsiders or readers who may know nothing about the subject matter. To community stakeholders or to those with the power or abilities to answer a call to action? For public, civic, or corporate audiences? Does shifting the lens make writing easier for you, attract listeners outside your (perhaps) shallow initial target audience pool, or suggest additional venues for delivering your findings? In archival research, the audience is never just your teacher.

Getting Started Writing Prompts 

1.Make a list of research projects you have produced in the past. Identify differences and similarities among each type of research method found in those papers. What steps did you need to take to prepare? Could any of those topics be revisited through the lens of archival investigation? If so, draft a revision plan that incorporates archival research methods.

2.As a thought experiment, how might you build an archival collection? (You can take pieces from existing collections.) What would you include in your archive and why? What is the significance of the materials? How are the items related? Justify where your collection should be housed.

3.In the “Archival Description” section, we ask you to describe a personal object. What did you count as “evidence” and “information?” Cite at least two examples of how you might triangulate claims about the object.

4.Look at the JFK Oral Histories collections and select an oral history to investigate (“Oral Histories”). Listen to the first 25 minutes of the oral history and make notes about the covered topics. List names of people the interviewee mentions, biographical data, and other items of interest. Write a paragraph that summarizes your observations and concludes with one research question.

Activities

The following activities introduce concepts, skills, and frameworks associated with archival investigation. These scaffolded assignments are designed to support skills-building, culminating in a final project. Assignments echo and reinforce primary research skills across the course curriculum. However, teachers who wish to incorporate archival investigation as one tenet of a writing course may find these exercises useful for introducing primary research into the curriculum and broadening students’ understanding of what counts as a text, the relationship between sources and communities, and the role of the researcher.

Site Visit

One way to introduce students to archival research is to schedule a class visit to a local collection. Many institutional libraries will provide a guided tour of special collection holdings. Following this group visit, then ask students to begin thinking about a specific collection they might like to visit individually. They can research the target site online to gain an initial understanding of what resources might be available locally or call a reference librarian or curator to learn more about research opportunities. Then ask students to turn in a preliminary memo stating the proposed location they plan to visit, strategies for gaining admission, plan of study, and research questions. You will likely need to make time early in the term to consult individually with students about their project interests and possible local sources. The time spent early in the term in 1:1 consultation pays big dividends later in the semester; students leave these early meetings focused and excited. Following the site visit, students turn in a follow-up report, describing and detailing what they found in the archive and exhibiting more fully developed research questions based on available materials.

Ethnographic Assignment

This assignment asks students to describe research sites, noting details such as colors, weather, physical space layout, artifacts, as well as participants’ appearances and body language, and actions, etc. Field notes are the essence of any observational project, and for this assignment, you can ask students to conduct two (2) site observations, turning in both observational field notes and their narrative/analytical reflections on their observations. After they demonstrate observation and transcription skills, students can next explore interpretative techniques, such as coding and analysis, and then draw conclusions from the patterns they find. The students’ field notes become a primary source for determining research questions. For a robust discussion of observation techniques, we recommend consulting Dana Driscoll’s “Introduction to Primary Research: Observations, Surveys, and Interviews,” featured in Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing, Volume 2.

Interview

Oral histories lie at the heart of many archival projects. You can ask your students to listen to digitized oral histories to become familiar with this format, instructing them how to read transcripts and listen to recordings with their research questions in mind. Depending on their research interests, we next ask students to conduct a short interview with a “person of interest” —archivist, researcher, community member, event organizer, or expert. This exercise can serve multiple functions, such as: introduce students to new communities, provide a first-hand account of a local event, corroborate archival findings, or contextualize information. Students often include information gleaned from the interviews in their final papers—and sometimes they invite the interviewee to attend the final project presentation event (described below). 

Digital Archives Analysis

Increasingly, historical and current materials are digitized, granting wider access to a wealth of materials. Additionally, many student projects may rely on government documents, community archives, and workplace information that is now readily available online. Ask students to first provide a thick description of the digital archive and then to outline their plan or methods for incorporating this material into their project, stipulating the limitations of this online collection and identifying needed supplementary secondary sources to contextualize what they find within cultural, educational, historical, or political contexts. Finally, students can list emerging research questions prompted by the collection, answering how they will use the discovered information to support a claim, illustrate a point, or shed light on an existing problem.

Final Project

Discuss possible project formats with students during the first two weeks of the class. As in prior assignments, students submit memos for end-of-semester work, which may include a culmination/synthesis of the term’s research. In classes grounded in archival research, final projects may take many different forms, including finding aids (for uncatalogued materials), commonplace books (for collecting and connecting related materials addressing a narrow subject), mapping projects (associated with ethnographic observation and community investigation), and artifact analysis—in addition to traditional research papers. These final assignments all include written project justifications, research narratives, and reflections about their experiences working in the archives. Students “write up” findings in the format appropriate for interested communities

Presentation of Final Projects

At the end of the term, consider planning a symposium where students present their final projects in a poster board session, discussion panel, conference talk, paper, or other genre as appropriate to the project. We’ve had great success inviting other teachers and students from the department to the event, as well as community participants who contributed to the projects.