Demo Lesson: Teaching With Primary Sources

As we count down the final weeks of summer and prepare for a new school year, I’m excited to share a series of lesson demonstrations created by participants in the West Chester Writing Project Summer Institute. Over the next three weeks, I’ll feature one lesson each week that showcases engaging, classroom-ready strategies developed and presented by teacher participants.

The West Chester Writing Project Summer Institute is a three-week professional learning experience focused on the teaching of writing. Participants earn six graduate credits through West Chester University while collaborating with experienced educators to examine classroom practices, explore current research, and strengthen their teaching through the Project’s teachers-teaching-teachers model. Teachers who complete the Institute are also eligible to participate in WCWP’s youth programs and provide professional development opportunities in local schools.

Our first featured lesson, Teaching with Primary Sources by Subarna Basu, demonstrates how primary sources can be used to promote inquiry, critical thinking, and writing. The lesson introduces strategies such as guided questions, the Question Formulation Technique (QFT), and the Zoom-In strategy to help students closely observe, question, and reflect on what they see. We hope these lessons inspire ideas you can bring into your own classroom this school year.

Subarna is an aspiring scholar and an Adjunct Professor in Early Childhood Education. She recently graduated with her Ed.D. in Curriculum and Instruction from West Chester University. Her research examines kindergarten teachers’ perceptions on implementing purposeful play for children’s academic and developmental learning. Subarna also earned her M.Ed. in Early Childhood Education from West Chester University. She has been a preschool and pre-K teacher and an ECE lecturer in the UK and the US. She has also been a Graduate Assistant for the West Chester Writing Project for 3 years and a co-investigator for the Library of Congress Grant on Teaching with Primary Sources. Subarna loves traveling, crafting, and cooking and lives with her husband Raj and their son Tim.