Texas TEKS 8.29.A
The Standard
differentiate between, locate, and use valid primary and secondary sources such as media and news services, biographies, interviews, and artifacts to acquire information about the United States
Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills for Social Studies
Teacher's field guide
What This Standard Means
What Students Need to Do
- Students identify whether a source is primary or secondary and locate information that answers a question about United States history. They check the author, date, purpose, and evidence before using the source.
What Mastery Looks Like
- Students classify sources and explain their reasoning using each source’s connection to an event. They select trustworthy evidence from more than one source and cite where each detail came from.
Common Misconceptions
- Students may assume every old document is primary or every biography is secondary. They may also treat primary sources as automatically accurate and judge websites by appearance rather than authorship and evidence.
How to Assess It
- Give students a historical letter and a textbook paragraph. Ask them to label each source, identify one useful fact, and explain which source is more reliable for a stated question.
Lesson moves
Ways to Teach It
Set out an artifact replica, letter, interview transcript, news report, and biography, then have students sort them and record one usable fact.
Ask students to write: Which source would best explain a historical event’s causes, and what makes that source trustworthy?
Play Source Detective with cards listing authors, dates, purposes, and evidence, then award points for correct classifications and validity checks.
Have students compare a current news article with an eyewitness social media post and verify one claim using a third source.
Keep exploring
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