Wise-Practice Use of Visual Primary Sources: Toward a More Interactive Presentation of Content

Modern citizens are often confronted by visual social media seeking to persuade or influence their opinion on public issues. In order for students to develop civic competence, they must be able to evaluate visual data. An interactive slide lecture using four to five strategically-chosen visuals holds promise for developing students’ interpretive skills, but this strategy can be difficult to implement. In this article, we share a collaboratively designed educative primer or teacher scaffold created in response to the challenges experienced by “Amelia” as she implemented an interactive slide lecture with 7th grade students. Our intent in sharing the primer is to encourage teachers to use this example as a model for their own work. Towards this end, we discuss the underlying rationale for the primer and its distinguishing features before closing with some final thoughts regarding aspects of the interactive slide lecture strategy that remain challenging and need further research