For this discussion , please read the document titled "What Are Primary Sources?" found on the Content Page under Discussion Documents. Make sure to include some aspects of the document in your discussion so that I know you read it. During the course of the semester, we'll be working with primary sources. Well, what are primary sources? Hopefully this discussion, and reading the documents will give you the answer.

After you've read, try to do some of the activities. You can discuss what you did during the day and how some of these activities might leave evidence. Also, read The Discovery of Corn and Tobacco. The best idea is to have a look at the questions to consider at the bottom of the document before reading it.

For the discussion, I want you to talk about what you learned while reading What Are Primary Sources and then discuss the primary source about the discovery of corn and tobacco. Please keep conversations interesting and don't just regurgitate what you read. For example, you can let us know what activities you participated in might have left trace evidence and why. Would this evidence be kept in perpetuity? Why or why not? You can have a friendly debate over some of the symbols found in the corn and tobacco primary source, but try to answer the central question, which is why origin tales or folktales should not be readily dismissed as just fiction with little value.

I'll tell you why I think primary sources are important. History is written by using primary sources. Your textbook is actually a secondary source (at times tertiary source because it uses other books as sources). I digress. Primary sources are important because it's original information. This information has not been filtered through a historian with biases, agendas, and other human frailties. That is not to say that primary sources do not contain biases, agendas, or other problems with the "truth". However, it's a purer form than just reading a textbook and you get to decide for yourself what the author really was trying to convey. Since I want you to think critically, this is an important piece of information. The most important part of thinking critically is learning to think for yourself and to go to the source instead of depending on someone else to tell you "how it is".