Archival Research in the Classroom: Teaching the Chicana/o Movement through the Chicano Research Collection at Arizona State University

The presentation will entail how teachers can develop in-class assignments and research papers using their local archival repositories to teach the Chicana/o movement. The examples used for this presentation will rely on the use of resources from the Chicano Research Collection at Arizona State University. The purpose is to teach students how to access archival resources, interpret the sources, and explore the use of primary sources to understand how social movements, like the Chicana/o movement develop and are sustained. By using primary sources to teach students about the movement the goal is to enable students to learn the methods historians use to interpret historical events while demystifying the production of historical knowledge.