Developing an Open Primary Source Reader on Gender and Sexuality

Abstract

This chapter presents a nontraditional, collaborative approach to teaching with primary sources that takes into account student motivation and the value of student work. Leveraging preexisting relationships and individual areas of expertise, a history professor and a team of librarians at Wake Forest University (WFU) designed a course that was grounded in the principles of open pedagogy, with information literacy and primary source competencies as core components. In working together to create open access primary source scholarship, and doing so in an environment that emphasized openness, trust, and the freedom to take risks, students in this entry-level course pursued their personal research interests and engaged primary sources with the energy and care of true scholars. As a result, they developed their primary source research skills and came to understand their emerging roles as knowledge creators.