I feel like I am on a path with this project, which is titled “Contested History: 17th Century Encounters of French Jesuits and the Onondaga Nation.” I am created a Google site with, right now, 5 parts: “introduction,” “why it matters,” “past and current interpretations,” “reading the sources: Jesuit Relations,” and “reading the sources: Wampum Belts and Oral Traditions.” I am trying to keep the first three sections as simple and straightforward as possible with just enough information to get to the main goal of this project, which is learning how historians read, question, analyze various historical sources. For right now I am planning on having the students read, question, and analyze two excerpts from the Jesuit Relations. I’d like to do more, but I am trying not to overwhelm students with what are fairly difficult readings. I will also introduce students to reading wampum belts, which goes hand in hand with oral tradition. I feel a bit more comfortable with the process of working with the Jesuit Relations. I will really have to focus on the process of reading Native sources. A challenge here is to get students to understand the difference in methodology while also seeing the similarity in value of Native sources as historical evidence, and to do so in a way that is not overwhelming.

In addition to a slow paced, step by step approach to reading the various sources I am planning on having students create their own primary sources depicting one event of historical importance. Right now I am thinking of having them write two sources each to a different audience. I am hoping this will help them understand how important it is to think of any source’s audience and purpose. The Jesuit Relations were written for a very specific purpose and to a particular audience. This affects, or it should affect, the way we read, question, and analyze them. However, I have discovered this is a difficult concept for students to grasp. They often take the information in the source at face value. Historians and history enthusiasts have done this with the Jesuit Relations and have created some questionable interpretations. Students will take that same event and create a visual record of it to get a better grasp on how oral and visual cultures created their own historical record. This will also require a bit more thought on exactly how I want them to approach this, as I also want an oral element to go with it.

The final objective of the entire project will be for students to create a digital project telling the story of this history to fellow Le Moyne students. But before we can do that, the tough work of reading, questioning, and analyzing the sources must be done, and too often, faculty, myself included, assume that students can do this with a bare minimum of preparation.

That final objective will have to wait until after this piece of the project is complete. One of the biggest take away points from this week’s readings, viewings, and discussions has been to keep things focused for this project. So while I have a bigger puzzle in mind, I need to focus on this particular element that involves the steps of reading primary sources. As stated above, I want to keep the first three elements of the site as streamlined as possible to focus on the final two which are all about reading, questioning, and analyzing the sources. This will provide enough discomfort without being paralyzed by trying to do too much too soon.