It’s like solving a puzzle!” was the consensus of students fascinated by transcribing letters of a Civil War soldier. They were using a curriculum developed for middle- and high-school classroom through a grant from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission, a division of the National Archives. The curriculum has been tested in classrooms and a summer camp. It is available on the website of the Historical Society of Cheshire County, who with Keene State College and Keene High School, comprised the grant team. The URL is: http://hsccnh.org/education/making-history-now/citizen-archivist/.
Teachers will need access to digitized or photocopied documents. They might contact the Special Collections of a college library, a historical society, museum, or their State Archives or State Library.

As students, singly or in pairs, work slowly through a letter or diary, they develop first a sense of ownership or connection to the author and then an interest in his/her life and times. Transcription in the classroom engages students deeply in primary sources and open new avenues for discussion.
The curriculum presents an introduction to using handwritten documents in the classroom, a discussion of common core standards, a list of resources, and five lesson plans:

• Primary vs. secondary sources
• 18th & 19th century handwriting
• Providing historical context
• Historical transcription
• Fact vs. interpretation

Submitted by Margaret Orelup,
Professor, Department of History, Keene State College,
Lead Principal Investigator, New Hampshire Citizen Archivists Initiative