Philadelphia Writing Project
Supporting Civically Engaged Argument Writing with Primary Sources
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Planning a Civic Argument Writing Unit the Integrates Primary Sources
The resources on our site draw heavily from the National Writing Project's (NWP) College, Career, and Community Writers Program (C3WP; Arshan & Park, 2021; Friedrich et al., 2018). In our work, we have sought to build on this work by identifying ways that historical primary sources might deepen the learning in a civic argument writing unit. Prior to this project by Philadelphia Writing Project teacher consultants, NWP teacher consultants assembled:
resources for supporting routine argument writing,
mini units organized around argument writing skills that include example text sets on various issues,
formative assessment tools for teachers to collaboratively analyze student writing and plan next steps, and
professional development resources to support shifts in the teaching of argument writing.
In somewhat of a contrast, our PhilWP team has organized the curriculum collections on our website by topic or issue (e.g., "Road Rules," "Space Junk"). As we created our resources, we found that organizing them by topic—rather than by skill as is done with C3WP resources—helped us demonstrate how historical primary sources can support civic argument writing. We hope teachers will recognize that our curriculum collection topics can and should be paired with specific argument writing skills that teachers have identified through ongoing formative assessment practices.
Why and How We Create Text Sets
Why and How We Create Text Sets
Teachers may use text sets for a variety of purposes to support civic argument writing:
Show students how creating civic arguments involves joining a conversation in progress (Harris, 2017).
Provide ongoing opportunities for students to read, write, and discuss as they deepen their understandings and develop their own claims.
Introduce multiple perspectives on an issue and reinforce the idea that most issues are nuanced and do not have simple “pro” and “con” positions.
Invite reflection on the reliability and usefulness of sources and evidence through sourcing, contextualizing, comparing, and corroborating.
Open up possibilities of differentiation in the classroom.
Introduce mentor texts to support students in creating their own texts for civic purposes.
Each of our curriculum collections includes a text set that can be used and modified for classroom use to support civic argument writing. Our team of teachers has combined three approaches for creating text sets:
First, the Library of Congress digitizes historical primary sources for classroom use and curates primary source sets that invite students to compare and corroborate sources while also engaging with multiple perspectives. The Library of Congress has also provided resources to help teachers reflect as they select primary sources for classroom use.
Second, the National Writing Project's College, Career, and Community Writers Program (C3WP; Friedrich et al., 2018) organizes argument writing mini units around text sets that provide multiple perspectives on a given issue or topic. C3WP offers strategies and tips for developing text sets.
Third, Gholdy Muhammad (2023, 2020) provides examples of and rationales for layering multimodal texts in culturally and historically responsive curricula.
With these three strands of work as guides, our teachers weave together current news articles and videos, informational texts and infographics, historical primary sources in a range of formats (e.g., photos, prints, legislation, maps), and other sources like picture books and even novels. In our text set on child labor, we include images and other primary sources from the Library of Congress that shed light on the history of child labor and laws. We combine these texts with recent news stories about recent changes to child labor laws across the country.
In this webinar recording, Philadelphia Writing Project teacher consultants Javaha Ross and Trey Smith describe a process for creating a text set that supports civic argument writing.
Layering Texts and Questions in an Argument Writing Unit
Layering Texts and Questions in an Argument Writing Unit
Teachers and students might take a range of inquiry trajectories as they explore civic issues in terms of both the past and present. We recommend identifying focus questions (or guiding or driving questions) in the planning of the unit—and creating conditions in which students raise similar questions that can guide the unit. As teachers develop questions in their planning, they should consider which texts will help spur those questions and help students answer them. For instance, analyzing an engaging historical photograph as a class early on might allow you to identify what students already know and generate a collection of students' questions that can drive the unit. All of this work leads to a key activity, goal, and outcome: students develop their own argumentative texts to contribute to the ongoing civic conversation.
Below is a visual example of how teachers might sequence inquiry questions and layer on texts as students explore the topic of child labor. Keep in mind, this is just one potential trajectory. Teachers might launch a unit with a contemporary text that sparks student questions about the history of child labor laws.
Where We Search for Primary Sources for Text Sets
Where We Search for Primary Sources for Text Sets
Our project is funded by a Teaching with Primary Sources (TPS) grant from the Library of Congress. Therefore, we feature primary sources that have been digitized by the Library of Congress and its affiliates.
We encourage teachers to search for primary sources using the following Library of Congress portals:
Additionally, we have found that the Digital Public Library of America is a powerful search portal, connected to digital records from the Smithsonian, National Archives, PA Digital (e.g., Free Library of Philadelphia, Temple University, Historical Society of Pennsylvania), and other archives. Philadelphia teachers may also be interested in the photo archive at PhillyHistory.org and an archive of historic Black newspapers available through the Free Library of Philadelphia.
Embedded within the text set planing tool described in a previous section on this page, we linked to an adapted set of "Considerations for Selecting Primary Sources" that draws upon Library of Congress blog posts and guides.
This website features resources created by educators affiliated with the Philadelphia Writing Project (PhilWP), supported by a Teaching with Primary Sources (TPS) grant from the Library of Congress. Content created and featured in partnership with the TPS program does not indicate an endorsement by the Library of Congress.
The following Philadelphia Writing Project teacher consultants contributed to this page: J. Ross and J. F. Smith. Additionally, teacher consultants T. Anderson and L. Lapina helped with editing this page.
Some of the resources and approaches referenced on this page were developed by the National Writing Project's (NWP) College, Career, and Community Writers Program.
Teacher Consultants in the NWP Write Now Teacher Studio and members of the Teaching with Primary Sources Teachers Network have provided feedback on and suggestions for this page.
This page was updated 9 August 2025.
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