TOOLS FOR DECONSTRUCTING PRIMARY SOURCES

Choose the genre you wish to analyze.

    * Film, video
    * Government documents
    * Interviews /oral history
    * Journals, letters, diaries
    * Maps
    * Song lyrics, music
    * Newspapers
    * Photographs / Photojournalist's perspective
    * Political cartoons
    * Posters
    * Radio
    * Speeches
    * Statistics
    *  Treaties

RESOURCES


TEACHING WITH DOCUMENTS (with analysis worksheets)
.......................................................................................................................

DEFINITION: DECONSTRUCTION \ˌdē-kən-ˈstrək-shən\ noun

Etymology: French déconstruction, from dé- de- + construction Date: 1973

  1: a philosophical or critical method which asserts that meanings, metaphysical constructs, and hierarchical oppositions (as between key terms in a philosophical or literary work) are always rendered unstable by their dependence on ultimately arbitrary signifiers; also : an instance of the use of this method <a deconstruction of the nature–culture opposition in Rousseau's work>2: the analytic examination of something (as a theory) often in order to reveal its inadequacy
...............................................................................................................................