When introducing students to primary source documents, it can be very helpful to begin with personal voice texts–diaries, journals, letter, oral histories, etc. And texts written by young people are particularly accessible. They are usually more easily readable than other primary source texts, and students are likely to find more that they can understand and identify with.
We’ve just begun to post here some of the hundreds of these texts that we’ve collected, but these few may give you a sense of how personal voice texts can be used in the classroom.