Only God Knows What This Says: A Secondary School Experience with Viceregal Sources

  • Jesús Manuel Orellana Carrión
Keywords: historical sources, historical interpretation, paleography, viceroyalty

Abstract

The aim of this study is to present a pedagogical proposal that transforms the traditional approach to teaching history in order to promote the development of the curricular competency «Constructs historical interpretations». The proposal is based on using the primary viceregal sources available in the digital repository of the General Archive of the Nation in classrooms. Through appropriate criteria for selecting these sources and with teacher guidance, students overcome the paleographic challenge of transcribing documents in order to critically interpret them. This approach promotes active participation, fosters historical thinking, and allows history to be conceived as a discipline built from evidence, thereby moving beyond the lecture-based model.

Author Biography

Jesús Manuel Orellana Carrión

Bachiller en Educación por la Facultad de Educación de la Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, Lima.

Published
2026-08-05
How to Cite
Orellana CarriónJ. M. (2026). Only God Knows What This Says: A Secondary School Experience with Viceregal Sources. Revista Del Archivo General De La Nación, 40(2), 117-135. https://doi.org/10.37840/ragn.v40i2.192