Archival research gives students opportunities to appreciate original documents and artifacts, teaching them how to access materials, to treat them with care, and to invest them with meaning, and demonstrating the partnership researchers develop with librarians. Three suggested writing assignments introduce students to special collections, offering concepts and ways of working that characterize research in several disciplines. The assignments are: (1) document editing; (2) describing, preparing an annotated bibliography, and doing background research for an archival museum object; and (3) research and reconstruction of historical events utilizing primarily newspaper archives and microfilm. The writing assignments are attached. (EF)