DSCYF EDUCATION UNIT

K-U-D (Know, Understand, Do) Chart

Grade/Course: United States History

Unit Title: Introduction to Historical Thinking

Content Standards:
Delaware:
History 2: Students will gather, examine, and analyze historical data [analysis].
History 3: Students will interpret historical data [interpretation].
Common Core SS:
#1 (11-12) Cite specific textual evidence to support analysis of primary and secondary sources…
#3 (11-12) Evaluate various explanations for actions or events and determine which explanation best accords with textual evidence…
#6 (6-12) Evaluate authors’ differing points of view on the same historical event or issue by assessing the authors’ claims, reasoning and evidence.
#8 (6-12) Evaluate an author’s premises, claims and evidence by corroborating or challenging them with other information.
Know / Understand / Do
(Note: concepts, facts, formulas, key vocabulary)
Sourcingasks students to consider who wrote a document as well as the circumstances of its creation.
Corroboration asks students to consider details across multiple sources to determine points of agreement and disagreement.
Contextualization asks students to locate a document in time and place and to understand how these factors shape its content.
Close reading helps students evaluate sources and analyze rhetoric.
plausibility / (Big idea, large concept, declarative statement of an enduring understanding)
Recognize skills of historical inquiry such as reconciling conflicting claims and evaluating the reliability of narrative accounts. / (Skills, competencies)
Identify the author’s position on the historical event.
Identify and evaluate the author’s purpose in producing the document.
Hypothesize what the author will say before reading the document.
Evaluate the source’s trustworthiness by considering genre, audience, and purpose.
Understand how context/ background information influences the content of the document.
Recognize that documents are products of particular points in time.
Establish what is probable by comparing documents to each other.
Recognize disparities between accounts.
Identify the author’s claims about an event.
Evaluate the evidence and reasoning the author uses to support claims.
Evaluate author’s word choice; understand that language is used deliberately.

DSCYF EDUCATION UNIT

Unit Essential Question: / What are the skills involved in historical inquiry?
Key Learning: / Students will recognize skills of historical inquiry such as reconciling conflicting claims and evaluating the reliability of narrative accounts.
Lesson Essential Question 1 / / Lesson 1 Vocabulary
Why do accounts differ? / Sourcing, plausibility
Lesson Essential Question 2 / / Lesson 2 Vocabulary
Why do historical accounts differ? / Evidence, perspective, reliability
Lesson Essential Question 3 / / Lesson 3 Vocabulary
Are all historical sources equally trustworthy? / Close Reading, contextualization, reliability
Lesson Essential Question 4 / / Lesson 4 Vocabulary
What pieces of evidence are most believable? / corroboration
Major Unit Assignment
This task builds on the Lunchroom Fight activity. While the first Lunchroom Fight focuses specifically on sourcing, this task requires students to evaluate evidence by sourcing, contextualizing, and corroborating different eyewitness accounts. This task introduces historical thinking skills through engaging students to build a case for who started a fight in the lunchroom.
When we did the first Lunchroom Fight activity, we focused on sourcing.
You wondered how two accounts of the same event could be different if no one was lying, and you considered why some accounts might be more reliable or trustworthy than others.
Today you’re going to receive evidence from eyewitnesses and others connected to the fight in the lunchroom. Your job is to figure out who should get suspended for starting the fight. In order to figure that out, you’re going to need to source, contextualize, and corroborate. In other words, you’re going to need to read and compare multiple pieces of evidence in order to figure which are more reliable and how they all fit together to fill out the story of what happened in the lunchroom that day.
CCSS: #1 (Gr. 6-12), #6 (Gr. 11-12), #8 (Gr. 6-12)
Lesson Plan and assignment available at: SHEG Reading Like A Historian: Lunchroom Fight II


Student Assessments

Unit Topic: Introduction to Historical Thinking

Title / The First Thanksgiving
Description /

This assessment measures students’ ability to sourcea document. When historians interpret a document, they look at who wrote it and when. Source information presents clues about whether the document provides reliable evidence about the past. This History Assessment of Thinking (HAT) gauges whether students understand an important aspect of sourcing: the time elapsed between when a document was produced and the event it depicts.

Students are given a 1931 painting The First Thanksgiving. Students who properly evaluate the source will notice that the image was painted over 300 years after the actual event, which limits its usefulness as evidence of the relationship between the Pilgrims and Wampanoags.

Historical skills: Sourcing

Common Core: #1 (Gr. 6-12)

Time (In Days) / 1
Differentiation / As suggested/required in IEPs.
Revise/Review
Resources & Materials / SHEG Beyond the Bubble “The First Thanksgiving.”
Title / The Virginia Company
Description /

This question gauges whether students can source and contextualize a document. Students must first examine a report on the progress of the Virginia Company, then determine which fact can help them evaluate the report's reliability. The excerpt is from “The New Life of Virginea,” a tract published in 1612 by the Virginia Company, which was given a charter by the King of England to establish a colony in Virginia. Strong students will be able to explain how the Company's desire to attract new investors may have led the authors to put a positive spin on life in Virginia.

Historical skills: Contextualization, Sourcing, Use of evidence
Common Core: #1 (Gr. 6-12), #7 (Gr. 11-12), #8 (Gr. 6-12)
Time (In Days) / 1
Differentiation / As suggested/required in IEPs.
Revise/Review
Resources & Materials / SHEG Beyond the Bubble “The Virginia Company”
Title / Gardner’s Civil War Photography
Description / This question asks students to engage in sourcing, contextualization, and corroboration. Alexander Gardner, a famous Civil War photographer, took the two photographs. Each photograph shows the same deceased soldier. Students are asked to consider how the content of the two photographs could affect their reliability. Then, students must think of something else they would like to know about the circumstances of the photographs in order to further evaluate the reliability of the photographs.
Historical skills:Contextualization, Corroboration, Sourcing
C
C Common Core:
# #1 (Gr. 6-12), #3 (Gr. 11-12), #5 (Gr. 6-12), #8 (Gr. 11-12)
Time (In Days) / 1
Differentiation / As suggested/required in IEPs.
Revise/Review
Resources & Materials / SHEG Beyond the Bubble: Gardner’s Civil War Photography
Learning Goals for this Lesson
A fight breaks out in the lunchroom and the principal needs to figure out who started it. But when she asks witnesses what they saw, she hears conflicting accounts. Why might these accounts differ?
As students wrestle with this question, they will hone the ability to reconcile conflicting claims, consider multiple perspectives and evaluate the reliability of sources. Not only does this lesson engage students, it helps to lay the foundation for historical thinking throughout the year. / Standards
Delaware History 2
CCSS: #3 (Gr. 11-12), #6 (Gr. 6-12), and #8 (Gr. 6-12)
Students Will Know
Sourcingasks students to consider who wrote a document as well as the circumstances of its creation. / Students Will Be Able To
Reconcile conflicting claims
Consider multiple sources
Evaluate the reliability of sources
Lesson Essential Question
Why might accounts differ?
Activating Strategy:
Ask students about what happened in the cafeteria yesterday. When they ask what you are talking about, say you heard that a couple of students starting getting into with each other. Ask the students how they would know what happened if they did not know about it when it occurred.
Key vocabulary to preview and vocabulary strategy
Sourcing
Lesson Instruction
Learning Activity 1
Set the stage for students:
Imagine that you are the principal of a school and you just found out that there was a fight in the lunchroom during lunch. You’ve asked many students and teachers who witnessed the fight to write down what they saw and who they think started the fight. Unfortunately, you have received many conflicting accounts that disagree about important details of the fight, like who started it, when it started, and who was involved. It’s important to remember that NO ONE is lying.
Assessment Prompt for Learning Activity 1
Who would be the best source for who started the fight? / Graphic Organizer
·  SHEG handout “Lunchroom Fight”
Learning Activity 2
In pairs, students must answer the following questions:
(a) How could there be different stories of the event if no one is lying?
(b) Who are the different people who might have seen this fight? (e.g., friends of those involved versus people who don’t know the kids who were fighting; those who were fighting versus those who were witnesses; adults versus kids).
(c) What might make one person’s story more believable than another person’s?
Assessment Prompt for Learning Activity 2
Why might accounts of the fight differ?
Assignment
The students are to write a one paragraph explanation for the principal as to who started the fight.
Learning Activity 3
Issues to discuss.
(a) Why might people see or remember things differently?
(b) Who has an interest in one person getting in trouble instead of another? Who was standing where? Could they see the whole event?
(c) The plausibility of the stories themselves (e.g., issues of exaggeration and how the stories fit into what is known about the students’ prior histories). Is the story believable? Trustworthy?
(d) Time: Do stories change over time? How might what we remember right after the event differ from what we remember a week later? Does time make the way someone remembers something more or less trustworthy?
Assessment Prompt for Learning Activity 3
Why does sourcing explain why accounts differ?
Summarizing Strategy
As you discuss who started the fight, be sure to underscore these points:
(a) The principal needs to consider which stories are more or less reliable because it’s important to understand why the fight began. Not only is it important that the instigator (if there was one) be punished, but also it’s important to think about how to prevent such fights in the future.
(b) Historians, in trying to figure out what happened in the past, essentially engage in the same work. Just like the principal, there’s no way to actually recreate the moment or time-travel to witness it. All that historians have to work with is the remaining evidence—ranging from people’s stories to physical artifacts.
(c) Sourcing is the act of questioning a piece of evidence and trying to determine if it’s trustworthy. When you source, you ask how people’s biases or perspectives shape their story. This doesn’t necessarily mean that a person is lying if he or she comes from a particular perspective. They still might have something valuable to contribute to your understanding of what happened in the past. But as a reader, it’s important to keep in mind that each person sees the world in a particular way. When you keep that in mind, you’re sourcing.
Learning Goals for this Lesson
What is history? And why do historical accounts differ? In this lesson, students create brief autobiographies and then reflect on the process to better understand how history is written. Why are some events included and others not? How does their version of events compare to others’ versions of the same event? Why do two historical accounts differ when both sides believe they are telling the truth? How would students prove that their version of events was true? Exploring these questions will give students insight into the nature of history and will prepare them to engage in historical thinking in future lessons. / Standards
Delaware History 2
CCSS: #6, #8
Students Will Know
• History is an account of the past.
• Accounts differ depending on one's perspective.
• We rely on evidence to construct accounts of the past.
• We must question the reliability of each piece of evidence.
• Any single piece of evidence is insufficient to build a plausible account. / Students Will Be Able To
Create a historical account of an event in their life.
Lesson Essential Question
Why do historical accounts differ?
Activating Strategy:
Journal Free-write: What is the story of your birth? [May replace with what happened on the living unit last weekend, at lunch Monday, etc.]
Pair/Share.
Key vocabulary to preview and vocabulary strategy
evidence, perspective, reliability
Lesson Instruction
Learning Activity 1
What is history? Many people describe history as the study of the past, a huge collection of names, dates, facts that you are expected to memorize. The goal of this assignment is for you to discover other meanings of history and to recognize why it is important to study history.
In this project, you will think about the meaning of history by describing and
illustrating several events from your own life, finding a witness to provide another description of one of those events, and thinking about the similarities and differences between the two descriptions.
Part I: Snapshot Autobiography
1) Take an 8.5 x 11 piece of paper and fold it “accordian” style (like a letter you’d mail), so that it forms 3 panels, or counting front and back, you should have 6 panels.
2) The first panel is the cover for your Snapshot Autobiography.
• Give your autobiography a title (for example, “Snapshots from the life of
Kathy”)
• You may illustrate if you wish.
3) On the back panel write a brief “About the Author” section: include your name, place and date of birth, and anything else you want people of know about you. You may include a self-portrait if you like.
4) This leaves four panels. In the first of these panels, write about your birth. In the other three panels, you are going to write about important events that have shaped you as a person. This means that you are selecting a total of three important events (besides your birth) from your life.
• For each these three events, write a narrative (story) describing what happened. Make sure you describe it from start to finish: pretend that someone who doesn’t know you will be reading your story and trying to understand it. Be sure to include details!