Writing Historical Narratives Using Library of Congress Primary Source Sets
Dr. Kenneth V. Anthony and Dr. Nicole Miller
Mississippi State University
Resources:
Library of Congress Lincoln Papers
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/alhtml/alrintr.html
Pinterest Lincoln Primary Source Set
https://www.pinterest.com/ncm39/lincoln-primary-source-set/
Topic
|
U.S. Civil War
|
Lesson Title:
|
Creating historical
narratives: Investigating the death of Lincoln
|
Objectives:
|
1.
Students
will generate compelling and supporting questions about the assassination of
Lincoln.
2.
Students
will corroborate and reconcile contradictory information in various primary
sources.
3.
Students
will create a narrative describing the last hours of President Lincoln.
|
Mississippi Social Studies
Framework Connections
|
8th grade
competencies 3 and 4
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NCSS Theme (2)
|
1. Time, Continuity, and Change
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CCSS ELA or CCSS ELA SS
|
CCSS ELA Writing Standards
Grade 6-8 1 a.b.c.d.e. 2a.b.c.d. e.f., 4, 5, 7,8,9
CCSS ELA Reading Standards
Grade 6-8 1, 4, 7, 9
|
Assessment
|
Formative: Student ability
to analyze primary sources; Student ability to generate compelling and
supporting questions
Summative: Student
narrative will be evaluated for accuracy, completeness, and ability to
corroborate specific details from contradictory sources.
|
Procedures:
1. Before
Introduce
the lesson: Preview, hook
Assessment opportunity- Pre-assessment
of requisite skills or knowledge
TTW project a pre-war portrait of Abraham Lincoln on the overhead
projector and ask students: “Who is this a picture of?” After entertaining a
range of answers, the students will settle on the fact that it is Abraham
Lincoln. We will then have discussion of our images of Lincoln as usually
including a beard and hat.
TTW will provide the students with a copy of the letters exchanged
between Grace Bedell and Lincoln. TSW read the letters (silently or as a group,
the teacher can decide). The teacher will then ask: “What can we learn from
these letters?” Students’ responses will include information about Lincoln’s
family, that he didn’t have a beard in 1860, that women could not vote, that
Lincoln was running for President, etc). TTW discuss with students how primary
sources like letters can provide us more detail into history than is provided
in history textbooks.
TTW ask, “What questions do you have after reading these letters?”
Responses may include questions about how the letter made it from New York to
Illinois, method of delivery, why couldn’t women vote, who was Hamlin, what is
going on during the time period. The teacher will help students understand that
primary sources can also be the source of rich questions that we can use to
help develop inquiries into the past. The teacher can also provide a list of
further questions to model as well as other information that can be learned
from the letters (see Appendix 1).
TTW will then show them one more primary source related to the letters.
It is a campaign posters that shows Lincoln and Hamlin. This will help students
see that further investigation using additional primary sources can help answer
our questions and extend our knowledge about a topic (i.e. who Hamlin is). If
necessary (depending on students’ previous experience with primary sources, the
teacher can walk students through the Observe-Reflect-Question process using
Library of Congress primary source analysis worksheets- available online)
TTW explain that though our image of Lincoln includes the beard, that
he didn’t wear a beard for most of his life. He only wore one for the last four
years of his life.
Dimension
1: Developing questions and planning inquiries
Differentiation opportunity- questions complexity, student choice of
inquiry topic
TT and TS will begin a K-W-L of the life of Lincoln (focusing on the K
and W). Once complete the teacher will tell students that for this lesson they
are going to focus on the end of Lincoln’s life. If the students haven’t listed
anything about his assassination, in the K-W part of the K-W-L, the teacher
will ask them to share what they know or would like to know about his death.
The teacher will share the definitions of compelling and supporting
questions with the students (C3 Framework, p. 17). The teacher will then guide
students in the development of questions about Lincoln’s assassination. After
students have proposed about twenty questions, the teacher will help students
determine which questions are compelling questions. Once they have identified
the compelling questions, students and teachers will identify supporting
questions (from the list or newly generated) to support the compelling
questions. Finally, the teacher and students will agree on one compelling
question to conduct an inquiry into. (If the teacher chooses, she can allow
students to work in groups and conduct their inquiry on a compelling question
that they select).
TTW explain to the students that they will be conducting an inquiry
into the death of Abraham Lincoln using primary sources. They will have the
opportunity to analyze and evaluate a set of primary sources related to his
death and then make a claim about his death. Their claim will become the thesis
for a short narrative description of his death.
2. During
Dimension 2:
Applying disciplinary concepts and tools
Introduce primary sources into lesson
Review or teach disciplinary skills needed
for the lesson
Teacher support to inquiry
Differentiation opportunity- reading ability or complexity of sources
Assessment opportunity- evaluate student ability to complete
disciplinary skill through a guided learning opportunity
TTW will instruct the students to go to the Pinterest site that
includes the Lincoln primary source set. Students will be directed to read and
observe the primary sources in the set. After about 15 minutes the students
will be directed to make a tentative claim about the death of Lincoln. The
teacher will ask each group to share and will guide them to a claim that fits
within the compelling question developed earlier. A good claim would be one
related to the assassination being part of a larger conspiracy. Teachers may
want to guide students to a focus on the conspiracy. Once the students have
developed and have an approved claim they will move on to Dimension 3.
Dimension 3:
Evaluating sources and using evidence
Teacher support to inquiry
Students
analyze sources or use other disciplinary skill
Students
evaluate sources
Students
draw conclusions or make decisions based on sources
Students
use sources to create a product or demonstrate knowledge/skills
Teacher
feedback to student efforts and student reaction to feedback
Differentiation opportunity- student choice in selecting sources to
use or product to create
Assessment opportunity- teacher check on student progress/
planned questioning
The teacher will instruct the students to analyze and
evaluate the sources in the primary source set. This will take about 15
minutes. The students can divide the sources among the members of the group and
complete an analysis sheet on each source.
TTW instruct students to write a narrative (individually) that
describes the events surrounding the death of Lincoln, but focused on the claim
they made earlier and that will help answer the compelling question. The
students will be reminded to use information from the sources that answer the
supporting questions. Some students may need to select three or four supporting
questions that they will answer using their sources, others may not need to
complete this step. Though the students did their research of the sources as a
group, they will write their narratives individually. The teacher will monitor
student progress to insure that they are basing their narrative on the
supporting questions, writing to support the claim, and are using sources to
support their narrative. This is an opportunity to share with students the
concept of citations.
3. After
Dimension 4:
Communicating conclusions and taking informed
action
Students share what they have learned with
other students in the class
Students share conclusions with an
audience wider than the classroom in an authentic format
Once students have completed their narratives, each of the
groups will have an opportunity to read their narratives. Once all narratives
have been read, the teacher will ask if the students noticed any discrepancies.
One discrepancy will be that Secretary of State William Seward died when in
fact he was injured in an assassination attempt. This is an opportunity to
teach the historical thinking heuristic corroboration (Wineburg, 1991). There
are sources in the set that indicate that he died and others written later in
the day after the assassination attempt that correct the erroneous report.
There will be other items of interest that students may want to talk about.
Some will notice that one of the conspirators was a woman. After this initial
discussion, the teacher will ask students to read the account of Lincoln’s
assassination in their textbook. The teacher will ask students what additional
they learned about his assassination by studying primary sources and writing
their own accounts. This is an opportunity to focus on the fact that students
have the ability to create their own historical accounts just like historians
do.
Finally, students will be told to identify and correct any
mistakes in their narrative. The teacher will monitor this process. Students
will turn in their corrected narratives for a summative assessment.
Conclude
the lesson:
Teacher Review/ summarize key concepts and
main points
Review
Acknowledge unanswered questions
Generate new questions based on results of
inquiry
Assessment opportunity- Summative assessment of objectives
Differentiation opportunity-Student choice in product, consideration
of student ability during assignment of assessment task
The teacher will ask students to share what they have
learned and fill in the L part of the K-W-L.
The teacher will review the key points of the lesson: 1.
Primary sources can extend and add to our understanding of a historical event,
2. Primary sources are what historians use to write history, 3. Historians make
claims and support their claims with information found in both primary and
secondary sources, 4. Historians must corroborate information in primary
sources (i.e. don’t put too much faith in one source, you need multiple sources
to make a claim), 5. Review the key facts about Lincoln’s assassination.
The teacher will ask students if they have any questions
that were not answer or if they have any new questions that might be the source
of another inquiry. Students will generate questions and these will be placed
on the question wall for future reference and action.
4. Assessment
a. Rubrics
b. Checklists
Students will be evaluated on their ability to analyze a
primary source using the Observe-Reflect-Question.
Students will be evaluated on their narrative using the
following criteria:
a.
Student made a claim that fit within the
compelling question
b.
Student supported claim with information from
multiple sources
c.
Student created an accurate narrative (after
they had a chance to edit it)
d.
Student created a narrative that was free of
grammar and spelling errors.
