Reading Like a Historian

Essential Question

What are the four historical thinking skills and why are they important?

Historical Thinking Skills

As you may have learned from your Snapshot Biography, history is what happened in the past, just like the events in your life. Different accounts may conflict or agree with one another. Our work this year is to figure out how we can gather enough evidence to get the clearest picture possible of what happened in the past.

Activity 1: Lunchroom Fight Part I

This activity will introduce you to the historical thinking skill of sourcing.

SHEG-Lunchroom Fight Part 1-Student Version.pdf

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. Just like principles, Historians try to figure out what happened in the past. There’s no way to actually recreate the fight 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.

Discussion Questions

Why might people see or remember things differently?
Who has an interest in one person getting in trouble instead of another? Who was standing where? Could they see the whole event?
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?
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?
Physical Evidence: What physical evidence might affect who/what you believe (bruises, missing objects, etc.)?

Sourcing

SHEG-Sourcing poster.pdf

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.

Title: "The First Thanksgiving 1621"

By: J.L.G. Ferris

Date:1932

Discussion Question

The painting The First Thanksgiving 1621 helps historians understand the relationship between the Wampanoag Indians and the Pilgrim settlers in 1621. Do you agree or disagree? Why?
Sort the responses below in order of best to worst and explain why.

Response 1

True, because you can see how they are interacting with each other. Without any picture, you couldn’t really see how Wampanoag Indians and the Puritans interacted with each other.

Response 2

Disagree. This painting was drawn 311 years after the actual event happened. There is no evidence of historical accuracy, as we do not know if the artist did research before painting this, or if he just drew what is a stereotypical Pilgrim and Indian painting.

Response 3

Painted by a white person from Europe, of course they will be extremely biased in order to bring to light a highly positive image of the Europeans as to excite more foreign expeditions (because ‘the Indians look so friendly and thankful’).

Discussion Question

Why is it important to practice sourcing?

Activity 2: Evaluating Sources

As we’ve seen in the Lunchroom Fight and Snapshot Autobiography lessons, different people often have different accounts of what happened in the past. One question that historians face all the time is who to believe? What makes one account more trustworthy than another?

SHEG-EvaluatingSources-Student Version.pdf

Contextualization

SHEG-Contextualization poster.pdf

Contextualization is the act of locating a document in time and place to understand how these factors shape its content. Remember that documents are product of particular points in time and its important for Historians the look at whether the experience of the people(s) in the document were similar or different then other people in that time. Contextualization allows historians to understand how typical an experiences was in the past. If multiple sources in the same time in space all describe things similarly historians can be confident their idea of the past is correct. If sources in the same time and space describe things differently historians can better understand how complex events were and what was unique to certain people.

Discussion Question

Why is it important to know whether the experiences of the people(s) in the source were similar or different then other people in that time?
According to the video, how typical was W.C. Wathrop's experience?
How does contextualization help historians understand the reliability of sources?

Corroboration

SHEG-Corroboration poster.pdf

Corroboration

Corroboration is the act of comparing pieces of evidence and seeing where they agree and disagree. When you have multiple pieces of evidence that say the same thing, your argument is stronger. When you only have one perspective on an event, you risk that it might be incomplete or maybe even wrong. Historians corroborate evidence when they try to figure out what happened in the past. If they find multiple pieces of evidence that support their initial hunch, their case becomes stronger. If they can’t find enough evidence to support a particular argument about what happened in the past, they consider other explanations or interpretations. Because the goal of corroboration is to build a strong argument, it also involves sourcing. You want to source for two reasons:

You want each piece of evidence to be reliable
You want to see if people with different perspectives agree about what happened. It’s always more convincing when two people who usually disagree happen to agree.

Example

A famous painting of the Battle of Lexington shows the American colonists standing their ground and fighting while the British fired on them. If you read the primary sources about the event, the Americans say the British fired first, and the British say the Americans fired first. So they disagree about who shot first. But both say the colonists scattered and ran away once the shooting started. So although we might not know who shot first, we can say with some confidence that the colonists did not stand their ground, despite the portrayal in the painting, because both sides agree on that point.

Discussion Question

Why is it important for historians to see what other documents say?
What if sources agree?
What if sources disagree?
Explain how the example shows the importance of corroboration?

Activity 3: Make Your Case Activity

Practice corroboration by completing the Make Your Case Activity.

SHEG-Make Your Case!-Student Version.pdf

Close Reading

SHEG-Close Reading poster.pdf

Close Reading is the act of evaluating sources and analyzing rhetoric by closely analyzing the content, language, evidence, and perspective of the author. Historians will carefully read over sources three or more times to make sure they understand all the parts of an author's point. They look at facts, language, tone, symbols, evidence, and other literary devices the author may use. During a close reading, historians Identify the author’s claims about an event. Then historians evaluate the evidence and reasoning the author uses to support claims. Finally, historians evaluate the author’s word choice; understand that language is used deliberately

Discussion Question

Why is it important to know the author's claim?
Why do you think it is important to source and contextualize before doing a close reading?
Could you do a close reading of a painting or photograph? Explain?

Activity 4: What are the types of historical thinking skills? Why are they important?

Using the information from this lesson, answer the questions in a thinking map. Complete this assignment digitally or on paper. It will be collected in your portfolio.

Activity 5: Lunchroom Fight Part II

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, corroborate, practice close reading. 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.

Read through the headnote and all the evidence. Then go back and identify pieces of context that shed light on who started the fight. Write each piece of context in the correct part of the first column of the handout. For example, from the headnote we learn that Justin’s father fired Max’s mom and dad. So we’re going to write that in the “Town context” part of the handout. Continue doing that for all the evidence. You need to find at least TWO additional pieces of context for each of the areas of context.

SHEG-Lunchroom Fight Part II-Student Version(1).pdf

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