For this activity, students will be required to think like a historian and source a document. A helpful tip before this activity begins is to conduct a class discussion centered around the following question, “How do historians uncover the past?” This discussion will allow students to share numerous opinions which will usually result in a student mentioning a document, artifact, speech, photograph, etc.
Using a spider map, students will take five essential historical questions to a document and represent their understanding of its importance. Students should choose a historical document or speech that will serve as a visual aid for their abstract written answers. This assignment’s focus is to have students think about the questions that are essential for historians to ask before they begin their historical investigation. For each question, students must describe why they believe these questions are important to ask. The questions that should be used for this activity are:
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Student Instructions
Create a spider map that outlines the importance of questions to ask when sourcing a document.
Teaching students to evaluate a source's reliability builds critical thinking and prepares them for deeper analysis. Use real-world examples to make this skill engaging and relevant.
Start with everyday sources like news articles, social media posts, or textbooks. Ask students which ones they trust and why, helping them relate reliability to their daily lives.
Project a document and think aloud as you check for author bias, date of creation, and purpose. Highlight red flags and reliable features, making your process transparent.
Provide a mix of reliable and questionable documents. Let students work together to spot biases, missing information, or corroborating details, then share their reasoning with the class.
Develop a reliability checklist with questions like: Who is the author? Is there evidence of bias? Can facts be verified? Post it in your classroom or add it to student notebooks for future reference.
Sourcing a historical document means examining where it came from, who created it, and the context in which it was made. In the classroom, this helps students think like historians, questioning the document’s origin, purpose, and reliability before drawing conclusions.
To help students analyze primary and secondary sources, use guiding questions like who, what, when, where, and why. Encourage them to create visual tools, such as spider maps, and discuss the historical context, author’s perspective, and reasons behind a document’s creation.
The five essential questions are: Who created the document? What was happening at the time? When was it created? Where was it created? Why was it created? These help students critically evaluate sources.
A spider map is a graphic organizer that lets students visually break down key questions about a document. By mapping out who, what, when, where, and why, students better understand the significance and context of historical sources.
Understanding context helps students see why a document was created, what influenced its content, and how reliable it might be. This critical thinking skill is vital for authentic historical analysis and avoiding misinterpretation.