Disciplinary Literacy

Sourcing asks students to consider who wrote a document as well as the circumstances of its creation, i.e. time, place, purpose, point of view. Sourcing is key to building claims and arguments as it helps with inferencing, interpretation, corroboration, contextualizing. When sourcing students should consider the author and their perspective, why the source was written, when the source was written, where the source was written, and whether or not the source is reliable (and why). From Stanford Historical Education Group (SHEG)

Before reading the document ask yourself: 

• Who wrote this?

• What is the author's perspective?

• Why was it written?

• When was it written?

• Where was it written?

• Is it reliable? Why? Why not?

Contextualization of a source considers the relevant components of history occurring at the time of the source’s construction. By placing a source in its relevant time and place and understanding how factors like setting, motivation, author’s competence, preceding and following events, and objectivity influence the creation of the source, students can better understand and utilize a source. From Stanford Historical Education Group (SHEG)

• When and where was the document created?

• What was different then? What was the same?

• How might he circumstances in which the document was created affect its content?

Corroboration compares sources to identify agreements and disagreements. Giving multiple perspectives of an event allows students to discount contrary evidence and improve a source’s validity and reliability by explaining discrepancies between accounts of an event. When multiple sources point to similar conclusions, interpretations are improved, allowing students to begin making correlational and causal claims. Corroboration improves the integrity of a source because it involves checking and cross checking evidence, both of which help contextualize a source. When corroborating documents, students should compare a source to another source, look for agreements or disagreements, consider other possible sources, and evaluate the reliability of a source.  From Stanford Historical Education Group (SHEG)

• What do other documents say?

• Do the documents agree? If not, why?

• What are other possible documents?

• What documents are most reliable?

Close reading calls on students to infer from a source’s subtexts. By annotating the text, taking perspective, paying attention to detail, asking questions, and seeking clarifications, students are more likely to engage with and thinking about a source. Close reading calls upon students to first source information, followed by recognizing claims, its supporting pieces of evidence, and overall rhetoric (e.g. language, semantics, syntax), all to help students construct arguments from sources. From Stanford Historical Education Group (SHEG)

• What claims does the author make?

• What evidence does the author use?

• What language (words, phrases, images, symbols) does the author use to persuade the document's audience?

• How does the document's language indicate the author's perspective?

Historical Significance helps historians and students determine which people, events, and developments should be studied and how they are considered within the scope of history. Significance is selective and a means to narrowing the scope of an inquiry. Significance may be determined by a wide range of historical topics such as social, political, economic, local, regional, global, technological innovations and culture. It is the beginning step of determining what we value and how we choose to remember.

Criteria for Determining and Measuring Significance*

1. Determining Prominence: Individuals/groups recognized at the time or reconsidered as after applying new evidence or perspective.

   • • • Was it recognized at the time?

       • How is it recognized today? 

       • How do new perspectives and new evidence shape interpretations?  

2. Determining Impact: Individuals/groups seek evidence of deep and lasting outcomes for multiple and different individuals/groups.

   • • • How deep/lasting was the impact?

       • How wide reaching was the impact?

       • Which individuals/groups advocate different interpretations? 

3. Determining Relevance: Individuals/groups look for opportunities to explore larger issues and apply them to different individuals, groups, events, etc. 

• What individual/groups determined relevance?

• What aspects of a topic determined the relevance for a particular group?

Key Aspects and Possible Questions for Historical Significance*

1. Change: Histories have positive and negative outcomes for individuals, groups, and events

• Why was (X) considered significant in (year/time period)?

• How was (X) a change agent on/for (Y)? 

• How big was the impact of (X) that led to the change? 

2. Constructed: Histories are created through a series of interpretations based upon evidence, and influenced by perspectives, context, relevance   

• How did (X) influence (Y)?

• What was the role that (X) played in (descriptor) for (Y)?

• How does (X) see (Y) as relevant?

3. Variation: Histories matter differently to different individuals and groups often revealing what individuals and groups value 

• During (X) how was (Y) revealing of (Z)?

• Why is (X) valued in (Y) but to a lesser degree with (Z)?

*Adapted from The Big Six (2012) and Teaching Historical Thinking (2017)

Supporting Question and Formative Performance Task (FPT) Examples

SQ: 8.8.7 What motivated white abolitionists to undermine laws?

• Describe one significant idea that was the motivation for white abolitionists to undermine laws.

• Summarize the narrative that white abolitionists constructed to justify their undermining of laws.

• Explain what white abolitionists revealed about racist laws of the time.

• Create a claim or counterclaim, with evidence that the white abolitionists were prominent and had a significant/deep impact in undermining laws of the time?

Historical Perspective requires understanding the social, cultural, intellectual, and emotional settings that shaped people’s lived experiences and past actions. At any one point, different historical actors may have acted on the basis of conflicting beliefs and ideologies, so understanding motivations embedded within a range of viewpoints is key to historical perspectives. Historical perspectives invokes the relatability of historical empathy but distinguishes itself by demanding comprehension of the vast array of perspectives between the present and the past, rather than just of an individual. 

Criteria for Determining and Measuring Historical Perspective* 

Balancing Perspectives of Authentic Representation and Corroborated Evidence:

1. Authentic Representation: Individual/groups perspective(s) and experience(s) is authentically representative and accurate to the values, beliefs, and events at a given time.

• What did individuals/groups experience?

• How do individuals/groups remember or frame their perspectives and/or experiences? 

2. Corroborated Evidenced: Perspective and lived experience can be corroborated by other credible, relevant evidence. Primary and secondary are balanced, each needed to shine light on the other, to construct histories

• *See questions on corroboration on the Source Analysis Tool and Source Analysis Tool: Credibility

• What primary or secondary sources are needed to better understand and contextualize perspectives of a given time?

• How do sources agree?

• How do sources disagree and how do we reconcile differences?

Key Aspects and Possible Questions for Historical Perspective*

1. Context: Histories must be contextualized within its time before it can be analyzed in the present. Constructing modern interpretations are more complete and accurate when the past is better understood. 

• What is the context of (X)?

• Why did (X) happen in (Y)?

2. Objectivity: Histories are better created when modern perspectives and personal biases are recognized and accounted for. Presentism is avoided by recognizing and (as best one can) removing personal bias before looking into the bias, limits, and use of a source. 

• What bias do I have that will limit investigations of (X)?

• What are the limitations of the source? 

• What is (X)’s  point of view?

• What biases does (X) have toward (Y)?

3. Diverse Perspectives: Histories are complex and multi sided. In order to get a more complete and coherent understanding, multiple and diverse perspectives should be fully represented and juxtaposed. 

• What is the view of (X)? 

• How do views of (X) differ from (Y)?

• How does (X) view (Y) differently than (Z)?

*Adapted from The Big Six (2012) and Teaching Historical Thinking (2017)

Supporting Question and Formative Performance Task (FPT) Examples

SQ: 8.8.7 What motivated white abolitionists to undermine laws?

• Describe one perspective that a white abolitionists had to justify undermining laws.

• Summarize the multiple perspectives that white abolitionists constructed to justify their undermining of laws.

• Explain how white abolitionists perspectives changed the enforcement of racist laws.

• Create a claim or counterclaim, with evidence that the white abolitionists perspective in undermining laws grew among the population in the era?

Cause and Effect involves the ability to identify, analyze, and evaluate the relationships among varying individuals (e.g. motive), events, or developments. Cause and effect can be explored through short and long term intended and unintended consequences. Students should be able to describe and explain causation substantiated by evidence. Causation should not be confused with correlation or coincidence, both of which do not establish a causal relationship that affects individuals, events, developments, etc. Students and teachers should avoid the fallacy of single cause and recognize the difference between direct and systemic causation. Failure to do so results in reductionism and oversimplification.

Criteria for Determining and Measuring Cause and Consequence*

1. Determining Causes: 

Cause(s) clearly connected to an event beyond coincidence 

• • How is the cause connected to the event?

Causes(s) are direct and/or indirect

• • What are the direct and indirect cause(s)?

Cause(s) have no other explanations. 

• • Are there other reasonable causes to the event?

Cause(s) are significant for individuals/groups  

• • How significant was the cause to the event?

2. Determining Effects:

Effect(s) clearly traced back to cause(s)

• • What evidence points to a cause?

Effect(s) relevant in short and/or long term

• • How long did the effect last? 

Effect(s) are positive/negative

• • What were the positive and/or negative effects?

Effect(s) have scales (local, national, and/or international)

• • How widespread was the consequence?

Effect(s) are significant for individuals/groups

• • How are individuals/groups affected? 

Key Aspects and Possible Questions for Cause and Consequence*

1. Complexity: Histories are complex webbing of short and long-term causes and effects. There are multiple direct and indirect possible causes that result in multiple effects. 

• What was behind (X)?

• How were (X) lives changed because of (Y)?

2. Influence: Historical causes have significant effects for different individuals and groups that are positive and negative.  

• What was the cause(s) of X?

• To what degree was (X) an influence on (Y)?

• How did (X) affect (Y) differently than (Z)?

3. Context: History does not happen in a vacuum. Multiple individuals/groups and societal constructions (social, political, economic, and cultural) interact together to create causes and effects at different scales

• What conditions helped make (X) make a difference?

• How did the (X) influence (Y) to act?

• Who or what made it harder to change (X)?

4. Contingency: Histories are not inevitable, but occurred because of a series of events  

• What was an unintended consequence of (X)?

• How did (X) differ from actual results?

*Adapted from The Big Six (2012) and Teaching Historical Thinking (2017)

Supporting Question and Formative Performance Task (FPT) Examples

SQ: 8.2.3 How did the French and Indian War change how the British viewed the colonists?

• Describe one cause of the British’s view of the colonists change during the French and Indian War.

• Summarize the causes of change of the British’s view of the colonists?

• Explain how the French and Indian War was an unintended consequence of the British’s view of the colonists.

• Create a claim or counterclaim, with evidence that the French and Indian War had a significant influence on the change of the British views of the colonists?

Continuity and Change Over Time requires the ability to recognize, analyze, contextualize, and evaluate major shifts within a given time period. Students should be able to describe the change or continuity and explain why something changed or continued. Changes often happen at different rates in different places, making context key to understanding these changes. Continuities remain the same over a given time period and often lay the foundation for major changes if and when they occur. Changes and continuities include historical precedent, geography, political ideology, economic systems, cultures, and technological innovations. 

Criteria for Determining and Measuring Continuity and Change*

1. Determining Continuities: 

Continuities maintain the status quo for social, political, economic, and culture may be positive or negative over time. 

1. • • • • How did (X) largely stay the same?

         • How did (X) stay the same across (Y)?

         • Why did (X) continue over time?

Continuities observe significant historical precedent, geography, political ideology, economic systems, cultures, and technological innovations in society maintained at different scales (local, national, and/or international).

1. • • • • How did (X) stay the same in (Y)?

         • Why did (X) continue across (Y)?

2. Determining Changes:

Change(s) are significant and often dramatic positive and negative shifts 

1. • • How much did (X) change?

Changes(s) are long lasting or permanent for individuals and society  

1. • • How long did (X) last?

Change(s) happen across scales (local, national, and/or international)

1. • • How did (X) effect (Y)?

*Adapted from The Big Six (2012) and Teaching Historical Thinking (2017)

Supporting Question and Formative Performance Task (FPT) Examples

SQ: 8.2.3 How did the French and Indian War change how the British viewed the colonists?

• Describe how the French and Indian War was a decline of the British’s view of the colonists.

• Summarize why the British views of the colonists declined because of the French and Indian War?

• Explain how the French and Indian War was a turning point for the British’s view of the colonists.

• Explain the chronology of events that changed the British views of the colonists because of the French and Indian War.

• Create a claim or counterclaim, with evidence on how the French and Indian War changed was the beginning of a new historical period.