How do Sources Tell Stories?

Supporting Questions:

Q1: What can we learn from the stories sources tell?
Q2: How do sources help us connect people and events?
Q3: How do sources illustrate a person's impact on their community?

In this inquiry, students will be given  the opportunity to use sources in a variety of ways in order to better understand the stories of people who had a local impact in the Metro-Detroit area. This inquiry leads students through an investigation of sources that give information about three individuals' lives. 

It is important to note that this inquiry requires prerequisite knowledge of identifying types of sources, however they will also be practicing identifying sources throughout the inquiry process. 

Note: This inquiry is expected to take three or four 50-minute class periods. The inquiry time frame could expand if teachers think their students need additional instructional experiences (e.g., supporting questions, formative performance tasks, featured sources, writing). Teachers are encouraged to adapt the inquiry to meet the needs and interests of their students. This inquiry lends itself to differentiation and modeling of historical thinking skills while assisting students in reading, analyzing and contextualizing a variety of sources.

To hook students into the compelling question, ask students to look at a photograph and  respond to the questions: What do you see? What do you think? What do you wonder? After a brief discussion of the question, they are asked to write down their answers on the recording sheet provided to them. Then they will bring down their sheets to a carpet meeting area and pair-share with a shoulder partner. 

After they have shared and listened to their partner’s See-Think-Wonder, they will take the information they heard from their partner and return back to their recording page to either add to their thinking or revise their thinking. 

Students will be given time to share out one of their partners’ see-think-wonder responses. 

Students will look at a photograph and reflect on what they SEE-THINK-WONDER. Students will then turn to a shoulder partner and share their thinking and then share out with the class. Students will have the opportunity to use the primary source analysis tool in order to keep track of their thinking. This whole group activity will help students begin to engage with a source which will begin to build a foundation for using sources and thinking critically about sources in multiple ways. It will also give students the opportunity to listen to others thinking and use that to help them add to or revise their own thinking. This staging will allow for scaffolding in preparation for the tasks they will complete in the supporting questions.