Teachers:
Use this exercise to build your students' skills in analyzing historical documents
as they investigate important topics related to modern America:
Using Image Detective students will do what expert historians do when they work with documents.
There are no simple "right answers" when interpreting historical evidence!
Here are the steps they'll take:
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Just like historians, students will pose questions to themselves as they look at the photos,
like "Are these people rich, or poor, or in the middle?" The three questions provided are just
samples. The first is simple and descriptive, while the others call for more interpretation; you
may want to direct younger children to the first, and older children to the second or third.
Students can also pose their own question - and can change their questions as they dig deeper.
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Next, students will scan the picture, looking for details that intrigue them. The yellow boxes
highlight areas that might be of interest - students can choose whichever they want. In the pop-up
box, encourage students first to describe what they observe, without making any judgement.
Then encourage them to speculate about what the detail might mean -- to make intelligent
guesses just like historians do.
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Historians filter what they see through a vast amount of background knowledge -- of the period,
of similar documents, and of arguments about the past. Children's prior knowledge is far less -
but they can use what they DO know very effectively. Ask students "What do you know about this?"
"How is this different than what you'd expect?" Students can also read a little background about the
picture and the time period by clicking the button.
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Students draw their conclusions on this page -- really, their speculations or intelligent guesses.
Encourage them to cite reasons or evidence for their ideas, as well as new questions they have.
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See What
Others Think |
Just as historians talk with others to deepen their thinking about a document or a period,
students looking at the COMPARE screen will compare their own interpretations to scholars',
teachers', and other students'. Encourage them to note similarities and differences between
their thinking and others', and use these insights as they tackle more interpretations. |
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A print version of this method is available in pdf format for students to use in class with other documents.
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