Lesson: Primary Sources
Grades: 6-12
Subject: Language Arts/Social Studies/Technology
Estimated Time of Completion: Four to five 50-minute class sessions

I. Summary

Students will gain skills necessary for researching by locating credible and original sources, determining if the sources are primary or secondary, ascertaining the qualifications and reputation of the author/speaker, and identifying the setting/circumstance of the source. In the quest for sources, students will learn how to use primary and secondary sources to investigate history and will explore and appreciate the individuals behind these sources. Whether it is a photograph, book, map, letter, postcard, newspaper, or official document, students can use sources to reconstruct and relive history. Students will be challenged with the opportunity to act and think as historians. In this lesson, the support materials will encourage students to use the investigative processes to study "The Trail of Tears," although students can apply the same investigative process to primary documents, an historical era or an event.

II. Objectives

• Students will distinguish between primary and secondary sources
• Students will acquire and apply investigative skills to locate and use sources
• Students will learn how information and experiences affect, are interpreted, and evolve from different frames of reference, people, and culture
• Students will articulate the implications of cultural diversity, as well as cohesion, within and across groups
• Students will collect, study, and use primary sources to compare, contrast, and articulate cultural diversity, events, and impact from the past to the present
• Students will understand how early state and federal policy influenced the Native American Cherokee tribe
• Students will understand shifts in federal and state policy toward Native Americans (e.g. arguments for and against removal policy, changing policies from assimilation to removal and isolation after 1825).

III. Materials Needed

• Optional: Computer with Internet access with a presentation device or available computers for groups of students and Internet access to the History Detectives site and to primary documents.
• Primary document from Galileo site, select "Digital Library of Georgia," and select "Southeastern Native American Documents, 1730-1842."
• Paper, pencil
• Optional: Indian moccasins

IV. Procedure

1. A family Bible is a primary source. Discuss the differences between primary documents (original) and secondary documents (taken from an original source). Discuss with the students how someone might feel when they realize that they have located lost information about their individual history. Ask the class to share sources to which they might have access. Brainstorm primary sources of their personal history. Examine possibilities at the History Detectives site. Brainstorm with students the impact of documents on United States history. How do primary documents lend credibility?

2. Have students make a "T-chart" of the Trail of Tears. A T-chart divides the paper in half and on one side of the paper, the student lists what the Trail of Tears looked like. (Thousands of Cherokee are being moved from another state across many miles to another. Thousands of Cherokee are dying because of the harsh conditions, etc.) On the other side of the "T," students list what this event sounded like. (Speeches from Jackson to relocate these people, sounds of cries of protest, sounds of cries from sickness and weariness, etc.) Use these to inspire students to visualize history.

3. Some students will know much about the Trail of Tears; others will not. Students will list and share what they have written.

4. Use these sites to introduce or provide information about this era of United States history. Review A Brief History of the Trail of Tears and visit the official Cherokee site.

5. (Class 2) After students have a grasp of the historical background information, ask them about who might give slanted opinions and perspectives of this incident and why. Ask students to comment about racial bias in this situation. How did President Jackson feel about the American Indians?

6. Explain to students that historians study events and records in context to what really happened. Explain that different historical accounts are the result of different viewpoints and opinions. It is important for students to confirm facts, check settings, examine circumstances, determine perspectives, and clarify reliability of sources before believing just any media (commercials, documentaries, and sources). Students are to become historians and realize that they have tools readily available for studying and investigating history and forming their own opinions.

7. Remind students that primary documents will allow them to understand historical events and attitudes and to allow them to "walk in the shoes" of ancestors.

8. Visit the Digital History and Trail of Tears site with students for a collection of several public primary sources surrounding the Trail of Tears historical event. (There are photographs, letters, and treaties from this era.)

9. If possible, print out a letter from George Lowrey to John Ross and provide each student a copy to hold and experience. 

10. Have students study, examine, describe, analyze, and reflect upon this document. Have students imagine when it was written and with what feelings. Have students imagine that they are in the room when it was written. Encourage them to comment with a description, feelings, how they imagine Ross and Lowrey, what questions they have for this event and people, and how they would have felt had they been wearing Ross's shoes. Encourage students to think about what information may be inferred from this document: weather and season (from date), personalities (from letter), tone, mood, location, current President, etc. 

11. (Class 3) Brainstorm ways that those involved coped with this move. (Some hid in the mountains of North Carolina, some gave up, some fought with words, some fought with weapons, some encouraged others, etc.) Have them answer for themselves how they might have handled this situation.

12. Be sure that students know that Ross lost his wife on this migration and due to the hardships of The Trail of Tears. Ask students to articulate how Ross's opinion and Jackson's opinions and perspectives were so different.

13. Ask students if they can compare or contrast this event to other United States events or eras that may have been unfair to other cultures, such as another migration or immigration population. Also, have students think and write about how the Trail of Tears had an impact on the Native American culture and on United States history in general.

14. Have students think about how things might have been different had the Indians resisted.

15. Display moccasins and have students imagine life as Ross, the leader of the Cherokee. Have students write a journal entry as if they were walking in Ross's shoes on the Trail of Tears after a long, hard fight with the government for his people.

16. (Class 4) Have students find another primary source (or copy) of another historical era with implications to our present and explain to the class where it was obtained and how and why they chose this document to share with the class. Again the History Detectives site might offer some direction with the historical research section.

17. Have students locate, draw or orally suggest an example of a secondary source for this historical era.

V. Assessment

1. Students can distinguish between primary and secondary sources by correctly providing an example of each.

2. Students will acquire and apply investigative skills to locate and use sources to present implications of the Trail of Tears on our American history.

3. Students will learn how information and experiences affect, are interpreted, and evolve from different frames of reference, people, and culture when writing from a viewpoint of this era.

4. Students can articulate the implications of cultural diversity, as well as cohesion, within and across groups as assessed in how well students can articulate a comparison or contrast of two groups throughout history.

5. Students will collect, study, and use primary sources to compare, contrast, and articulate cultural diversity, events, and impact from the past to the present assessed through research progress.

6. Classroom rubric for judging written interpretation of Ross's situation:

VI. Extensions and Adaptations

• Have students draw pictures of the types of transportation used in the migration of the Native American tribe to Oklahoma. Students should research and locate pictures of the travel.
• Have students create a collage of images and words that would illustrate the Native American migration experience.
• Pretend you are a newspaper reporter and interview a person from this era that was involved in the Trail of Tears. Choose one person and write the dialogue that you imagine would take place between the two of you.
• Research the Trail of Tears and create a timeline of its events.
• Have a class debate using a topic from this class session where the class may not have agreed.

VII. Standards From McREL standards

Language Arts

• Demonstrates competence in the general skills and strategies of the writing process
• Gathers and uses information for research purposes
• Demonstrates competence in the general skills and strategies of the reading process
• Demonstrates competence in the general skills and strategies for reading a variety of literary texts
• Demonstrates competence in the general skills and strategies for reading a variety of informational texts
• Will write expository compositions (e.g., synthesizes and organizes information from first- and second-hand sources, including books, magazines, computer data banks, and the community; uses a variety of techniques to develop the main idea {names, describes, or differentiates parts; compares or contrasts; examines the history of a subject; cites an anecdote to provide an example; illustrates through a scenario; provides interesting facts about the subject}; distinguishes relative important facts, data, and ideas; uses appropriate technical terms and notations.
• The student will use strategies to adapt writing for different purposes (e.g., to explain, inform, analyze, entertain, reflect, and persuade)
• Understands the characteristics and components of the media

History

• The student thinks chronologically; therefore the student is able to distinguish between the past, present, and future time and interpret data presented in timelines.
• The student thinks chronologically, therefore, the student is able to describe the past on its on terms, through the eyes and experiences of those who were there, as revealed through literature, diaries, debates, arts, artifacts, and primary and secondary documents.
• The student conducts historical research; therefore, the student is able to formulate historical from encounters with historical documents, eyewitness accounts, letters, diaries, artifacts, photos, historical sites, art, architecture, and other records from the past
• Understand the United States territorial expansion between 1801 and 1861, and how it affected relations with external powers and Native Americans
• Evaluates the overall effectiveness of complex arguments.
• Secures factual information needed to evaluate alternatives.
• Predicts the consequences of selecting each alternative.

Technology

• Knows the characteristics and uses of computer hardware and operating systems
• Knows the characteristics and uses of computer software programs
• Understand the nature and uses of different forms of technology

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