Evaluating Sources

Lesson for August 20, 21

As we saw in your interviews for your autobiography, different people have different accounts of events that happened in the past.  So, how do you determine what to believe?  What makes one story more trustworthy than another.

Review the following questions with your group and complete the statements.

(Note:  This lesson was taken from sheg.stanford.edu - Evaluating Sources)


Name_______________

Evaluating Sources

1. Historical Question: Who was present at the signing of the Declaration of
Independence?

Source 1: Hollywood movie about the American Revolution made 2001.
Source 2: Book written by a famous historian who is an expert on the
American Revolution, published in 1999.

Which do you trust more? Why?

2. Historical Question: What was slavery like in South Carolina?

Source 1: Interview with former slave in 1936. The interviewer is a black
man collecting oral histories for the Federal Writers’ Project.
Source 2: Interview with former slave in 1936. The interviewer is a white
woman collecting oral histories for the Federal Writers’ Project.

Which do you trust more? Why?

3. Historical Question: What was the layout of the Nazi concentration camp
Auschwitz?

Source 1: Interview with 80 year-old Holocaust survivor in 1985.
Source 2: Map of concentration camp found in Nazi files.

Which do you trust more? Why?

4. Historical Question: Why were Japanese Americans put in internment
camps during WWII?

Source 1: Government film explaining internment from 1942.
Source 2: Government report on Japanese Internment from 1983 based on
declassified government documents.

Which do you trust more? Why?

5. Historical Question: Did American soldiers commit atrocities during the
Vietnam War in 1969?

Source 1: Sworn testimony by American Sergeant in Congressional hearings
in 1969.
Source 2: Speech by American General touring the United States in 1969.

Which do you trust more? Why?

6. Historical Question: What happened at the Battle of Little Bighorn?

Source 1: High school history textbook from 1985.
Source 2: Newspaper account from the day after the battle in June 1876.

Which do you trust more? Why?


Discussion...which did you choose and why.  What other information might you need?  What is "corroboration"?  Why is it important in studying documents?