THE USE OF RELEVANTHISTORICAL EVIDENCE

Historical Context

Audience

Purpose

Point of View

Y

Using AUDIENCE and PURPOSE in Analyzing Documents

Presidential Candidate

Speech on Clean Energy Sources

Environmentalists in Colorado

Coal Rich West VirginiaHow would the intended audience change the content of the speech? What is the purpose of the speech?

18th Century

Compare the life for immigrants coming to the North American colonies.

Why would indentured servants immigrate to:

The Chesapeake Colony

The Pennsylvania Colony

Analyzing a Document

The Elizabeth Sprig Letter

(Indentured Servant)

Questions?

-Why is she writing this letter?

-Why is she writing it at this moment in time?

-How might the fact that she is writing to her father affect what she writes?

-How might this affect what she is writing? Might she be leaving things out?

How might this affect her reliability as a source for our question?

Elizabeth Sprig

If Elizabeth Sprig was writing to her sister?

How might a different audience alter the purpose of the letter?

How might a different audience and purpose affect the reliability of the letter?

Exercise

1. Partner up!

2. Analyze and scrutinize the following documents:

Richard Frethorne’s

“Letter to Father and Mother”

Johannes Hanner’s

“Letter by an Immigrant to Pennsylvania”

A Check for Understanding

To whom was each letter intended?

What was each author’s purpose in writing these accounts?

How do different audiences and purpose affect the reliability of a document?

What were the differences between the two men’s experiences according to the letters?

What, if any, similarities are there between these two letters?

How are they different than or similar to the Elizabeth Sprig letter?

Which letter do you find more reliable and why?

What do both of these letters tell you about life in the colonies?

Reward Points (RP’s)

Compare and contrast the Audience and Purpose of the following documents? Write a short argument for which document is a more reliable source.

1622 Letter by Sebastian Bach

1634 Letter by John Winthrop

Extra Reward Points

Analyze the following additional documents

An excerpt from Gottlieb Mittleberger’s book,

“Journey to Pennsylvania in the Year 1750”

Memoir of Roger Clap, about First Years in Massachusetts Bay Colony (1631-32), written in the 1680'

Using Point of View in Doc Analysis

“Allen Frederick is the best high school basketball player to appear on the scene in the last ten years”

Reliability

-Allen’s girlfriend in her diary

-His Dad on Twitter

-His coach in a letter of recommendation

-His history teacher in the stands at a basketball game

-The school newspaper in an article about his high school career

-The head coach of the Duke basketball program to a reporter at ESPN

(In groups of 3 rank the reliability of the sources based on POV. 1 being the most reliable, 5 being the least reliable)

POV Exercise#2

“Pennsylvania, the Poor Man’s Paradise”

-The King of England, William III

-An indentured servant living in Pennsylvania

-A slave on a tobacco plantation living in Virginia

-Gabriel Thomas, a settler living in Pennsylvania

-An English merchant living in London

(On your own, rank these individuals. Explain why.)

Class Discussion Why did you place this individuals in a particular ranking?

-What do you know about the roles of each of these people living in the 17th century?

-How might these roles affect their point of view?

-How might the meaning of the quote change based on your understanding of point of view? Why?

-Which source is most reliable? Why?

POV / Exercise #3

European Observation of Native Americans

-Johannes Megapolensis, a Dutch Minister

-Captain John Smith, leader of Jamestown

-Jean de Brebeuf, French Missionary

-Mary Rowlandson, New England resident, taken captive

(Their excerpts will be provided in class. Who wrote each source? Complete the worksheet, “Who said it?”)

Using Historical Context to Analyze Doc’s

Definition:

Using Historical Context

“Allen Frederick is the best high school basketball player to appear on the scene in the last ten years”

Historical Context

-Allen’s girlfriend in her diary

-His Dad on Twitter*

-His coach in a letter of recommendation

-His history teacher in the stands at a basketball game

-The school newspaper in an article about his high school career

-The head coach of the Duke basketball program to a reporter at ESPN

*Allen Frederick’s father is a highly successful college basketball player at Duke University under the same head coach of the current basketball program.

Historical Context / Exercise #2

How and why did religious ideas affect the political changes in the colonies from 1635 to 1700?

Roger William’s Letter

“Letter to the Town of Providence”

-What do you already know about the effect of religion on colonial period politics during this period?

-What do you know about Roger Williams? Who was he?

-What do you know about Providence Plantation?

-Where and when was this letter produced?

-What was happening in the colonies that may affect the author’s pov?

-How might this context affect the reliability of William’s letter?

Impact of Changes in Historical Context

How would the meaning of the letter change if…

…it was written to the people of Boston in 1635?

…it was written by Nathaniel Bacon to Virginia colony in 1676?

Historical Context / Exercise #3

Putting Audience, Purpose, Point of View, and Historical Context all together.

Using the all documents we have analyzed thus far,

“Compare the religious, economic, and social experiences of colonists in the northern colonies to those in the middle and southern colonies”.

Use the H-A-P-P-Y worksheet for each of the documents.

Final Discussion

-How does the content of the document, literally what it says, help to answer the question?

-Does either its audience, purpose, point of view, or historical context make this first idea less reliable? More reliable? Why?

-What is most important about this document in answering the question: the audience, purpose, point of view, or historical context? Why?

-If the “H”, “A”, “P”, or “P” of the document makes it less reliable, how could you still use the document to answer the question? How would you address the issue of reliability?