Reading Like a Historian Skills

Reading Like a Historian Skills

by Joe Day

​Four Main Skills

1. ​Close Reading

2. Contextualization

3. ​Corroboration

4. ​Sourcing

Sourcing​

• Who wrote this?

  What is the author’s perspective?

  When was it written?

  Where was it written?

  Why was it written?

  Is it reliable? Why? Why not?

Multiple Choice

Skills: Evaluate the evidence and reasoning the author uses to support claims

• Close Reading

• Corroboration

• Contextualization

• Sourcing

Multiple Choice

Skills: Evaluate author’s word choice; understand that language is used deliberately

• Close Reading

• Corroboration

• Contextualization

• Sourcing

Multiple Choice

Skills: Establish what is probable by comparing documents to each other

• Close Reading

• Corroboration

• Contextualization

• Sourcing

Multiple Choice

Skills: Recognize disparities between accounts

• Close Reading

• Corroboration

• Contextualization

• Sourcing

Multiple Choice

Skills: Identify and evaluate the author’s purpose in producing the document

• Close Reading

• Corroboration

• Contextualization

• Sourcing

Multiple Choice

Skills: Understand how context/ background information influences the content of the document

• Close Reading

• Corroboration

• Contextualization

• Sourcing

Multiple Choice

Skills: Evaluate the source’s trustworthiness by considering genre, audience, and purpose.

• Close Reading

• Corroboration

• Contextualization

• Sourcing

Multiple Choice

Skills: Recognize that documents are products of particular points in time

• Close Reading

• Corroboration

• Contextualization

• Sourcing

Multiple Choice

Skills: Identify the author’s position on the historical event

• Close Reading

• Corroboration

• Contextualization

• Sourcing

Multiple Choice

Skills: Identify the author’s claims about an event

• Close Reading

• Corroboration

• Contextualization

• Sourcing

Multiple Choice

Skills: Hypothesize what the author will say before reading the document

• Close Reading

• Corroboration

• Contextualization

• Sourcing

​Prompts

​These are examples of how you would start to answer a Close Reading, Contextualization, Corroboration or Sourcing type questions.

Multiple Choice

Prompts: I think the audience is . . .

• Close Reading

• Corroboration

• Contextualization

• Sourcing

Multiple Choice

Prompts: Based on the background information, I understand this document differently because . . .

• Close Reading

• Corroboration

• Contextualization

• Sourcing

Multiple Select

Prompts: The author might have been influenced by _____

• Close Reading

• Corroboration

• Contextualization

• Sourcing

Multiple Choice

Prompts: The author probably believes . . .

• Close Reading

• Corroboration

• Contextualization

• Sourcing

Multiple Select

Prompts: I do/don’t trust this document because . . .

• Close Reading

• Corroboration

• Contextualization

• Sourcing

Multiple Choice

Prompts: Based on the source information, I think the author might . . .

• Close Reading

• Corroboration

• Contextualization

• Sourcing

Multiple Choice

Prompts: This document might not give me the whole picture because . . .

• Close Reading

• Corroboration

• Contextualization

• Sourcing

Multiple Choice

Prompts: The author is trying to convince me . . .

• Close Reading

• Corroboration

• Contextualization

• Sourcing

Multiple Choice

Prompts: I think the author chose these words in order to . . .

• Close Reading

• Corroboration

• Contextualization

• Sourcing

Multiple Choice

Prompts: The author agrees/disagrees with . . .

• Close Reading

• Corroboration

• Contextualization

• Sourcing

Multiple Choice

Prompts: The evidence used to support the author’s claims is . . .

• Close Reading

• Corroboration

• Contextualization

• Sourcing

Multiple Choice

Prompts: These documents all agree/ disagree about . . .

• Close Reading

• Corroboration

• Contextualization

• Sourcing

Multiple Choice

Prompts: Another document to consider might be . . .

• Close Reading

• Corroboration

• Contextualization

• Sourcing

Multiple Choice

Prompts: The author claims . . .

• Close Reading

• Corroboration

• Contextualization

• Sourcing