GPSignificance

What is a historian?

• a person who researches, studies, and writes about the past, and is considered an expert on it

• a person who studies human activity through the recovery and analysis of artifacts from today and the past

• a person who studies the history of life on Earth through the fossil record

• a person who studies the solid, liquid, and gaseous matter that constitutes Earth and other terrestrial planets

What is evidence?

• an object made by a human being

• something that is usual, typical, or standard

• the available body of facts or information that help determine if a belief is true

• the beliefs, customs, and art of a particular society, group, place, or time

What is a bias?

• an artifact, a document, diary, manuscript, autobiography, a recording, or other source that was created at the time of study

• created later by someone who did not experience first-hand or participate in the events researched

• prejudice in favor of or against one thing, person, or group compared with another, usually in a way considered to be unfair

• an educated guess based on evidence & prior knowledge

Source recorded by a first-hand witness to events

• Primary Source

• Secondary Source

• Reliable Source

• Unbiased Source

Source written after an event by someone who played no part in it

• Secondary Source

• Primary Source

• Unbiased Source

• Reliable Source

One person's unique views on things

• objectivity

• subjectivity

• bias

• perspective

Image: Typewritten "Letter From Birmingham Jail," by Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King.

This is an example of a:

• primary source

• secondary source

Annotating a text, skimming for facts and evidence, and questioning an author's claims are all part of the historical thinking skill of _________________________.

Image: a biography of Harriet Tubman for young readers written by Christine Platt, published in 2020

If I am researching Tubman's life, this would be a:

• primary source

• secondary source

Pre-reading a document to figure out who wrote it, when and where it was written, what the perspective might be, and why it was written, is practicing:

• corroboration

• sourcing

• contextualization

• close reading