Alabama Social Studies SS24.HS.2

SS24.HS.2 is a cluster heading. These are the individual standards under it.

• SS24.HS.2a

  Describe the strengths and limitations of different types of secondary sources for providing insight into the selected historical subject.

• SS24.HS.2b

  Explain how a historian constructs a viewpoint on a historical subject.

• SS24.HS.2c

  Apply the concept of historiography through contrasting how various historians have interpreted the historical subject.

01

What Students Need to Do

Students read later accounts of a historical topic. They compare historians’ claims and evidence, then explain what different source types can show or leave out.

02

What Mastery Looks Like

A student can explain why two historians reach different conclusions about Reconstruction and point to evidence behind each claim. They can name an assumption that shapes an account and a limit of its source type.

03

Common Misconceptions

Students may treat a textbook as a neutral list of facts or confuse a historian’s interpretation with a firsthand record. They may notice conflicting claims without checking the evidence or assumptions behind them.

04

How to Assess It

Give students short excerpts from W. E. B. Du Bois and a Dunning School historian on Reconstruction. Ask them to name one difference in their claims, cite evidence for each, and identify one limitation of the excerpts.

1. 01

   Give pairs printed Du Bois and Dunning School excerpts on Reconstruction; have them underline claims, circle evidence, and mark assumptions.

2. 02

   Ask students to write: How does each historian describe Black political participation during Reconstruction, and what evidence supports each account?

3. 03

   Run a card sort matching a textbook page, museum label, and historian article with one strength and one limitation each.

4. 04

   Print National Park Service and Britannica pages on Reconstruction; have students compare what each includes, leaves out, and says about its author.

• SS24.HS.6

  Compare historical methods utilized for research and evaluate how these methods yield information regarding the selected historical subject.

• SS24.7.4a

  Differentiate among primary, secondary, and tertiary sources in how they are used to study both history and geography.

• SS24.HS.4

  Locate and utilize a variety of primary sources related to the selected historical subject.