Alabama Social Studies SS24.HS.6
The Standard
Compare historical methods utilized for research and evaluate how these methods yield information regarding the selected historical subject.
2024 Alabama Course of Study: Social Studies
Teacher's field guide
What This Standard Means
What Students Need to Do
- Students investigate one historical event by reading archived records and analyzing recorded interviews. They compare what each method reveals, what it misses, and how reliable its findings are.
What Mastery Looks Like
- A student can use a 1955 boycott news report to establish what was reported at the time and a participant interview to learn about personal experiences. They can explain why the report's viewpoint and the participant's memory both need checking.
Common Misconceptions
- Students may treat a later interview as a perfect record of what happened. They may assume a newspaper report is neutral because it was published at the time. Some confuse finding more sources with using a different research method.
How to Assess It
- Hand out a short 1955 Montgomery bus boycott news excerpt and a later participant interview excerpt. Ask students to name each research method, one finding each supports, and one limitation of each.
Lesson moves
Ways to Teach It
Give pairs a boycott news clipping and participant interview excerpt; have them highlight reported events in blue and personal recollections in yellow.
Ask students to write: Which source better shows how riders felt during the boycott, and what would you check before trusting it?
Play Method Match with boycott claim cards; students match each claim to an archive search or oral history and defend their pick.
Compare a dated school yearbook page with a two-minute interview of a longtime staff member to investigate one change at your school.
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Related Standards
- SS24.HS.9b
Evaluate the effectiveness of different methods of presenting historical findings to an audience.
- SS24.HS.8
Utilize various historical methods to acquire information on the selected subject and relate findings to the research question created.
- SS24.HS.4
Locate and utilize a variety of primary sources related to the selected historical subject.
- SS24.HS.2c
Apply the concept of historiography through contrasting how various historians have interpreted the historical subject.
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