6.12.E

ELA6th GradeThe student engages in both short-term and sustained recursive inquiry processes for a variety of purposes.

The Standard

differentiate between primary and secondary sources

Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills for English Language Arts and Reading

Teacher's field guide

What Students Need to Do: Students decide whether a source provides direct evidence from a person or time being studied or explains that evidence later. They support each decision with source details.
What Mastery Looks Like: Students correctly sort interviews, letters, photographs, articles, and textbooks based on their relationship to the topic. They explain their choices using the source's creator, date, and purpose.
Common Misconceptions: Students may think any old document is firsthand evidence. They may also classify sources by format, assuming all books are later accounts and all photographs are original evidence.
How to Assess It: Give students a diary entry and a textbook paragraph about the same event. Ask them to label each source and explain one reason for each choice.

Lesson moves

Give pairs source cards, such as diaries, textbooks, interviews, and biographies, to sort into firsthand evidence and later accounts.
Ask students to explain which source they would trust for an eyewitness's feelings and which they would use for historical context.
Play Source Sort Relay, with teams racing to place source cards under firsthand evidence or later account headings and defend each choice.
Compare a recorded sports interview with a news recap, then list what each source reveals about the same game.

Keep exploring

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