Grade 6 Lesson at a Glance: Chapter 3, Lesson 1

Houghton Mifflin Social Studies
A Message of Ancient Days

Lesson at a Glance
Chapter 3, Lesson 1: Understanding History (pp. 56-61)

The Big Idea
Framework Concept: Interconnectedness Historians use a variety of sources of information about the past to interpret what happened.

Discuss with students the differences between written and non-written materials. Encourage them to give you examples of each from their lives, and to look to the both the personal (grocery lists, handwritten notes, diaries), and the more public (interviews in the local or student newspaper, class speeches.)

Review what makes a source primary or secondary. Give students some examples, then ask them to give some. Be sure they understand the importance of when the source was produced.

Lesson Outline
Use the Lesson Outline to preview the content of the lesson. You may wish to print it for your students as a guide during reading.

Check for Understanding

Tell about an historical event that your students will know or understand. Then ask each student to be a historian and to make a list of as many ideal written and non-written sources as he or she would like to work with. Students should not worry about whether these sources actually exist.
Stage a simple, unexpected event in the classroom such as a student rushing in, saying something very quickly, then leaving. Then ask the rest of the students what they saw. Encourage them to compare what the student/actor did, wore, and said. Discuss the differences among students' understandings of the event. Then ask how, if they were a group of historians, they would describe the event.

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