Document Walks
Document walks are a great way to engage students by having them move around the room to analyze a set of primary source documents. The process engages students in the historical process, but also builds student literacy skills in the process. Teachers can use document walks in a variety of ways. They can engage students in the process by creating an essential question and asking students to answer and build on that essential question throughout the document walk process or they can ask students to connect the documents in some other way.
Steps:
1. Select a collection of primary source documents. These can be documents that are the same type or a mixture of types. I would recommend selecting at least 5 documents so that students groups are not too large.
2. Think about how you might set up your room to make the document walk process easier. Students need to be able to easily navigate around the room. In addition, I would suggest posting each document on some type of poster board or sticky paper to allow each group to record their impressions in a way in which all groups can see.
3. Break students into small groups.
4. Ask each group to go to a document placed around the room. Then, ask each group to record their "first impression" of the document. What do they think this is? What emotion does it evoke, if any? Etc.
5. Think about how much time you want to allow each group at each document. This depends on how long or complicated the documents are, but I would suggest no more than 2-5 minutes per document. It is best to set some sort of timer that students can see. A great resource for this is Online Stopwatch (www.online-stopwatch.com).
6. Ask groups to rotate to the next document and again record their impressions. However, instruct the groups that they should respond with a different statement than the previous groups stated.
7. Repeat this process until each group has visited every document.
8. Have a whole class discussion about this process and the overall impressions of each document.
9. Ask students to get back in groups and start the rotation process again. This time, give students a Primary Source Analysis Guide (see below). Have them complete this form as a group. Repeat document rotations.
10. Ask students to come back together as a whole class. Have a class discussion by going over the analysis guide.
11. Finally, ask students to complete the quickwrite question on their analysis form. This question can be a general question about the documents or could be a question that asks students to tie in all of the documents in some way. If this is a question that asks students to tie the documents together in some way you may want to give students this question at during step 9.
Document Walk Example:
Document walks are a great way to engage students by having them move around the room to analyze a set of primary source documents. The process engages students in the historical process, but also builds student literacy skills in the process. Teachers can use document walks in a variety of ways. They can engage students in the process by creating an essential question and asking students to answer and build on that essential question throughout the document walk process or they can ask students to connect the documents in some other way.
Steps:
1. Select a collection of primary source documents. These can be documents that are the same type or a mixture of types. I would recommend selecting at least 5 documents so that students groups are not too large.
2. Think about how you might set up your room to make the document walk process easier. Students need to be able to easily navigate around the room. In addition, I would suggest posting each document on some type of poster board or sticky paper to allow each group to record their impressions in a way in which all groups can see.
3. Break students into small groups.
4. Ask each group to go to a document placed around the room. Then, ask each group to record their "first impression" of the document. What do they think this is? What emotion does it evoke, if any? Etc.
5. Think about how much time you want to allow each group at each document. This depends on how long or complicated the documents are, but I would suggest no more than 2-5 minutes per document. It is best to set some sort of timer that students can see. A great resource for this is Online Stopwatch (www.online-stopwatch.com).
6. Ask groups to rotate to the next document and again record their impressions. However, instruct the groups that they should respond with a different statement than the previous groups stated.
7. Repeat this process until each group has visited every document.
8. Have a whole class discussion about this process and the overall impressions of each document.
9. Ask students to get back in groups and start the rotation process again. This time, give students a Primary Source Analysis Guide (see below). Have them complete this form as a group. Repeat document rotations.
10. Ask students to come back together as a whole class. Have a class discussion by going over the analysis guide.
11. Finally, ask students to complete the quickwrite question on their analysis form. This question can be a general question about the documents or could be a question that asks students to tie in all of the documents in some way. If this is a question that asks students to tie the documents together in some way you may want to give students this question at during step 9.
Document Walk Example:
document_walk_form-_abraham_lincoln.docx | |
File Size: | 16 kb |
File Type: | docx |
document_walk-_abraham_lincoln.pdf | |
File Size: | 203 kb |
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document_walk-_abraham_lincoln_to_mary_todd_lincoln_march_4_1860.pdf | |
File Size: | 233 kb |
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document_walk-_for_president_abraham_lincoln_for_vice_president_hannibal_hamlin.pdf | |
File Size: | 277 kb |
File Type: |
document_walk-_free_speech_free_soil_free_men1.pdf | |
File Size: | 288 kb |
File Type: |
document_walk-_reynolds_political_map_of_the_united_states_1856.pdf | |
File Size: | 1083 kb |
File Type: |
document_walk-_the_address_of_the_honorable_abraham_lincoln.pdf | |
File Size: | 57 kb |
File Type: |