Life in a Box

What’s in Your Pocket and Life in a Box

Learning goals:

• Create and test a hypothesis.
• Support a hypothesis with evidence and background knowledge.

To prepare:

1. Place primary source clues about an individual in an envelope or box. Depending on size of group, participants may share one box or work individually.  Boxes will be differentiated according to reading ability, background knowledge, or media type. Include the bibliographic record.  Red = most challenging, Blue = average difficulty, Green = least challenging.
2. Determine student grouping and assignment of boxes.
3. Post criteria for Sleuth levels, apprentice, journeyman, master.
4. Model “What’s in you Pocket?” warm-up activity with the whole group, actions 1 through 8 below.
5. Rate the hypothesis from the groups’ What’s in Your Pocket activity

Evaluating a Hypothesis:

• Master Sleuth: uses evidence from an examination, subject knowledge, and research with multiple sources to support a hypothesis.
• Journeyman Sleuth: uses evidence from an examination and subject knowledge to
  support a hypothesis.
• Apprentice Sleuth: makes a hypothesis without specific evidence to support it.

 

“What’s in Your Pocket?”

1. Find a partner, preferably someone not very familiar.
2. Choose an item from a pocket, purse, or bag. Sample items might be keys, receipts, jewelry, or other items.
3. Learn about your partner through the routine, Describe, Question, Guess

Describe objectively the item (a primary source artifact under examination) to a partner.

Work as a Historical Sleuth to ask and then the partner answers a few questions about the item.

Guess or make a hypothesis about the owner of the item’s life based on the discoveries.

*Offer evidence to support or refute the hypothesis. Evaluate the Sleuth level of the hypothesis.

1. Repeat the process, switching roles with the partner.
2. Once the activity has finished, discuss the following:

• What professionals work in this manner?
• How could you support your hypothesis about someone’s life to improve your Sleuth level?
• What types of thinking were you and your partner using?

Life in a Box

Part One: Examining primary source clues to create a supported hypothesis.

1. Assign or ask students to choose a box or envelope with primary source clues in it.
2. Examine primary source items in numerical order from one of the boxes.  Start with the lowest number, the most difficult primary source clue. Use bibliographic information to answer questions about the items.
3. Examine the items found in the box to:

• Describe and determine what the item is.
• Determine to whom the item may have belonged and what the item may tell about the person’s life.
• Use the student worksheet to facilitate examining the items.

1. Discuss how primary source sleuthing builds aspects of student understanding.
2. Share findings with large group if time permits and evaluate sleuth levels.

Part Two: Create an exhibition as a performance assessment to make explicit the big ideas of a subject.

Establish that students will take on the role of curators to create a new exhibit for a museum on _____________. Announce that the space for the exhibition is limited.

Participants will:

1. Complete the process again with a set of boxes related to one subject chosen by the facilitator.
   Determine a common characteristic of the items that were chosen. For example, role in history.
2. Choose one item from the box to represent the individual’s work for an exhibition. Be able to justify why this item is representative.
3. Tape the items on a wall to create an exhibition for review.
4. Identify a title for the Exhibition and big ideas about the subject that are supported through the primary sources in the exhibition. Discuss “What might the exhibition suggest about the Library of Congress”?
5. Brainstorm next steps to with students.

Differentiated Instruction: Academic Readiness Level

• Provide a variety of primary sources requiring the use of different academic strengths to interpret.
• Assign students to explorations that are more concretely or abstractly related to the For example, a box with a green label might begin with a portrait of a person the items represent and may have bibliographic information included with each item. A box with a red label might begin with an item that encourages the student to make a wrong hypothesis and may contain no bibliographic information.

 

Teaching for Understanding: Facets of understanding and primary source analysis

Primary source analysis requires students to use facets of understanding described by Wiggins, G. & J. McTighe. (1998). Understanding by Design: Alexandria, VA: Association of Supervision and Curriculum Development. (44-47)

• Explain: support hypothesis by pointing to evidence in primary sources.
• Interpret: make sense of primary sources by connecting to personal experience and knowledge.
• Apply: skills and knowledge from multiple subjects to identify and interpret a primary source.
• Perspective: identify the perspective of a primary source and agree or disagree with it.
• Empathize: recognize the value of a primary source in terms of history and today.
• Self-knowledge: evaluate the level a hypothesis is supported in reliable evidence and realize when to conduct further research.

 

Life in a Box: Assessment Criteria

Which Sleuth describes your hypothesis?

Master Sleuth

• Uses specific evidence from investigation.
• Supports Ideas with background/subject

knowledge.

• Has more questions and puzzles for future research.

Journeyman Sleuth

• Uses specific evidence from investigation.
• Supports ideas with background/subject

knowledge.

Apprentice Sleuth

• Uses background knowledge.
• Needs more time to support the idea with specific evidence.

Life in a Box Analysis – Recording Sheet

Name _______________________

 

Confirm Explain how the artifact confirmed what you already knew about this person.   1.         2.         3.	Surprise Explain why you were surprised to see this artifact in a box about the person.   1.         2.         3.
Question Write questions you have about the person’s life and/or the artifacts.       1.           2.               3.	Add Identify artifacts that could be added to the box to improve the description of this person’s life. Explain why the item should be added on another piece of paper.   1.           2.               3.

 

Life in a Box Analysis – Recording Sheet

 

Names ____________________________________    Date:  _____________             Item #: ____

 

Time Period Explain what this artifact tells you about the time period from which it was taken.  Look for clues such as:  clothing, hairstyles, newspapers, city signs, transportation, and other dated objects.   1.       2.       3.	Person Explain what you can learn about the person or people in the photograph.  What might have been important to them, what job may they have held, and what type of person may they have been?   1.       2.       3.
Personal Connection How can you connect or identify with the person or people in the picture?  What similarities and differences can you notice?       1.         2.         3.     4.	List and Describe Use this space to list and describe the items in the picture.  You will look back at each of these to help determine who the activity is about.   1.     2.     3.     4.     5.     6.