Objectives
The first objective for students is to have them explain the background and/or the contextual setting of the United States during the 1840s. Background knowledge is pivotal to comprehension and learning. Thus, by using secondary sources, students will employ chronological concepts in analyzing historical phenomena in this case the first women's rights convention of 1848.
The second objective demands that students understand the importance of primary sources. Primary sources are the same as original sources. Primary sources include a person with direct knowledge of a situation or a document created by such a person Primary sources may include, but are not limited to diary entries, letters, newspaper articles, photographs, and political cartoons. The students will be able to analyze primary sources. Critical examination of historical materials requires logical analysis, an appreciation of context, and an understanding of the principles of evidence.
The students will use their analysis to make inferences regarding the significance of someone's personal history to their own life. Historical inquiry is not limited to the study of specific events, but may also focus on ideas or trends which extend across space and time. It is through asking questions that our comprehension of what we read becomes deeper or clearer. Inquiry and analysis is a key to thinking and learning. The gradual change in the social status of a particular group, in this case women, calls for investigation. Such investigations depend heavily on the ability to construct accurate chronologies and draw logical conclusions regarding cause and effect. Students will investigate and analyze primary sources associated with the early wave of the women's movement.
The third objective requires students to understand that our government functions as a dynamic process within the context of traditions and precedents, which have evolved for more than 200 years. It is important for students to understand that studying history is not a task of isolating individual people or events and keeping them in the past, but rather that there is a continual impact of the past on the present.
The last objective requires students to develop and implement effective research strategies for investigating a given historical topic. Students will be using research skills throughout this unit, and will be required to independently apply them as they complete a transfer task.
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