Days 2-4

Focus: Investigating multiple perspectives on the event through close reading using sourcing and corroboration

Sources Used
Source B: What they Saw: 5 Eyewitnesses to the Michael Brown Shooting
Source C: New Evidence Supports Darren Wilson’s Account
Source D: What Happened In Ferguson?

Overview:
This set of sources represents three varying perspectives on the event – two of which represent somewhat opposing and more biased perspectives and one that represents a more neutral perspective. The text set should support students in noticing perspectives and in practicing thinking about how the perspectives might play a role in what information is presented about the event and how (i.e. language use, choice of evidence used). The variation in sources also affords comparisons of these factors across sources, supporting students’ understandings of how interpretations of events are constructed.

Activities:
1. We usually spend about one day on each of the sources listed above. I generally engage students in a sequence of three main activities with each source:

• Previewing & “lightly” sourcing the text by asking “who wrote this?”
• Closely reading and annotating the source to corroborate within and across the sources and to answer the question: “According to this source, what caused the riots?”
• Individually writing after reading each source, asking one of the following two prompts: “what is the author’s position about what caused the riots? How can you tell?” or “Do you think this is a reliable source? Why or why not?”

2. After reading the final source on Day 4, as a class generate criteria for how to consider the reliability and trustworthiness of the sources by reviewing the sources used so far in the inquiry.

Classroom Products:
• Our Questions about Ferguson (classroom chart)
• Individual written responses for each source