1) Provide a summary of the historical context (background) that is relevant to the source you picked. Use the information provided in the lesson and the information about the source to craft your summary. Be sure to use your own words. (Note that rearranging the order of words or changing a word here or there does not make a sentence one’s own. See Avoiding Plagiarism for more detail.)
2) Who wrote the source, when, where, and why?
3) Analyze the source. What did the author say? How does the historical context help you to critique or better understand what the source is saying? Consider the source’s perspective.
4) Draw conclusions: What information can we learn by looking at the primary source within historical context? (Keep in mind that we are only using one primary source – one piece of a much larger puzzle – so keep the conclusions limited to what we can learn from analyzing the source within context.)
Source picked:
James Monroe on Slave Trade: http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm?smtID=3&psid=202
