This lesson is an adaptation of a history lesson designed by the National Endowment for the Humanities. The focus of the lesson is on comparing and contrasting primary sources describing the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 in order to teach students methods for evaluating historical sources. The historical content has been paired with English proficiency standards to help support students comprehension of challenging historical documents. It is designed for high school, but with some adaptation could be used in an 8th grade classroom. The lessons are designed to support Intermediate to Advanced (ELP 3-5) language learners, although students with Beginning proficiency (ELP 1-2) would find some success with this as well. Students compare two newspaper reports on the fire and two memoirs of the fire written many decades later, with an eye on how these accounts complement and compete with one another, and how these sources can be used to draw historical meaning from them.
- Subject:
- Language Education (ESL)
- Reading Informational Text
- U.S. History
- Material Type:
- Lesson
- Lesson Plan
- Primary Source
- Author:
- Regina Jordan
- Oregon Open Learning
- Date Added:
- 06/15/2022
