Analyzing Points of View and Validity in Primary Sources
1. Establish an AIMOO account at www.aimoo.com
2. Use your first and last name as your username
3. Log on to US History III forums at http://messageboard724739.aimoo.com
Bookmark this page in Internet Explorer!
4. Password is prhs
5. Once your account is established and you have successfully logged in to the site, open up the first forum, Causes of the Civil War: 3 Southern Perspectives. Follow the links to read one of the 3 historical documents posted online.
6. As you read, the document think about writing an essay containing the following items:
a. Summary of the article
b. Point of View (POV) Analysis
c. Validity Analysis
d. Your own opinion of the content - do you agree or disagree with the author? Why?
A summary should be short - just a basic description telling the reader who wrote the article (author) and what the article is about.
A POV Analysis requires you to critically examine the author's viewpoint - why is the author writing this article? What purpose does it serve? Whose cause benefits from the content? Is the author attempting to be objective, or is he opinionated and biased?
Use one or more examples from the text to justify your analysis (evidence!)
A Validity Analysis is an attempt to examine the authenticity of a historical document. How close in time are the author and the event/content within the document? Is the author writing about something contemporary (as it is happening, such as a newspaper reporter writing about breaking news) or historical (happened some time ago - months or years ago)?
A Validity Analysis also uses your POV analysis to help determine the accuracy of the information in the document. You should describe how accurate and well-informed you believe the author is regarding his subject. Usually writers who attempt to be objective are much more trustworthy (valid) sources than opinionated and biased ones.
Your opinion of the article is not merely telling the reader why you do or don't like reading it (or doing the essay!). It is to be a well-informed, justified opinion of why you agree or disagree with the author, using facts from the article itself or other relevant sources (like what you've learned in class, or other reliable sources of data, either from books or the internet).
Post your essay in the appropriate forum for the week. You will be graded on grammar, composition (clearly expressed main ideas and supporting sentences in each paragraph; organized and logical progression of argument), depth of thought (showing that you, the author, thought carefully about your statement and the subject article), and prompt posting early in the week. If you wait until Thursday, Friday, or the weekend to post, you will receive less credit than if you post between Mon and Wed.
