In this lesson, history teacher Johanna Heppeler guides her students through a process of “sourcing a document,” which includes a consideration of the speaker, the occasion, the audience, the purpose and the tone. By helping her students situate Lincoln’s speeches in time and place, she helps them contextualize and understand Lincoln’s word choices and the structure of each speech. Ms. Heppeler uses a variety of multimedia resources to support her objectives, including political cartoons and maps. Ms. Heppeler models a way to annotate text.
Things to watch for:
- Ms. Heppeler modeling strategies and thinking she is working to teach her students
- A focus on specific word choices as a way to analyze overall meaning and tone
- The use of multimedia resources that support learning objectives
- Ms. Heppeler modeling how to annotate a text as a way to extend understanding
More classroom videos with Johanna Heppeler: