The nation's founding documents are generally a required part of every history curriculum, and are included in every state's United States history standards. But beyond the requirements, these documents offer a critical source of information that -- together with other first-hand accounts such as journals and letters -- helps us understand how our country was founded and why it was formed as it was. Working directly with the documents takes us to the source, and helps us understand our history through the words of people who were there. In this session, you will analyze several of our nation's founding documents, and explore strategies for using documents with your students.

Content Focus

After completing this session, you will be able to:

• explain in detail the main arguments, positions, sentiments, and/or point-of-view of at least two founding documents; and
• describe several ways in which documents provide information about specific historical events or circumstances.

Strategy Focus

After completing this session, you will be able to:

• apply several cooperative learning strategies that help students (a) understand and work with historical documents, and (b) find the work with documents engaging; and
• describe how students can use primary source documents to discover explanations about past events.