Unit+Ideas

Students could use the following questions (IB) to analyze multiple sources on the same story:

O- origin Origin is where the source comes from: author/artist, date it was written/finished, which country the author/artist was born in, where the source was actually produced, in which media (newspaper, book, letter, etc) it is presented. P- purpose Purpose is where you have to put yourself in the author/artist's shoes. What do you think they were trying to communicate to readers? What ideas/feelings were they trying to express/evoke? (The purpose is especially important when it comes to pieces of propaganda as sources). V- value Value is how valuable this source is. Basically it's linked to the amount of bias in the source: the more bias = the less valuable (usually). Primary sources are obviously more valuable than secondary/tertiary ones. Oh and obviously if you're doing something on Hitler's feelings towards Jews, a diary entry from him would be more valuable than a historian's account of how he felt. L- limitation Limitations is also linked to bias, each source will be at least a little biased and thus they are limited by that. If the source has been translated from the original (eg. Hitler's diary entry was translated into English by a historian and you're using the historian's book as a source) then the language difference will be another source of inaccuracy and a limitation.