8 th Grade U.S. History Liberty Middle School – EDI APK: Pretend you were just a witness to a car accident. A red car ran into a green car. The police are going to take many statements. There were also many witnesses; an old lady with eyeglasses and a 5 year old child among them. A month after the accident, there is also a newspaper article written based on the police reports. LO: We will analyze 1 the Boston Massacre using primary and secondary sources 2. Connect APK to LO: Just as the scenario above, it is important to look at many different sources and types of sources when trying to understand events in history. Pair-Share: Would the statements from the people in the red car be the same as those in the green car? Why or Why not? If you were the insurance agent trying to determine what happened, whose statements would you read? Why? What else might you learn from the newspaper article written after the fact that the witnesses didn’t say? 1 analyze: to look closely at a piece of information and each of its parts. 2 source: where information is from.

8 th Grade U.S.History Liberty Middle School – EDI Concept Development: Primary sources are written with original, first hand information from the time the event happened. It can include letters, essays, autobiographies, and government documents. You often can get different opinions about an event from primary sources. (This information doesn’t have to be written. It can include pictures and actual objects.) Example: The diary of Benjamin Franklin Non-example: A travel magazine’s article describing places you can visit that Benjamin Franklin was. Secondary sources are written without first-hand knowledge of people and events. A good way to remember this is that the information is second-hand (used). Good secondary sources often draw their information from many different primary sources and put them together in one place, and draw conclusions about events. Example: An article written by a college professor 50 years after the event happened. Non-example: Pictures painted on the wall of a cave where pre- historic people lived. Pair-Share: Is your textbook a primary or secondary source? How do you know? Pair-Share: If we looked at a British primary source about the Boston Massacre and an American primary source about the Boston Massacre, do you think the events would be different? Why? Pair-Share: How is it possible for newspaper articles to be either primary or secondary sources? Can you think of examples?

8 th Grade U.S.History Liberty Middle School – EDI Skill Development/Guided Practice: Analyze the Boston Massacre. 1.Read or look at the source. 2.Determine if the source is a primary or secondary source. 3.What information is being shown or written by the source? Put in your own words, and circle where you found the information in the picture or the text. 4.Does there appear to be a particular opinion about what happened from the source? Explain. Source 1Source 2Source 3 Primary or Secondary? Information from the source… Opinion from the source... primary 5 people (men) died on March 5, British soldiers (in red) fired on colonists (in blue.) anti-British. Used words like “murder” and “massacre”. Source 1: Paul Revere’s engravings that appeared on flyers in the colonies to remind people of British brutality. Source 2: History Alive: The United States through Industrialism, p Trouble had been brewing in Boston for months...To the British, Boston Patriots were the worst troublemakers in the colonies. In 1768, the British government had sent four regiments of troops to keep order in Boston. Mob Violence Breaks Out On March 5, 1770, a noisy mob began throwing rocks and ice balls at troops guarding the Boston Customs House.“Come on you Rascals, you bloody-backs,” they shouted. “Fire if you dare.” Some Patriot leaders tried to persuade the crowd to go home. So did Captain Thomas Preston, the commander of the soldiers. But their pleas had no effect. As the mob pressed forward, someone knocked a soldier to the ground. The troops panicked and opened fire. Two bullets struck Crispus Attucks, a black man at the front of the crowd. He was the first to die, but not the last. The enraged crowd went home only after receiving a promise that the troops would be tried for murder. Source 3: John Adams (patriot and later 2 nd U.S. President) actually defended the British soldiers in court. This is a quote directly from his argument in their defense. “ I will enlarge no more on the evidence, but submit it to you--Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, …they cannot alter [change] the state of facts and evidence: …….if an assault was made to endanger their lives, the law is clear, they had a right to kill in their own defense; if it was not so severe as to endanger their lives, yet if they were assaulted at all, struck and abused by blows of any sort, by snow-balls, oyster-shells, cinders, clubs, or sticks of any kind; this was a provocation, for which the law reduces the offence of killing, down to manslaughter….” –John Adams’ Summation for the Defense secondary

8 th Grade U.S.History Liberty Middle School – EDI Independent Practice: Analysis: From the variety of sources we analyzed today, I learned that the story of the Boston Massacre can be told from many sides. For example, when you read the some sources, they say _____________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________. However, what the other sources say about this is _____________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________. I also learned that it is important to look at different types of sources. Something I learned from a primary source that wasn’t in the secondary source was that_________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________. For more primary sources on the Boston massacre, see

Grade/Subject Liberty Middle School – EDI