6 Key Concepts of History  Concept #1  CHANGE: Investigating the extent to which people and events bring about change. Examining a situation before and after events.

6 Concepts of History  Concept #2  CONTINUITY: While history often focuses on significant change, but students should be aware that some change is slow. There also has been considerable continuity in the midst of great historical change.

6 Concepts of History  Concept #3  CAUSATION: Thoroughly explain and understand how a certain set of circumstances originated.

6 Concepts of History  Concept #4  CONSEQUENCE: Understanding how forces in the past have shaped future people and societies. Students should be aware of both long and short term effects.

6 Concepts of History  Concept #5  SIGNIFICANCE: Why was something recorded? What was excluded? Students should assess the relative importance of events, people and evidence and if that evidence supports the claims others make about their significance.

6 Concepts of History  Concept #6  PERSPECTIVES: Students are encouraged to challenge and critique multiple perspectives of the past and to compare them with historical evidence.

How 11 IB will examine documents:  O-Origin  P-Purpose  V-Value  L-Limitations

What types of documents do historians examine?  Primary Sources  Secondary Sources  What happened?  Why did it happen?  Why is it important?  What information is missing?

0: Origin  Examples include: the person responsible for creating it, the date and the place it came from, and the person or audience it was intended for. The more details you can give, the better!  Some source details MAY be given to you.

Questions to ask yourself:  Who created it?  Who is the author?  When was it published?  Where was it published?  Who is publishing it?  Is there anything we know about the author that is pertinent to our evaluation?

P: Purpose  Describe the aims (goals), give the reason for why it was produced.  What was the person who said, wrote or produced it trying to do?  Who was the intended audience?

Questions to ask yourself:  Why does this document exist?  Why did the author create this piece of work? What is the intent?  Why did the author choose this particular format?  Who is the intended audience? Who was the author thinking would receive this?  What does the document “say”?  Can it tell you more than is on the surface?

V: Value  In historical context  Go back to O and P: it could be valuable because it is about an event that the author saw.  You could know the position held by the author, and can then judge if his/her purpose was to convince or deceive.  Note that a source that is not reliable, that is, does not mean what it says, can be of value. Providing you recognize that it is propaganda, clouding the facts, covering up the mistakes made, or intended to support personal gain.

Questions to ask yourself:  What can we tell about the author from the piece?  What can we tell about the time period from the piece?  Under what circumstances was the piece created and how does the piece reflect those circumstances?  What can we tell about any controversies from the piece?  Does the author represent a particular “side” of a controversy or event?  What can we tell about the author’s perspectives from the piece?

L: Limitations  Use knowledge of the source’s origin and context  Students often find a source to be of little value because the writer was not an eyewitness.  BIASED!!!! (not good enough!)  Students often describe content, rather than evaluating the context  In desperation students suggest limitations based on a translation, secondary-not a primary source and that it is biased! (also not good enough!)

L: Limitations Continued  Is there any other information that would help clarify or fill in the holes?  What part of the story can we NOT tell from this document?  How could we verify the content of the piece?  Does this piece inaccurately reflect anything about the time period?  What does the author leave out and why does he/she leave it out (if you know)  What is purposely not addressed?

How to write OPVL  With reference to the origin, purpose and content, what is the VALUE of the document?  With reference to the origin, purpose and content, what are the LIMITATIONS of the document?  Your OPVL should be written in two different paragraphs. One which discusses VALUE (specifically mentioning Origin and Purpose), the other which addresses LIMITATIONS (specifically mentioning Origin and Purpose).

What OPVL should look like..  Paragraph 1: The origin of the document is _________, the value of the origin is ________. The value of the purpose is ____________. The content of the document is valuable because ________. The overall value of the document to historians. is ________.  Paragraph 2: Limitations of the origin, limitations of purpose, limitations of content, overall limitations to historians.

Working with the people at your table…  Communally and on a clean piece of paper, please O,P,V,L the Jamaica Letter written by Simon Bolivar.  Keep in mind all the things we just discussed.  Turn it in to the silver basket on the way out of class today!  Remember-this is just your first try at this, it will get easier and we will keep practicing!