Sourcing the Boston Massacre Without Turning Documents Into True/False Items
At a ninth-grade team meeting, two teachers disagree about a three-day document-based question on the Boston Massacre. The department has 28 students, one-to-one laptops, and no subscription database. The shared packet contains four items: a 1770 patriotic print, Captain Thomas Preston's account, an excerpt from the trial transcript, and a textbook paragraph. One teacher wants to drop the print because it is biased; the other wants it as the centerpiece. On a pre-assessment, 19 of 28 students wrote claims such as 'The print is unreliable, so it tells us nothing,' and only 6 cited two documents in the same paragraph. The team must revise the unit before Monday, cannot add a fifth source, and must keep the district requirement that students write an evidence-based paragraph. The chair asks for a plan that uses the existing packet to teach reliability as a question of usefulness for a specific claim, not as a label.
1. Recommend a sequence for the four sources and explain how the sequence uses the pre-assessment data to address the 19-of-28 misconception. Identify what claim each source would be used to explore.
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The sequence should start with the print, not because it is neutral but because it is the most obvious 'biased' source and makes the misconception visible. Ask: What did the printmaker want viewers to believe, and what specific details support that? Then move to Preston's account to show a participant with a different purpose. Third, the trial transcript excerpt allows corroboration: students compare specific words and claims across the print and Preston. Last, the textbook paragraph becomes a synthesis source, not an authority that settles everything.
This order uses the 19 responses as diagnostic data. Those students treated reliability as a property of the whole document. The sequence forces a narrower question: reliable for what claim? For example, the print is useful for evidence of how Patriots shaped public opinion, but weak for evidence of who fired first. Preston is useful for the officer's perspective, but not for crowd size. The transcript is useful for cross-examination, with limits. The exit ticket should ask students to name one claim each source can and cannot support. That directly measures whether they can move from labeling to sourcing.
2. Design a 15-minute formative check that reveals whether students can corroborate rather than merely label a source as biased. State the claim students evaluate and what you would look for in their written responses.
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Give students the claim: 'The soldiers fired without orders.' Ask them to do three things in 10 minutes: (1) cite one detail from Preston that bears on the claim, (2) cite one detail from the print or transcript that complicates or supports it, and (3) write two sentences explaining how the sources together affect their confidence. In the last 5 minutes, collect and sort responses into three piles: no citation, citation without comparison, and citation with comparison.
Look for whether students explain purpose and audience when using the print. A strong response says the print is designed to outrage and therefore cannot by itself prove who fired, but it can show what Patriot audiences were asked to believe. A weak response says the print is biased and therefore useless. Also look for students who note that Preston's account is self-interested but still useful for order-giving. The check is not a graded quiz; it is a sorting task that tells you which students need a second pass on corroboration before the paragraph.
3. A colleague argues that three days of sourcing will crowd out coverage of the causes of the Revolution. Respond with a concrete plan that uses the sources to teach causation within the three-day limit.
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The response should reject the either/or framing. Sourcing is not a separate skill unit; it is how students evaluate causal claims. Day 1: students read the print and Preston and identify competing causal claims about the shooting. Day 2: they compare the transcript and textbook, then sort causes into immediate, underlying, and interpretive. Day 3: they write the evidence-based paragraph answering, 'What caused the Boston Massacre?' with one source as evidence and one source as counterevidence.
This keeps the content goal, causes of the Revolution, in view: the Massacre becomes a case study in how propaganda and testimony shape public anger and escalation. The colleague's concern about coverage is legitimate, so the plan names what is cut: the textbook paragraph is not read aloud, and the fifth source is not added. The assessment is the paragraph, not a separate worksheet. Students still learn chronology and causation, but they learn that causal arguments depend on source purpose and corroboration.