Please note that many tasks were constructed prior to Common Core and the task alignments to the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) were not identified in the task materials. To search for the performance tasks explicitly aligned to the CCSS, Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), or College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework for Social Studies State Standards, please go to CCSS, NGSS, and C3 tabs.
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Source Subject Grade Level |
Portrait of an Iroquois Leader This task assesses whether students can source and contextualize a document. Students must first examine a painting of an Iroquois man by a British artist, then determine which facts can help them evaluate the painting's historical reliability. Strong students will be able to explain how the false impression that Hendrick was an emperor (Fact 1) and the alliance between the British and the Iroquois against the French (Fact 3) may have fostered the regal and flattering nature of the painting. Resources available for this task include downloadable PDF versions of both the assessment as well as the Rubric with benchmark descriptors. |
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Source Subject Grade Level |
Post-Civil War South This task assesses whether students can source and contextualize a document. Students must first examine an interview about the slaves freed from a plantation, then determine which facts can help them evaluate the interview's reliability. Strong students should be able to explain how the time elapsed between the interview and the events described (Fact 1) might affect the accuracy of his account. They should also be able to explain how Carter's family's allegiance to the Confederacy during the Civil War (Fact 2) could have influenced his perspective and affected the information he chose to include. Resources available for this task include downloadable PDF versions of both the assessment as well as the Rubric with benchmark descriptors. |
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Source Subject Grade Level |
President Grant and Horace Greeley This assessment gauges students’ ability to source, contextualize, and corroborate a document. Students must consider how the contextual information about John Defrees's pamphlet on Grant's presidency affects its reliability as historical evidence. Then, students must identify other information that would help them further evaluate the reliability of the pamphlet. Resources available for this task include downloadable PDF versions of both the assessment as well as the Rubric with benchmark descriptors. |
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Source Subject Grade Level |
Resilience Cafe In this task, students will explore what it means to be resilient in life through connecting historical stories of resilience with stories from the comunity or even personal stories. This task includes: |
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Source Subject Grade Level |
Riis' Urban Photography This task assesses students’ ability to source, contextualize, and corroborate a document from the Industrial era. Students are asked to consider how contextual information could affect the reliability of Jacob Riis' photography. Then, students must think of other information they would like to know about Riis or the circumstances surrounding the photograph in order to further evaluate their reliability. Resources available for this task include downloadable PDF versions of both the assessment as well as the Rubric with benchmark descriptors |
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Source Subject Grade Level |
Rockefeller This task assesses students’ ability to reason how evidence supports a historical argument. Students must explain how both an excerpt from the influential book of investigative journalist Ida Tarbell critiquing the company practices of Standard Oil Company, as well as a newspaper’s take on the Rockefeller Foundation’s incorporation, both support the conclusion that many Americans were concerned about the growing power of a small number of wealthy businessmen at the dawn of the 20th century. Resources available for this task include downloadable PDF versions of both the assessment with excerpts, as well as the Rubric with benchmark descriptors, and links to the original source materials through the Library of Congress' website. |
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Source Subject Grade Level |
Seven Years' War This task assesses whether students can source and contextualize a document. Students must first examine an 1870s image of French General Louis-Joseph de Montcalm and then determine which fact can help them evaluate the reliability of the drawing as evidence of what happened at Fort William Henry. Strong students will be able to explain how prevailing attitudes about Native Americans (Fact 1) could affect how an artist depicts the past. Resources available for this task include downloadable PDF versions of both the assessment as well as the Rubric with benchmark descriptors. |
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Source Subject Grade Level |
Standard Oil Company This task assesses students' ability to evaluate the relevance of contextual information for determining the motivations of an author. Students must select two facts from a cartoon made by Udo Keppler in 1904, and explain how they shed light on his depiction of Standard Oil. Students with a strong understanding of contextualization will be able to explain how the company's growing control over the oil industry, and Tarbell's muckraking reports on Standard Oil, may have influenced Keppler's depiction. Resources available for this task include downloadable PDF versions of both the assessment as well as the Rubric with benchmark descriptors. |
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Source Subject Grade Level |
The Case of the Clock This task assesses students' ability to evaluate the relevance of contextual information for determining the motivations of an author. Students must select one fact, and explain how it sheds light on why Edward Curtis altered a photograph of Native Americans before publishing it. Students with a strong understanding of contextualization will be able to explain how the popular belief that Indians did not understand modern technology might have influenced Curtis's decision to alter the photograph. Resources available for this task include downloadable PDF versions of both the assessment as well as the Rubric with benchmark descriptors. |
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Source Subject Grade Level |
The First Thanksgiving This task measures students’ ability to source a document. When historians interpret a document, they look at who wrote it and when. Source information presents clues about whether the document provides reliable evidence about the past. This task gauges whether students understand an important aspect of sourcing: the time elapsed between when a document (in this case, a painting) was produced, and the event it depicts. To accomplish this, students must agree or disagree with a claim about the usefulness of the source, and explain their thinking. The task includes a range of supplementary materials, many available for download with the creation of a free account:
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