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 |
Reconstruction Riots This task requires students to weigh the values and limitations of a document as historical evidence on the topic of Reconstruction. Students with a sophisticated understanding of how to source a document will be able to explain that the primary source illustrations (Harper's Weekly, 1866) might be useful because they were contemporary depictions of the riots. They will also observe, however, that the artist may not have been present at the riots- and that this is a rendition drawn either from memory or from others' accounts, making it less useful as evidence of what happened. Resources include PDF downloads of the assessment with source materials, and a rubric with benchmark descriptors. |
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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 |
Seville Quran This task assesses students' knowledge of the time period of Muslim presence in Europe (1200’s)—but rather than measure rote recall of decontextualized facts, this assessment requires students to make connections across time and construct an argument about how events are connected. Students with a strong understanding of the past will explain that the fact the featured source—the Quran—was made in Seville, points to the Islamic presence in the city in 1226. As an Islamic city in Iberia, it was the target of the Reconquista, which was raging at the time this Quran was completed. A strong response to the second question in this task might explain that in the 8th century, the Umayyad Caliphate expanded to Seville and beyond, establishing Islam as the dominant religion in Seville for centuries to come. Resources available for this task include downloadable PDF versions of both the assessment with source materials, as well as the Rubric containing benchmark descriptors. |
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Source Subject Grade Level |
Signing of the Mayflower Compact This task measures students’ ability to source a document. When historians interpret a document, they first look to find out who wrote it and when. This information presents important clues about whether the document provides reliable evidence about the past. This assessment gauges whether students understand an important aspect of sourcing: the time elapsed between when a document was produced and the event that it depicts. Students who understand the importance of when a document was produced will see that this painting offers limited evidence to historians who wish to understand the signing of the Mayflower Compact because it was produced over 200 years after the event. The task includes a range of supplementary materials, all accessible and available for download with the creation of a free account through the site:
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Source Subject Grade Level |
Slave Quarters This task reveals students' ability to source a document, in order to see both its values and limitations. Students will be able to explain how a photograph of former slave quarters provides some evidence of the living conditions of slaves. They will also observe how the fact that the photograph was taken decades after the abolition of slavery limits its usefulness as evidence of antebellum living conditions. The task includes a range of supplementary materials, many available for download with the creation of a free account:
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