Mary Henry Timeline

Lesson Activity One:
[Home work due at the beginning of the class period]:
One or more nights in advance, give students the transcript of the excerpts Mary Henry’s diary and ask them to read and mark accordingly:

• Any piece of information Henry stated as a fact highlighted in yellow.
• Any statement (could be a word or phrase) that expresses a personal opinion should be underlined in green.

Note: A sentence could have both a statement of fact as well as an opinion in it. Both should be marked.

Lesson Activity Two:
Students work in pairs to create a timeline using 8.5x14” paper. They will transfer only highlighted information (statements of fact from the diary) from Part 1 to their rough draft timeline. Explain to them that what they are doing is peer reviewing the other student’s analysis. Peer review is an essential tool for a historian. Peer reviews allows a historian to challenge their own argument against the work and understanding of other historians. (10 minutes)

• Put a star on the timeline beside entries where both students agree.
• Put student initials beside an entry from only one team member.

Lesson Activity Three:
The teams create cohort groups of 10-12 students (5-6 teams) to peer review the partner work and craft a final draft of their combined timelines. (20 minutes)

Assign one team in each group the task of leading the peer review. Divide time (3-4 minutes per team) so all teams have a chance to facilitate/scribe. The facilitator will read an entry from the Mary Henry diary. Both facilitator and scribe will work together to lead a large-group discussion on the whether or not the entry is fact.

Guiding questions for facilitators:

• What shows you this entry is a fact?
  • What is your support? (possible responses)
    • “Mary is reporting what she saw, and there appears to be no bias in that reporting.”
    • “Mary explains how she got that information—who her source is.”
    • “The fact seems to fit what we know already know about the assassination.”

• Why do you question this entry as a fact?
  • What is your support? (possible responses)
    • “Mary Henry uses language or makes claims that make her statement questionable.” (Give specific examples.)
    • “Mary Henry couldn’t have been in the room for that conversation and doesn’t report where she got the information.”
    • “The fact does not fit what we already know about the assassination.”

The large group votes on whether to include each “confirmed fact” on a new 8.5x14” timeline. The scribe will write the entry, if approved, and record the number of votes. If not approved, he/she will write it on a small sticky note (with the vote count) and place it above the timeline in the appropriate place. This process will continue until the group has voted on all diary entries from the rough draft.

Note:This could be done as a part of the whole-class activity, moving directly from the rough draft to the craft-paper timeline, but be sure you give all students the chance to lead.

Note: The vote count is an integral part of the process. The minority voice should have its objections be heard. There are often multiple lenses through which one event can be seen. The vote count allows students to see that historians aren’t always in agreement. In addition, when minority voices are captured, those voices may be more invested in the process. Finally, minority voices contribute to an open dialogue, which asks all participants to be open to new data and interpretations.

Lesson Activity Four:
In a whole-class setting, discuss (12 minutes):
Historians often must piece together numerous accounts of the same event in order to recreate the event accurately. Multiple perspectives and sources can give us a clearer account of what actually happened and help us to uncover what is may be turn out to be misinformation, gossip or bias. In the course of the whole-class discussion, have students write their responses to the questions below and place them where they seem to fit best in the timeline.

• Brainstorm, based on what the group already knows about the assassination, what pieces of information are missing in the Mary Henry diary (Possible answers: Mary Surratt, Stanton’s investigation, Booth’s escape and manhunt…)
• Where could we find this missing information? (Possible answers: from other eye witness accounts, official reports, newspapers...)
• Where can you identify bias in Mary Henry’s writing?
• Every diary has bias, but does that bias affect the diary’s credibility as a primary source?

Note: If you teach multiple sections of the same class, consider either creating one timeline for all the sections or displaying the timelines for the other classes to see. Peer review is an invaluable tool to historians, and giving each class a glimpse into the work of their peers could show that different groups may see the same evidence differently.

Lesson Activity Five:
Exit Ticket: Give the students a note card and ask them to reflect on what they’ve learned about peer reviewing a primary source. Collect the ticket at the end of the hour. (3 minutes)

Assessment:
Assess the students by examining their highlighted homework and their work developing a rough draft of the timeline with their partners. The large-group timeline could also be used as formative assessment. Finally, assess group work during the whole-class discussion based on each students contributions and their exit tickets.

Extension/Differentiation
If students have limited experience with identifying facts and opinions, the homework assignment could be done in the class period prior to this lesson.

Create a glossary for both archaic language and high-Lexile words.

This lesson lends itself to a second-day discussion of both the assassination and the writing process. For example:

• Give students other accounts of the assassination. Remembering Lincoln includes more than two dozen diaries, available digitally. Have the students piece together events of the assassination and Lincoln funeral train from selected entries on Remembering Lincoln.
• Give students primary sources from a different historical event (e.g., the Boston Massacre) and have them peer-review the information to piece together a more accurate account of what happened.
• Bring in a peer-reviewed historian to talk about the process of moving from research to publication.
• Have students reflect on how their writing process could be strengthened through peer review via group discussion or written reflection.

Contemporary Connections: One of the most important tasks a citizen has is analyzing what leaders are saying determine accuracy and identify bias. This lesson could be a springboard into looking at accounts of any contemporary issue or current event. Is the source (both the author and medium) credible? Is the source accurate? What are other sources saying about the same event? Students might use Politifact and FactCheck to analyze statements by public leaders. Students might look at how different media outlets cover the same event. By looking at news coverage, students wrestle with how perspective and bias affect how an event is covered.