Script:

Cognitive Apprenticeship: Modeling

CHQ: What caused the Sepoy Revolution
Today we will be working on how to source a document. Like all historians, we will use this
strategy of sourcing to see if this document is reliable.
We need to determine reliability in the hopes it can then help us answer our CHQ
(HAVE A STUDENT READ THE CHQ)

Strategy/questions I ask:
-what is sourcing? sourcing: how it helps historians determine reliability of what we
read
-what does sourcing look like? I will model for you now. As I am doing this, I want you to
replicate what I am doing to my paper own your own.

Can someone tell me what you need to be doing right now?

Supplies you will need are 1-2 colored pens and your document.
We are using a colored pen instead of black or a pencil because your notes will be more
visible for when you are writing your answer to the CHQ later. I am using 2 colors to keep my
evidence organized so my notes are clearly separated. Personal preference

Step 1 for sourcing:

underline at the date the document was written on. Now underline the date the event occurred
on which can usually be found in the title or in other cases I will make sure to give that
information to you. I am labeling the dates so that I can see if they are different.
I see that the document I’m reading was written almost 20 years later. That’s a long time. I
wonder how it affects people’s memory. I can’t even tell you what I was doing 2 years ago on a
specific day.

In my head I’m envisioning a thermometer that starts at 100 degrees and then decreases with
unreliability. After finding out this is a textbook, my thermometer dropped 5 degrees.
How many degrees is my reliability thermometer at?
95

Step 2 circle what kind of document this is:

Are all textbooks reliable? I don’t think so. After finding out this is a textbook, my thermometer
dropped 5 degrees.
90

Step 3
underline the author: switching colors!
read his excerpt
Do I know who this person is? Where is he from? Which side can I assume he’s on?
I’m going to circle English, I want to write it on the side on my paper to keep in mind as I’m
reading the text what perspective this person has.
What about his occupation? It says he’s a historian and professor at a college. Well he seems
like a well-read guy so I’m bumping my thermometer up like 5 degrees.
How many degrees is my reliability thermometer at?
95

Step 4: who was this written for?

I’m going to underline the words “English textbook edited for American students and he wrote
for young students”
From what I know, the English were in the conflict, so the have a certain biased right?
If they had a bias textbook written, and then edited it for Americans, I wonder what they are
editing? That word Seems important to think about so I’m going to underline the word edit
twice to visual see it’s an important note.
What comes to mind when you think of the word “edit”?
Let’s jot these down underneath the vocabulary box since it’s a word we are defining

I think of editing as changing or manipulating a document. I have 2 claims here: the English
author is biased towards the English perspective and the would editing means changing the
original. I think my reliability thermometer should drop 20 degrees lower because I think this is
means the text significantly straying further and further from the truth .
Can anyone tell me what my reliability thermometer is at now?
75 degrees

I’m going to draw my thermometer at about 75 degrees in the corner. If you have another
representation of 75/100 go ahead and draw that instead if you want.

I am drawing the 75 in the upper right corner so that I can see how it compares to the other
documents we read on my thermometer scale of reliability.

Now that we sourced this document,

Read it independently for 4-7 minutes