1. Approximately one week prior to conducting the lesson
ask students (or send home a letter of request to their parents
or guardians) to go home and select 5 "things" (e.g.
pictures, books, old report cards, trophies, certificates,
copies of birth certificates, toys, jewelry, journals, travel
memorabilia etc.) that would enable another person to learn
more about them, their hobbies, their families, their interests,
their past etc.
2. Distribute paper bags. Ask the students to write their
names on them and the phrase "My History Bag." For
younger students you may want to write this on the bags in
advance or ask their parents or guardians to do so. Tell the
students that they are to put their 5 "things" (artifacts
and documents) in the bags and bring them to class in the
bags on the day selected for this lesson. Ask them not to
share the contents of their bags with anyone in class.
3. On the day selected for this lesson, bring in your own
History Bag with items that reveal significant information
about yourself. Model and provide guided practice by taking
one item out of the bag. Ask students to guess what they think
the item reveals about you and your past. Confirm or correct
their conclusions. Continue this until you have gone through
each item in your History Bag then ask one or two students
to summarize what the 5 items reveal about you and your past.
4. Place students in pairs (Student A and Student B) and
ask them to exchange their History Bags with their partners.
Ask Students A to empty the bags of Students B. Then, ask
them to write down or explain orally what they have learned
about Students B from the contents of their bags and have
Students B confirm or correct what the documents or artifacts
were meant to reveal about him or her. Repeat the process
but this time have Students B report on the contents of Students'
A bags. You may want to ask students to share what they have
learned about each other with the entire class. Explain that
what they just did is similar to what historians do when they
construct historical accounts i.e. they draw conclusions from
artifacts and documents.
5. Write the words "documents" and "artifacts"
on the board and offer definitions of each term (Sample
Definitions). Ask the students to take the 5 "things"
from their partners History Bag and put documents on the left
side of their desks or workspace and artifacts on the right.
Have the students check the placements while you walk around
the room doing likewise. Invite the class to identify some
of the artifacts that they found in the History Bags and write
them on the board under the word Artifact. Do likewise with
documents.
