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Benchmark Skills and Processes
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Rubrics & Breakdowns
Social -1
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Apply to both streams
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Social -2
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Tips for Completing a Source Analysis Assignment:
Several times throughout Social Studies 30-1 you will be required to analyze and interpret three sources provided to you. A source might be a quote, a political cartoon, text, an image, or any other type of information.
On the Diploma Exam, Written Response Assignment 1 will also take the form of a source analysis. It is, therefore, important that you have a solid understanding of what is expected on these types of assignments and how to complete them.
This tutorial will provide you with advice on completing source analysis assignments. The tutorial will also provide a sample of how a student might approach such an assignment.
What you are Expected to do:
The guide to writing the Social Studies 30-1 Diploma Exam describes the source analysis assignment as follows:
For Assignment I: Source Analysis you are required to examine three sources and respond in paragraph form. You must interpret each source, explain the ideological perspective(s) presented, and discuss the links between the principles of liberalism and each source. Also, you must identify and explain one or more of the relationships that exist among the sources. Be sure to do all parts of the assignment.
The guide also suggests you ask yourself the following questions:
Does the source appear to hold an ideological perspective that is consistent with the broad ideas of liberalism but represent a specific interpretation of how liberalism should be? For example, does the source have a more left-wing liberal perspective of liberalism or a more right-wing conservative perspective? Make sure that you identify the information within the source that leads you to draw the conclusions you have.
How to Organize your Source Analysis:
Although there are alternative ways to organize this assignment, most students find it is simplest to prepare a response with four distinct paragraphs: one paragraph for each source, and a fourth paragraph to discuss the relationship between the sources.
In each of the first three paragraphs (one per source), you must explain what the source means, what ideological perspective the source represents and how this perspective relates to liberalism. Once all of the sources have been discussed, you can write a fourth paragraph in which you explain how the sources relate to one another.
This four-paragraph organizational structure is the most common approach students take. The approach you take is up to you. As long as the approach you take meets all the criteria of the assignment, you can take any approach that works for you.
You are required to write in paragraph form. Point-form is not acceptable.
DO NOT write a position paper. Your task is to analyze the perspectives communicated by sources and their relationships to one another and to liberalism. You are not to take or defend your own position.
Any criticism of the perspectives in the sources should only be carried out in the context of a discussion of how the sources relate to one another. In other words, you may discuss, for example, how one source that clearly promotes the liberal ideal of equality might view the perspectives promoted in a second source that is overtly fascist and supports the policy of racial superiority. You would not, however, lay out your own arguments for or against fascism.
Interpreting Sources:
One of the skills you will be required to develop in Social Studies is the ability to interpret sources. The sources you will need to be able to interpret will vary. For example, sources can include quotations, pictures, graphs, and political cartoons. For all of the sources that you will have to interpret you will be required to explain how they relate to what you have learned in class.
Interpreting a quotation:
- If there are any words with which you are unfamiliar, you must look them up to find out what they mean.
- You must put the words into the context of what we have studied in class. That is, think about the source as being related to class. The source will be chosen specifically because it relates to the concepts that we are studying.
- What is the source saying? What is the perspective of the speaker? For example, what do they support? What do they oppose? What is their comment on what you have been studying?
Interpreting a picture:
- Look at both the details of a picture as well as the whole picture. What is shown within the picture and how does that related to what we have studied? Why do you think the photographer took the picture? What were they trying to show us/get us to think about? What comment might they be trying to make by taking the picture? That is, what do you think their perspective is regarding the subject of their photograph?
Interpreting a graph/chart:
- What information is given to you in the graph/chart?
- What does this information tell us?
- How is the information related to what we have studied in class?
- By whom might the information be used and why? That is, would it be used by a supporter or opponent of an issue we’ve discussed in class?
Interpreting a political cartoon:
- Political cartoons are designed to convey the cartoonist’s perspective about a particular issue.
- What issue is the topic of the political cartoon? How do you know?
- What is the cartoonist’s perspective?
- What techniques does the cartoonist use to communicate their perspective?
- How is the cartoon related to what we have studied in class?
Interpreting sources in general:
- The sources you see on an assignment or exam will be selected by the teacher. As a result, don’t simply describe what you see. Instead, you need to interpret what you see.
- You can effectively interpret a source by deconstructing it (i.e. pulling it apart). That is, talk about the different things within the source in the context of how/why they relate to class. Remember, in Social Studies we are always looking at “big issue” questions. So, you should talk about specific details in the source, but you need to link them back to the “big picture”.
- Remember, your goal is to link what you are looking at to what we have learned in class and you want to be able to demonstrate what you have learned. However, you must make explicit links between the source itself and what we have learned. As a result, do not get off task and starting describing everything that you know about a particular concept/topic/unit. Remember, there must be an explanation of what you see in the source and what we have learned in class.
- In order to help demonstrate how the source links to class, make sure that you use appropriate Social Studies vocabulary when appropriate.
- One important thing to note about doing source analysis in Social Studies 10-1 is first remembering that no matter the source, it can only be interpreted in one of two ways…
1. Pro-Globalization or
2. Anti-Globalization
Several times throughout Social Studies 30-1 you will be required to analyze and interpret three sources provided to you. A source might be a quote, a political cartoon, text, an image, or any other type of information.
On the Diploma Exam, Written Response Assignment 1 will also take the form of a source analysis. It is, therefore, important that you have a solid understanding of what is expected on these types of assignments and how to complete them.
This tutorial will provide you with advice on completing source analysis assignments. The tutorial will also provide a sample of how a student might approach such an assignment.
What you are Expected to do:
The guide to writing the Social Studies 30-1 Diploma Exam describes the source analysis assignment as follows:
For Assignment I: Source Analysis you are required to examine three sources and respond in paragraph form. You must interpret each source, explain the ideological perspective(s) presented, and discuss the links between the principles of liberalism and each source. Also, you must identify and explain one or more of the relationships that exist among the sources. Be sure to do all parts of the assignment.
The guide also suggests you ask yourself the following questions:
- What does each source mean?
- What ideological perspective(s) is/are inherent in each source and how does each perspective relate to liberalism?
Does the source appear to hold an ideological perspective that is consistent with the broad ideas of liberalism but represent a specific interpretation of how liberalism should be? For example, does the source have a more left-wing liberal perspective of liberalism or a more right-wing conservative perspective? Make sure that you identify the information within the source that leads you to draw the conclusions you have.
- Have I explained ways in which the three sources relate to each other?
How to Organize your Source Analysis:
Although there are alternative ways to organize this assignment, most students find it is simplest to prepare a response with four distinct paragraphs: one paragraph for each source, and a fourth paragraph to discuss the relationship between the sources.
In each of the first three paragraphs (one per source), you must explain what the source means, what ideological perspective the source represents and how this perspective relates to liberalism. Once all of the sources have been discussed, you can write a fourth paragraph in which you explain how the sources relate to one another.
This four-paragraph organizational structure is the most common approach students take. The approach you take is up to you. As long as the approach you take meets all the criteria of the assignment, you can take any approach that works for you.
You are required to write in paragraph form. Point-form is not acceptable.
DO NOT write a position paper. Your task is to analyze the perspectives communicated by sources and their relationships to one another and to liberalism. You are not to take or defend your own position.
Any criticism of the perspectives in the sources should only be carried out in the context of a discussion of how the sources relate to one another. In other words, you may discuss, for example, how one source that clearly promotes the liberal ideal of equality might view the perspectives promoted in a second source that is overtly fascist and supports the policy of racial superiority. You would not, however, lay out your own arguments for or against fascism.
Interpreting Sources:
One of the skills you will be required to develop in Social Studies is the ability to interpret sources. The sources you will need to be able to interpret will vary. For example, sources can include quotations, pictures, graphs, and political cartoons. For all of the sources that you will have to interpret you will be required to explain how they relate to what you have learned in class.
Interpreting a quotation:
- If there are any words with which you are unfamiliar, you must look them up to find out what they mean.
- You must put the words into the context of what we have studied in class. That is, think about the source as being related to class. The source will be chosen specifically because it relates to the concepts that we are studying.
- What is the source saying? What is the perspective of the speaker? For example, what do they support? What do they oppose? What is their comment on what you have been studying?
Interpreting a picture:
- Look at both the details of a picture as well as the whole picture. What is shown within the picture and how does that related to what we have studied? Why do you think the photographer took the picture? What were they trying to show us/get us to think about? What comment might they be trying to make by taking the picture? That is, what do you think their perspective is regarding the subject of their photograph?
Interpreting a graph/chart:
- What information is given to you in the graph/chart?
- What does this information tell us?
- How is the information related to what we have studied in class?
- By whom might the information be used and why? That is, would it be used by a supporter or opponent of an issue we’ve discussed in class?
Interpreting a political cartoon:
- Political cartoons are designed to convey the cartoonist’s perspective about a particular issue.
- What issue is the topic of the political cartoon? How do you know?
- What is the cartoonist’s perspective?
- What techniques does the cartoonist use to communicate their perspective?
- How is the cartoon related to what we have studied in class?
Interpreting sources in general:
- The sources you see on an assignment or exam will be selected by the teacher. As a result, don’t simply describe what you see. Instead, you need to interpret what you see.
- You can effectively interpret a source by deconstructing it (i.e. pulling it apart). That is, talk about the different things within the source in the context of how/why they relate to class. Remember, in Social Studies we are always looking at “big issue” questions. So, you should talk about specific details in the source, but you need to link them back to the “big picture”.
- Remember, your goal is to link what you are looking at to what we have learned in class and you want to be able to demonstrate what you have learned. However, you must make explicit links between the source itself and what we have learned. As a result, do not get off task and starting describing everything that you know about a particular concept/topic/unit. Remember, there must be an explanation of what you see in the source and what we have learned in class.
- In order to help demonstrate how the source links to class, make sure that you use appropriate Social Studies vocabulary when appropriate.
- One important thing to note about doing source analysis in Social Studies 10-1 is first remembering that no matter the source, it can only be interpreted in one of two ways…
1. Pro-Globalization or
2. Anti-Globalization
Position Paper overview
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-2 Assignment I
-2 Assignment II