Description

Students will follow similar procedures to investigate the exploration of Leif Eriksson, which occurred nearly 500 years before Columbus' 1492 voyage. Students will also consider the work of a historian-- noting that until recently, Eriksson's voyage was widely believed to be a myth.

Learning Targets

Students will:
-Follow deliberative processes when examining issues.
-Identify point of view and bias.
-Identify beliefs, experiences, perspectives, and values that underlie their own and others’ points of view

Formative Assessment: What should historians do when they find new evidence?

Use deliberative processes when making decisions or reaching judgments as a group.
Compare information provided by different historical sources about the past.
Outline the discovery, exploration and early settlement of America: underlying motivators of Europeans coming to America to explore, explain the impact of significant explorers expeditions.

Use evidence to generate possible claims in response to compelling questions. Identify reasons which might be more likely than others: opinions about topics of study

Gather relevant information from multiple sources while using the origin structure, and context to guide the selection.

Teaching

Link: If we go back about 500 years before Christopher Columbus's exploration, a man named Leif Eriksson set off on his exploration.

Teaching:

First, show students the video, "Leif Eriksson: The First European in North America." Create a T-Chart, and label one side with the title of the video. Have students share important nformation that they learned to record on the chart.

Next, show students "PBS Video with Conflicting Info." Label the other side of the T-chart, "PBS video." Have students share the information they learned on the T-chart, noticing some differences in the information that was given.

Discuss why we might hear different information about the same people or events. Define the word bias, and let students know that researchers need to examine multiple resources when gathering information. Students will be using an article from the History Channel to fact check the information.

Active Engagement:

In groups or as a class, students will read "History Channel-Leif Eriksson Sagas article." After they have read the article, students will create a list of facts that they have found to be true. Students will bring this list to the carpet as the class recreates a "Leif Eriksson" Chart with accurate information.

Debrief:

Discuss the presence of bias in articles, and the importance of using multiple resources to conduct research.

Notes

Standard 1 (Skill):Compare information provided by different historical sources about the past.

Comparing sources about Columbus to sources about Eriksson, comparing Eriksson sources to one another. Looking at recent article about evidence from viking village in Newfoundland.

-Use a graphic organizer to find consistent and conflicting information from mutiple sources.

-Reasoning Proficiency

Standard 2 (Knowledge and Skill): Outline the discovery, exploration and early settlement of America: underlying motivators of Europeans coming to America to explore, explain the impact of significant explorers expeditions.

-Understand that Eriksson came looking for “new” land and natural resources. Sagas remained (unsubstantiated) for nearly 1000 years. (Not spreading religion, yes “gold” in the sense of resources, glory – story passed down in sagas.)

-Compare and contrast Eriksson’s expedition and motives for exploration with European explorers 500+ years later.

Knowledge Mastery/ Essay

Standard 3 (Knowledge & Dispositions): Use evidence to generate possible claims in response to compelling questions. Identify reasons which might be more likely than others: opinions about topics of study.
Compelling Question: What should a historian do when new evidence emerges?

-Understand and explain that historians follow a process for using evidence to support and/or generate claims. This process may include: Checking source credibility. If it matches previous claims, can integrate into evidence and use to support. If it contradicts previous claims, continue digging. If evidence is credible, claims need to be adjusted based on new evidence

-Disposition: Students will feel motivated to seek out credible information, and not be afraid to correct prior errors when new evidence emerges.

-Knowledge Mastery/ Written Response

Extensions

Discuss:
1. Why are there so many different spellings of Eriksson's name among various "reliable" resources?
2. How are myths (or sagas in this case) and facts similar or different from one another?

Knowledge and Skills

3.A.2
3.B.1
7.C.1
7.D.1

Resources

Leif Eriksson - The First European in North America (Video)
Biography - Leif Eriksson (Article)
Leif Eriksson & Eric the Red (Full Documentary)
Leif Eriksson - Sagas & History (Article)
History Channel - Leif Eriksson Sagas and History (Article and Video)
Classroom Map for Comparing Voyages
Schweich Formative Assessment
PBS Video Link with Conflicting Info