What can you learn about the society that produced this document?
Essay about President John F. Kennedy’s Civil Rights Address, June 11, 1963 . That being the primary source and A secondary source supporting . The essay must answer these 10 questions.
1.Who wrote the document? Until you know this you know little about the document. Sometimes you can figure this out from the document itself. Was the author a political or private individual? Was he educated or not?
2.Who was the intended audience/who was the letter or speech written to? This will tell you about the author’s use of language and the knowledge that he assumed on the part of the reader.
3.What is the story line? What is going on in the document?
4.Why was the document written? Everything is written for a reason. Is it just a random note, or a scholarly thesis?
5.What type of document is this, or what is its purpose? A newspaper article is different than a diary. Thus, one can expect to extract different kinds of information from different kinds of documents. A private letter to a friend is very different from a political letter written to discuss governmental matters.
6.What are the basic assumptions made by the author? For example, did the author assume that the reader could understand certain foreign or engineering terms?
7.Can you believe this document? Is it reliable? Is it likely? This should be more than a yes or no answer. What makes it believable or not?
8.What can you learn about the society that produced this document? All documents reveal information about the people who produced them. It is embedded in the language and assumptions of the text. Your task is to learn how to “read,” or analyze, a document to extract information about a society. You might wish to analyze each document in terms of various aspects of a society (economic, political, religion, social structure, culture, etc.).
9.What is the importance of this document to history? Everything can be considered important even if it is not important for political or governmental purposes. Does it shed light on what life was like during the time period it was written? Does it demonstrate views of the world from a time long ago? Etc.
10. Finally, What does this document mean to you? If you answer nothing, you will lose a whole letter grade. You are the one picking out the sources, so pick something that you find interesting that means something to you. Tell me why it means something to you and why you picked it.
