Purpose
The historical inquiry resources included on this website were designed for teachers to use in Utah Studies and US History classes.
Authors of Lesson Materials
The inquiry lessons on this site have been prepared by Jeffery D. Nokes, a professor in the History Department at Brigham Young University, with the help of many of his undergraduate students including Maggie Allen, Andrew Cheney, Carley Garner, Mary Kilpatrick, Jenna Li, Emily Shaw, and Paige Volz. In addition, many history teachers have piloted these lessons and provided useful feedback.
Resources
Each inquiry includes the following items:
- Introductory Page: This page introduces the central question of the inquiry. Teachers can adapt the question to the interests and abilities of their students or to match their curriculum standards.
- Background Information: A brief essay, timeline, or bullet list gives background information on the topic. This background information helps students understand the context of the topic they will study and introduces students to important people or events that are referred to in the documents in the mini-archive. Students can be assigned to read the background information or teachers can use it to create a brief lecture that will prepare students for the inquiry.
- Mini-Archive: This carefully curated collection includes primary sources, secondary sources, artifacts, links to movie clips, links to music, and other resources that can serve as evidence to help students answer the central question. The mini-archive includes conflicting perspectives and contradictory evidence so that students will have to think critically about what they read and so that they might reach different interpretations, just as historians do. Many of the primary and secondary sources have been modified from their original language to make them more comprehensible to students. When they have been changed, a link is generally provided to the original. Teachers can use the mini-archives to choose documents or artifacts for the students to study. Alternatively, they can send students into the mini-archives to explore on their own.
- Teaching Resources: Several of the inquiries include teaching resources such as a lesson plan, a graphic organizer students can use as they collect evidence from the documents, a slide presentation with background information, and other resources for the teacher. On this page teachers are told about the important content of each document in the mini-archive so that they can decide which to use if they only have time to have students review a few of them.
Work in Progress
The designers of this webpage view it as a work in progress. They continue to add new inquiries to this page. And they welcome feedback from teachers who have used the inquiries and have insights into how to improve them. Please email feedback to jeff_nokes@byu.edu
