HOWE ON CONFEDERATION

Topic: Canadian History, Confederation

Historical Thinking Skills: Contextualization

Time Period: Pre-Confederation

Contextualizing a primary source is the process of utilizing an understanding of social, political, economic, cultural or intellectual factors of a historical period to better understand the trace or account we are interacting with. As such, contextualization relies on the application of background knowledge in a way that goes beyond the retrieval of facts and dates.

In this assessment students are provided with background information and are tasked with identifying which sections of this text are most/least relevant in helping meaningfully contextualize the source.