by kmessner

Teachers Write 7.11.16 Mini-Lesson Monday with Mara Rockliff

Good morning! It’s Mini-Lesson Monday at Teachers Write. If you want to start with a warm-up, head on over to Jo’s blog, and then you can come back to today’s mini-lesson.

Our guest author today is Mara Rockliff, who joins us from Pennsylvania. She’s written many historical picture books, including Around America to Win the Vote (coming out August 2) and Mesmerized: How Ben Franklin Solved a Mystery that Baffled All of France. Mara is here today to talk about evaluating the reliability of research sources…

around

Research sources: whom can we trust?

Hey teachers and librarians! I’m so happy Kate invited me to hang out with you all today. So, I’ll just dive right in and say we’re living in a golden age for research. No matter what we’re interested in, it’s never been so quick and easy to find information. Of course, as we all know, it’s also never been so quick and easy to find information that is wrong!

Teaching students (and ourselves!) how to sift through all that information and decide which sources can be trusted is a daunting task. I mean, there’s basic good advice like “Don’t rely on Wikipedia”—unless you want to write about the Brazilian aardvark. But solid-looking sources can include serious errors, too.

I’ve been researching Georgia Gilmore, a little-known hero of the Montgomery Bus Boycott. One serious, scholarly book by a Columbia professor said that Gilmore “moved to Montgomery in 1920.” This puzzled me, because every record I could find showed her as being born in 1920, in Montgomery.
 
Then I read the transcript of Gilmore’s testimony at the boycott trial. The first question she was asked was, “How long have you been a resident of the City of Montgomery?” She said, “I don’t know how long. I came here in 1920.” Reading that, I realized what she really must have meant was, “Don’t ask me my age!” Maybe the professor was too scholarly and serious to get the joke!

Some researchers use the Two-Source Rule, which says, “If you’re not sure about a fact, look for a second source.” Over the years I’ve learned to add, “…and then it’ll turn out the first source used the second source, or they both got it from the same third source, so if it seems suspicious, keep digging till you figure out what’s going on!” (Okay, it may not be the snappiest rule, but it does help me avoid embarrassing mistakes.)

When I visit schools and talk to students about primary, secondary, and tertiary sources, I like to use the example of a game of Telephone or Whisper Down the Alley, where the information gets more and more garbled as it’s passed along. That’s why the boring-looking, small-print stuff at the back of a book—endnotes and bibliographies—are my favorite part. Why take someone else’s word if I can go back to the source?

But just because a source is primary, that doesn’t mean it can be trusted! When I researched Around America to Win the Vote, I found hundreds of articles printed in newspapers across the country between April and September of 1916. One of them said this:

Screen Shot 2016-05-23 at 10.34.03 AM

This struck me as a little fishy. I knew that just driving cross-country was a really big adventure. There weren’t any road maps then. Sometimes there weren’t even any roads! Zigzagging to hit every state would certainly take longer than six months and much more than ten thousand miles.

So where DID they go? I went through all those articles and marked down each stop on a map. When a Philadelphia paper said “Yesterday the suffragists were here,” I put a green marker on Philadelphia. If it also said, “…and now they’ve left for Wilmington,” I put a yellow marker on Wilmington, Delaware. Then, when I found a Baltimore paper saying that the suffragists had just arrived from Wilmington, I could switch that yellow marker to a green one (since the stop had been confirmed) and add a green marker for Baltimore, too. And here’s what I found out about their route.

So, if primary sources can be wrong, and secondary sources can be wrong, and Wikipedia can be really, really wrong…whom can we trust?

We can trust ourselves—to research thoroughly, notice inconsistencies, use our common sense, and keep on digging till we’re satisfied. Let’s call it the “Tons of Sources Plus a Brain Rule.” Yeah, I know, that isn’t very snappy either. But it works!

Today’s assignment is a research challenge from Mara! 

 

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This historical marker stands outside Georgia Gilmore’s former home at 453 Dericote Street in Montgomery, Alabama. It contains three factual errors. The first person to find each error and post it in the comments will receive a signed book for your classroom, your choice of any of my books I have on hand. (I’ve got extras of all but one or two.) If all three errors haven’t been found by 9 p.m. Eastern time, I’ll tell you what they are. Cite your sources, please! 🙂

51 Replies on “Teachers Write 7.11.16 Mini-Lesson Monday with Mara Rockliff”

  1. Good Morning!

    Oh, I love a challenge. And, not only do I love a challenge but this activity is super good. I could totally do the same in my library with middle schoolers. Have them find the errors in a description and cite their sources. What’s great about this activity is: finding different sources, skimming for information (a skill that not all kids have) to compare and learning the whole way.

    My process began with checking the facts in the historical marker. Great way to review fact v. opinion. Much of the marker included opinion language so I then had to look closer…and THAT is the real lesson…what we all want to teach kids.

    I can’t WAIT to do this with my students. I would introduce this with “2 facts and a lie” ice breaker game…and then go right into this.

    1. Georgia Gilmore was not arrested on a bus
    Biography.com Editors. “Georgia Gilmore Biography.” Bio.com. A&E Networks Television, n.d. Web. 11 July 2016.

    2. Georgia Gilmore’s home “open to all” is misleading because….but was a restaurant where Dr. King and Dr. Abernathy could meet and talk safely.
    Biography.com Editors. “Georgia Gilmore Biography.” Bio.com. A&E Networks Television, n.d. Web. 11 July 2016.

    3. Georgia Gimore “opening her home” is at least misleading because Dr. King helped Ms. Gilmore set up her home as a restaurant that could also be a meeting place to safely discuss the movement. Georgia Gilmore didn’t simply open her home without the help and purpose of Dr. King and Dr. Abernathy needing a meeting spot.
    “A CAKE FOR GEORGIA GILMORE – Alabama Chanin | Journal.” Alabama Chanin Journal. N.p., 22 Jan. 2014. Web. 11 July 2016.
    Good Morning!

    Oh, I love a challenge. And, not only do I love a challenge but this activity is super good. I could totally do the same in my library with middle schoolers. Have them find the errors in a description and cite their sources. What’s great about this activity is: finding different sources, skimming for information (a skill that not all kids have) to compare and learning the whole way.
    My process began with checking the facts in the historical marker. Great way to review fact v. opinion. Much of the marker included opinion language so I then had to look closer…and THAT is the real lesson…what we all want to teach kids.
    I can’t WAIT to do this with my students. I would introduce this with “2 facts and a lie” ice breaker game…and then go right into this.
    1. Georgia Gilmore was not arrested on a bus
    Biography.com Editors. “Georgia Gilmore Biography.” Bio.com. A&E Networks Television, n.d. Web. 11 July 2016.

    2. Georgia Gilmore’s home “open to all” is misleading because….but was a restaurant where Dr. King and Dr. Abernathy could meet and talk safely.
    Biography.com Editors. “Georgia Gilmore Biography.” Bio.com. A&E Networks Television, n.d. Web. 11 July 2016.

    3. Georgia Gimore “opening her home” is at least misleading because Dr. King helped Ms. Gilmore set up her home as a restaurant that could also be a meeting place to safely discuss the movement. Georgia Gilmore didn’t simply open her home without the help and purpose of Dr. King and Dr. Abernathy needing a meeting spot.
    “A CAKE FOR GEORGIA GILMORE – Alabama Chanin | Journal.” Alabama Chanin Journal. N.p., 22 Jan. 2014. Web. 11 July 2016.

    ps…..I hope I got these correct! If not, I aim to LEARN which is the whole point.
    Gosh, I could just gush on and on about this activity. THANK YOU so much!

    1. sorry for the double post. Sometimes the blog has to be refreshed for the “please do the math” part. I usually copy my response so as not to lose it (that makes me so mad) and have to rethink and retype

    2. Congratulations to our first winner! Wow, Linda, you sure get up early. I agree with you on #1: Georgia Gilmore was not arrested on a bus, although I’d like to see a stronger source than just the brief biography you cite. It’s true, it doesn’t mention her being arrested, but absence of evidence is not evidence of absence—at least, not using just one source.

      Here’s my own evidence: Out of 24 sources I consulted, the only one that mentions an arrest for Gilmore was a memoir written by boycott organizer Jo Ann Robinson, The Montgomery Bus Boycott and the Women Who Started It. Since Robinson also describes Gilmore as a “solid and energetic” supporter of the boycott—the exact words on the marker—I’m convinced her book was also the source for the statement that Gilmore was “once arrested on a bus.”

      But why do I believe it’s false? Well, when the boycott was declared illegal and Martin Luther King was arrested for leading it, Georgia Gilmore testified at his trial. I’ve read the testimony, in which she describes a nasty run-in she had with a verbally abusive bus driver who took her money and then drove off before she could re-board at the back.

      In her testimony, Gilmore stated that she held her temper because “I have never been in any trouble whatsoever in my life.” So she wasn’t arrested then, and probably was not arrested any time before. I feel pretty sure that Robinson just misremembered this unpleasant incident as Gilmore—like so many others—once having been arrested on a bus.

      If anybody happens to live in Montgomery and wants to check arrest records, that would be great! I’d love to be even more sure.

      Linda, I’m not sure that I follow your second and third suggestions, but I promise that the other two errors I’m looking for are more than just “misleading”—they are straight-up wrong! 🙂

      So, everybody else, send me your answers and some solid sources! And Linda, please email me with your address and choice of prize.

      1. I have four kids ages …. the ONLY way I can possible have half a chance at a writing life is to be the early bird in the house. 5 am is my usual time….and except for the sweet, sweet late afternoon summer nap….I just stay on the same schedule for writing purposes.
        My e-mail is hubeimom@yahoo.com
        I would LOVE a copy of “Around America to Win the Vote” for my middle school library. I work closest with 7th graders and this is smack dab in the middle of what they study. HOORAY!

  2. What a great post to share with student writers! We as teachers & librarians oft times give our students the incorrect notion that if the source is \”primary,\” then it\’s golden. BTW, taking your BEN FRANKLIN book to a conference next week to share as \”Bewitchin\’ Nonfiction,\” the title of my session.

  3. Good morning, teachers/writers! So happy to be here with you. I’ll be checking in throughout the day, so please say hi, ask questions, anything you like.

    I’d also like to share a research challenge you can do with students in the coming school year, and please tell them THIS IS NOT A TEST. It’s real live research nobody has done before!

    If you go to my map of Nell and Alice’s route from Around America to Win the Vote, you’ll see all the stops I found—but those weren’t all the stops they made. So if your state was on their route, it’s possible that they stopped in your town!

    I invite students and teachers to investigate by searching local papers, usually available at the public library or historical society. The trip lasted from April to September of 1916, but you can narrow down the likely dates by seeing where you fall along the route. Helpful keywords include Alice Burke, Nell Richardson, suffrage or suffragists, and Golden Flier (or Flyer), which was what Nell and Alice named their yellow car.

    Please email me with any confirmed stops, and I will add them to my map. Thanks!

  4. What a great challenge and illustrative activity! I told myself I wasn’t going to dedicate too much time to it, but I got sucked in and found myself needing to check source after source. I enjoyed the process and learned about a person I knew nothing about! What a shame that the historical marker outside her house is inaccurate. I also loved the link about the Brazilian aardvark!

    1. Thanks, Jen! It’s not too late to enter–only one of the three errors has been found so far. Two more winners to go!

  5. This is a fantastic task for students! As an instructional technologist, we often combat misunderstandings about Wikipedia’s value in the research process, reminding students that it’s a starting place to get background information, then leading them to the source links at the bottom of each entry for deeper inquiry. Elementary students (as well as secondary students and adults!) fall into the trap of believing everything posted on the Internet is true, so having a strategy for deliberate fact-checking is essential to any writer who references factual people, places and events. I will definitely pass this post along to teachers in my district. Very thought-provoking! (I also love that Linda was so quick to dive in and post her answers, with citations. Way to go, Linda!)

    1. Tamara, I love that you explain to them HOW to use Wikipedia. Sometimes when I ask kids, they think it isn’t worth using at all. But I often go to Wikipedia–first to get a quick overview (while recognizing that it’s likely to have errors) and then I head straight to the sources, as you say.

  6. Thank you, Mara. I dabbled some with your challenge, but II must move on. Thank you so much for sharing with us today. I have jotted some ideas in my teacher notebook to share a similar challenge with my students.

  7. Good morning!
    In the plaque, where it says the “The ‘Club From Nowhere’ whose members baked pies and cakes for sale to both black and white customers.” Isn’t exactly true. The club was founded before Gilmore started the restaurant. She got the idea from the jobs she did day to day. According to http://www.theroot.com “Gilmore founded the Club From Nowhere, an organization of maids, service workers and cooks. The name was an attempt to shield members from the consequences of openly supporting the boycott. Only Gilmore knew who made and bought the food and who donated money. The underground network of cooks went door to door selling sandwiches, pies and cakes and collecting donations.”
    So, the organization was not only a bakery–by today’s standards, it would be a cafe. But, “when Gilmore’s boss learned of her fundraising activities, he fired and blacklisted her. Undeterred, and with King’s help, Gilmore turned her kitchen into a restaurant.”
    The article featured, “Recognizing the Household Workers on the Front Lines of Protest in Montgomery, Ala., 1955” was written by Premilla Nadasen (an associate professor of history at Barnard College, Columbia University, and a published author) and poster November 23, 2015.

    2. Excellent research! It’s true, the Club from Nowhere did precede the restaurant, but does that contradict anything that is stated on the sign?

      Keep trying! The two remaining errors are very straightforward, simple, and 100% wrong, I promise! 🙂

      1. The plaque states: “Opening her home to all, she tirelessly cooked meals for participants including such leaders as Dr. Martin Luther King and Dr. Ralph Abernathy.”
        However, Ralph D. Abernathy was not a recipient of a doctoral degree. He completed his “master’s degree in sociology…then became a pastor…”
        http://www.biography.com/people/ralph-d-abernathy-9174397#early-years

        My kids are napping, and now I’m super curious to see what the other mistakes are!

  8. Hi, Mara!

    Wonderful activity! I look forward to reading about the other two errors. I have searched the Internet without any luck. I’m heading to the library today with the kids, so I plan to do a little more research.

    I found it interesting that on the sign it read that she cooked meals for Dr. Ralph Abernathy, but I could not find any valid evidence of that fact. There is no evidence that proves Dr. Ralph Abernathy even worked with Ms. Gilmore (at least I didn’t find any). I also could not find valid evidence that she lived in the house during the Montgomery Bus Boycott. I found an article that stated she lived in Centennial Hills – http://www.alternet.org/books/how-one-courageous-black-household-worker-changed-outcome-montgomery-bus-boycott

    Centennial Hills did check out – http://www.montgomeryal.gov/home/showdocument?id=220

    Thank you for helping me learn more about Georgia Gilmore. I actually even checked out the area on Google maps. I’ll be checking back later for the answers.:)

    Happy writing and researching!

    1. You got it, Andy! Georgia Gilmore DID NOT live in that house during the Montgomery bus boycott. She lived down the street at 405 Dericote, in a house that was later torn down. (Sources: David L. Chappell, Inside Agitators: White Southerners in the Civil Rights Movement, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994; Frank Mastin, Jr., “Big Momma Gilmore’s Cooking Fueled Movement,” Montgomery Advertiser, Jan. 19, 1997.)

      I don’t know exactly when she moved, but the Mastin article above refers to her buying a vacant lot at 453 Dericote “in the early 1970s,” and a 1975 article referred to “her new home” (Vernon Jarrett, “Club from Nowhere Paid Way of Boycott,” Chicago Tribune, Dec. 4, 1975). Again, if anyone lives in Montgomery and wants to find the date that Georgia Gilmore purchased 453 Dericote, that would be awesome, since the information’s not available online…at least, that I have found.

      In fairness, Gilmore’s home at 405 was long ago torn down, so there was nowhere else they could have put the historical marker. However, saying she “lived in this house during the days of the Montgomery Bus Boycott” is definitely false. All the stuff she did during the Civil Rights Movement, from baking pies for the boycott to feeding JFK, happened at 405.

      As far as Abernathy eating there, that’s mentioned in the Mastin article as well. That’s the only source I see right now, but considering how close Abernathy was with MLK, I don’t doubt that it’s true.

      Andy, email me for your prize! Everyone else, there’s still one more mistake to find!

      1. WOW! Thank you, Mara.

        I just emailed you. Sorry about my lengthy email. I’m just so excited.:)

        Thank you for this activity and your lesson on Teachers Write.

  9. Mara,
    I believe two names are incorrect. MLK should be Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (the Jr. is missing) and Ralph Abernathy was not a doctor. According to Georgia Encyclopedia, he received a master’s but not a doctorate

    1. Good catch on Abernathy! But Annie got there first. (Ahead of me, too–that wasn’t one of the errors that I found.)

      As far as MLK, well, not sure I’d call that an error, though you’re right, he’s certainly usually referred to with the Jr.!

      Still one left…you all will laugh when you see what it is! 🙂

  11. What a great activity. To think I have always taken these historical markers at face value. Something to share with my students about research accuracy.

    1. I KNOW. I contacted several historical groups in Montgomery about the marker, and was surprised to find that no one seemed to be in charge of it, including the group whose name is on the sign.

      I haven’t read it yet, but there’s a book by James Loewen (author of Lies My Teacher Told Me) called Lies Across America: What Our Historic Sites Get Wrong. Looks interesting!

  12. OK, so:

    (1) Georgia Gilmore was almost certainly not “once arrested on a bus.”

    (2) Georgia Gilmore did not live in this house during the days of the Montgomery Bus Boycott; she moved there 15-20 years later.

    (bonus error) Ralph Abernathy didn’t earn a doctorate, although he may have received honorary doctorates later in life.

    So…#3, anyone? Remember, we’re looking for a FACTUAL ERROR in the sign.

    (Other comments and questions are welcome too!)

  14. I am keeping at this, another comment mentioned she was not arrested on a bus, this was Rosa Parks, it was her actions that inspired the boycott.

    1. Well, Rosa Parks wasn’t the only one arrested on a bus (for instance, most famously, there was Claudette Colvin), but yes, it’s true that was one of the errors on the sign mentioned so far!

  15. I think that there is a distinction to be made between how she raised money for the cause. It was not through her home kitchen which was essentially secret of necessity. She opened it to white and black supporters particularly, not as a fundraiser. Her fundraising for gas and transport was with the help of others and these ladies sold their baking and food through hair dressing salons, etc.

      1. Oops, sorry, Wendy, your post just popped up! Good work–and I agree re Wikipedia–see comment #5 above.

  18. The March began 7 March 1965 and she died on the eve of the March, so these dates of her death (March 3) and the start of the March don’t line up. She was preparing the food for the start of the commemorative march (it seems on the Wednesday she became ill and was hospitalized). She died on the Friday.

  21. Checking facts again, March 7 1965 was a Sunday. Her dear friend in the source I am using says she died on the Friday. They reference that they ate the potato salad and other food she was preparing for the commemorative March at the funeral service. She may have been buried on March 7?

  22. Ha ha! You got it, guys. Her gravestone says she died March 9, 1990. A brief obituary which appeared in multiple newspapers on March 15 says she died Friday, and a quick search for a March 1990 calendar shows that March 9 was indeed a Friday, while of course March 3 wasn’t. Furthermore, her sister Betty is quoted as saying “Georgia died on a Friday, on the anniversary of the march.” (John T. Edge, “The Welcome Table,” Oxford American, January-February 2000).

    I’d say we have co-winners here. Congrats, Terry and Heather! Email me for your prizes! 🙂

  23. The NPR citation is actually just from the sign above. Do you have the right year for the Sunday/Friday March dates? You say 1965 here, so I’m wondering if it’s getting all muddled up.

  25. OMGosh, I’m late for the party, but it’s still a great one! Thanks, Mara for this post. You’ve got our minds working…I love non fiction and this is a big help. Thanks again!!!!!!!!!

  27. OK, it looks like everybody’s done for the day. Thanks for the warm welcome, and enjoy the rest of Teachers Write!

    (And if you missed my comment #3 above, please check it out and spread the word! Thanks!!)

  28. Mara, I’m checking in a day late, but I loved this research challenge! As a science teacher I stress citing evidence to back up claims and this challenge would be a great way to get my students excited about researching for accurate evidence. Thank you!