Grades 9–12 · Social Studies · Free sample
Reading a Primary Source: The Declaration of Independence
About 50 minutes
Teens practice the historian's habit of sourcing and close reading using the opening of one of America's founding documents.
Your child will
- Identify a document's author, date, audience and purpose
- Paraphrase complex 18th-century language
- Connect the document's ideas to the present
You'll need
- The text of the Declaration's first two paragraphs (available free from the National Archives)
- Notebook
- Dictionary
Step by step
- 1
Source it
Before reading, answer: Who wrote it? When? For whom? Why? Predict what the document will argue.
- 2
Close read
Read the second paragraph ("We hold these truths…") slowly. Circle unfamiliar words and look them up.
- 3
Paraphrase
Rewrite each sentence in modern everyday language. Compare versions together and discuss differences.
- 4
Analyze
List the rights named and the purpose of government described. What gives a government its power, according to the text?
- 5
Connect
Write a short response: Which idea in this paragraph still matters most today, and who was left out of it in 1776?
Keep going
Compare with the opening of your state's constitution. What ideas did your state borrow?
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