Create a Headline

Students first read and/or examine a set of sources (i.e. documents, readings, images, or videos). As needed, you may want to present a focus question (for instance, “What do these sources tell us about the effects of the new law on the country?”) to guide students’ examination. Remind students that they should be looking for patterns across the documents.

Students are then asked to compose a headline based on the information and patterns contained in the sources that they just reviewed. The headline that students create must be different than titles from any of the resources they examined. Headlines also should contain both subjects and verbs and are usually no more than 12 words in length. You might ask students to write a brief (no more than three sentences) explanation of how they arrived at their headline.

Below their headlines, have students write three pieces of evidence they recorded from the resources they examined that support or explain their headline.

Students should have an opportunity to share the headlines they created. Consider using a wraparound or a gallery walk to share the headlines.

While the above activity asks students to synthesize what they have learned using a variety of sources, you might instead ask students to analyze a single source and create a headline for it. Have students follow the steps above, eliminating step number three unless the source they’re examining is particularly long or complex.

In addition or as a substitute to their original headline, you might ask students to write a headline with a particular perspective in mind. For instance, if teaching the Reconstruction Era unit, you might ask students to imagine they are writing a headline for a newspaper with a Radical Republican or Southern Democrat bias. If students are doing this activity in addition to the original activity, ask them to consider the following question: How is their headline for this activity different from their original headline? ¹

• 1This teaching strategy is adapted from our resource The Reconstruction Era and the Fragility of Democracy, pages 128–129.