This is a quick introduction to how you might assess claims that are made in your everyday lives.

As you come into the room, take about 5 minutes to walk around to the different claims and decide if you agree or disagree with them. Once you’ve decided, get some sticky notes from your teacher (one color will be designated for agree, the other color for disagree). On the sticky note, write the reason why you either agree or disagree with the claim and place the notes on the corresponding claims.

Do you know what a claim is? People make claims all the time, and what you just responded to on the chart paper are all claims. Teachers make claims; when you tell each other stories you make claims; television commercials make claims about products; doctors make claims about medicine; the list goes on and on.

Much of what people share and advertise are claims; however, we often don’t explain or justify our claims. Look around the room at the chart paper. Did large numbers of people agree or disagree with certain claims?

This activity revisits the driving question that you responded to in the first lesson in this unit. Since you’ve already learned a lot more since you were first asked that question, you should be able to answer the question in greater depth, using a lot more information.

Think about the driving question your teacher assigned (again!):

• Why do we look at things from far away and close up?

On your DQ Notebook Worksheet – Unit 1 that you started in Lesson 1.1, write a response to the appropriate question.

In this final vocab activity of the unit, as with all the final vocab activities in each unit, you will engage in a deeper exploration of the unit’s vocabulary. You’ll move beyond simply defining words to applying them in this activity, and by doing so, you’ll solidify your understanding and use of the words in context.

In this activity, you’re going to create a live concept map using Unit 1’s vocabulary. In case you haven’t heard of a concept map, it’s typically a diagram that shows the relationships among concepts, with the concepts drawn in circles or boxes. Lines are used to connect the related concepts. In this activity, either string or hand holding will function as the connecting lines.

Your teacher will either give you a vocab card or assign a word and have you make your own card. Then, you’ll take a few minutes to go around the room, making connections to other students’ words. Connections can be made in a number of different ways: You can think about synonyms, antonyms, word families, and even connections to similar ideas. Each time you make a connection, explain what it is to the other student, and then write the word on the back of your vocab card. Every few minutes, your teacher will ask you to explain your current connection. You will start to notice some patterns!

The work of scholars is motivated by questions. Ideas in all scholarly disciplines result from the discovery or creative process that follows the act of asking questions.

This article helps you understand why the concept of claim testers is so important in Big History and in life in general. It talks about different approaches to knowledge and how we come to believe certain things.

Skimming for Gist

Follow the Big History three close reads model using the Three Close Reads Worksheet. Fill out the Skimming for Gist section of the worksheet as you complete your first close read.

How do you know what you know? The growth of collective learning over time has been truly astounding, and humans today have incredibly detailed knowledge of a huge range of topics. This knowledge has been built up over time, and the way that knowledge has been built up has changed as well. In early human history, many thinkers were interested in a wide variety of topics, and they didn’t exhibit an interest in focusing on one particular area of knowledge and making it their sole focus. The Socrates that we know today from the Dialogues of Plato, for example, moved from one topic to the next in his discussions with his students, discussing justice now, truth a little later, and beauty after that. In the course of these discussions, he might call at one time on the knowledge and questions of math to aid in his quest for knowledge, and at another time he might call on history and its questions.

For Socrates, the questions were central, and he was not concerned with separating different subject matters and their questions. Today, the pursuit of knowledge is more formalized. Scholars tend to specialize in one discipline, and their research tends to be driven by the central questions and techniques of that discipline. Socrates tied the disciplines together in the way he taught; are there any commonalities that tie the disciplines together today?

Understanding Content

By the end of the second close read, you should be able to answer the following questions:

1. What question about knowledge will the Big History course ask about every discipline?
2. What difference does Bain say distinguishes the questions of textbooks and the questions of scholars?
3. Although every discipline is different, all scholars follow similar strategies for discovering or creating ideas. What is this process?

Big Ideas - Conceptual Thinking

The ability to come up with good, researchable questions is something that we have learned that all scholars do, but how do they come up with those questions? What are some strategies you might use in figuring out how to ask the right questions when thinking about historical research and inquiry?

No matter what discipline you happen to be working in, claim testing is a powerful tool for evaluating the claims you hear. The four claim testers are also valuable for everyday life, such as understanding the claims that people make on TV, in newspapers and magazines, in advertisements, and so on.

This video introduces the idea of claim testing, which is a key part of this course, as you’ve probably already guessed!

Preview

In the Big History course, you’ll be presented with a lot of claims. Just as you don’t have enough hours in the day to test every claim you hear from your family, friends, neighbors, fellow students, teachers, teammates, and so on, you don’t have enough time to test all the claims made in this course. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t test any claims. This simply means that you will need to choose some to test. The four claim testers presented in this course will give you the tools you need to test any claims you hear.

Understanding Content

Think about these questions as you watch the video.

1. What is a claim?
2. You may not have known the definition of a claim and you may never have given the idea much thought, but you make and hear claims all the time. What are the three responses that Bain says we make to the claims we hear?
3. What are the four claim testers and how do they differ from one another?

Thinking Conceptually

On what basis have you chosen to trust, ignore, or investigate claims you’ve heard? If you can’t think of anything, think about the opening activity and if your “why” answers point to trusting, ignoring, or investigating.

Print and cut out the Claim Testers and Supporting Statement Cards.

Claim testing is one of the essential practices that you will develop in BHP. Claim testing helps people decide what to believe, and it also helps them become more skillful in evaluating the claims of others. Learning to use claim testers will enable you to support your own claims when writing and speaking. In this activity, you will categorize supporting statements into the four claim tester types as a way to begin understanding the different ways in which claims can be supported.

Reading, writing
Being well-versed in claim testing will help you be a critical consumer of what you read. If you use claim testers to construct essays, your speaking and writing skills will improve.

You’ve probably watched the video, How Do We Decide What to Believe? before starting this activity. If not, hit the pause button, and watch the video before kicking off this activity!

Okay, now you’ve watched it! Remember the claim testers that were introduced in that video? If not, look at the claim testing poster on the wall, and get ready to review each claim tester as a class.

Now, let’s practice testing a claim. The claim you will test was once hotly debated, then eventually came to be known as fact. However, in some circles—such as the group called “Flat Earthers”—the claim has become controversial again.

The claim: The Earth is round.

You are going to get a bunch of statements that support the claim, “The Earth is Round.” Your job will be to determine which statements match which claim tester. Before starting, think about the following example with your class:

“When looking at pictures that astronauts have taken of the Earth after landing on the Moon, the Earth appears round.”

What claim tester to you think is being used here? Discuss your answer with the class.

Now that you’ve practiced as a class, get into groups and sort the cards into the four claim testing categories. Make sure to discuss your categorizations with the group—you will be asked to defend your categorizations at the end of the activity.

Keep in mind that you will be practicing claim testing ALL THE TIME in this class. You should refer to the poster on the wall and use the language of claim testing whenever possible.

You have probably already completed your baseline writing activity for the course—Investigation 0. Obviously, you—let’s face it, everyone—wants to be a killer historical writer. This activity will help you realize that dream. It will at least get you started. As a result of participating in this activity, you’ll begin to get tuned in to some of the important things you can do to improve your writing. You’ll see an activity like this one in almost every unit—basically, we want you to leave this course ready to rock all your future writing endeavors.

Reading
Reading is an implicit part of this activity because you are asked to read in order to find a good example of how a writer incorporates claim and focus into their work.

Check out this Oxford Comma illustration. What about it makes you think that it’s important to write well?

Remember that Investigation 0 essay that you wrote right after starting this course? Well, you’re going to do a lot more of those, and before diving into the first one that will actually be graded, you might want some tips about how to write a response to an Investigation question. To get these tips, you’ll review the article “Cosmology and Faith” to see what kind of a claim it makes, and determine if it stays focused on that claim throughout the article.

First, check out the entire BHP Writing Rubric. You’re going to be looking at this thing a whole lot in the course, so you may as well go ahead and get familiar with it now. After you’ve done that, look at the first row of the rubric, Claim and Focus, and try to answer the following questions (write down your answers on the worksheet):

1. What is a claim?
2. What does a claim do in an essay?
3. Why should we care about claims?
4. What is a focused essay?

Once you’ve answered these questions, discuss them with your class.

Now, look at the article “Cosmology and Faith” and try to find the thesis/major claim. Once you think you’ve found THE thesis/claim sentence, circle it—your teacher might ask you which one you circled, so be prepared to explain why you picked the one you did.

Next, look for the focus of the article. How do you do that? See if there are any ideas that seem to appear over and over again. When you find them, underline them! Keep in mind that the ideas might not be exactly the same, but the underlying sentiments will be similar. Once you’ve done that, you’ll review what you’ve underlined with your class, and then you’ll make a final determination about what the major claim/thesis of the article is…and as you’ve surely figured out by now, the focus of the article is really just the repeated support and extension of the main claim over and over again in a variety of different ways!

Now that this is all behind you, get ready to rumble with Investigation 1—and don’t forget to make a strong claim in your essay and maintain your focus on that claim throughout your writing.

Carefully read the Investigation prompt you will be responding to. Be sure to have read and analyzed the documents prior to doing this warm-up activity.

As you develop your close reading, critical thinking, and historical thinking skills, you also build writing skills that will help you in a lot of other classes. This warm-up introduces the Claim and Focus row of the Writing Rubric and allows you to better understand those concepts and how they apply to thinking and writing.

In this quick warm-up activity, you’ll learn how to use the language of an essay prompt to make a claim, provide focus for that claim, and then make a counterclaim. Your teacher might ask you to do just some of the steps in this activity, so be sure to listen for instructions.

Part 1 – Claim

What is a thesis or major claim in an essay? Discuss your ideas with your class.

How do we figure out how to write a thesis/major claim in response to a prompt? One way to do this is by turning the essay prompt/question into the stem of a statement, and then adding a little more information to make it a claim. Then, you can make an even stronger claim statement by getting even more specific. Work through an example of this with your class.

Then, repeat this process using the prompt you are getting ready to respond to.

Part 2 – Focus

What is focus in an essay? Discuss your ideas with your class and refer to the BHP Writing Rubric for more information.

How do you maintain focus in an essay? One way to do this is by linking back to key words and ideas from the thesis/major claim. Review the thesis/major claim from Step 1 and underline the key points that were included that you could write more about in the body of the paper. Then, work with your class to create three supporting claims that mirror the language or ideas from the original claim.

Now, do the same thing using the thesis/major claim you wrote in Step 1 in response to the prompt you’ve been assigned.

Part 3 – Counterclaim

What is a counterclaim? Discuss your thinking with your class.

How do you make a counterclaim? To weave a counterclaim into your thesis/major claim statement, ask yourself this: Who would disagree with your statement and why? What alternative or opposing viewpoints might you encounter when discussing this topic? Once you’ve considered other viewpoints, try weaving them in. Work through the following example with your class.

Now, create a counterclaim related to the prompt you will be responding to.

Once you’re done, you’re ready to write!

Investigation 1 Prompt: Why do we look at things from far away and close up?

This Investigation introduces the process you will follow as you complete Investigations throughout the course. In this and following Investigations, you’re asked to examine a set of documents and develop an evidenced-based argument in response to a prompt. This assessment will help prepare you to use claim-testing strategies and use evidence to support your ideas. These are skills you will use to respond to document-based questions you will encounter on standardized exams. Additionally, this Investigation helps you refine your ability to decide which scale to focus on and when and how to change scales.

Day 1
In this activity, you’re going to respond to a question using texts to support your thinking in the form of an Investigation. In this course, Investigations give you a question along with several source documents, and you will use the information in those documents (and perhaps additional knowledge) to respond to the question. Your responses will be written in essay format and will be five- to six-paragraphs long. This Investigation asks you to respond to question, Why do we look at things from far away and close up?

First, your teacher will ask you to write down your conjectures—your best guesses made without lots of evidence—about the following questions: Why might it be useful to take a faraway look? What about taking a close-up look at something? Can you think of a time when this helped you? Or when it didn’t help?

You’ll have about 5 to 10 minutes to make notes and think about why we look at things from far away and close up.

With your class or in small groups, share your list of ideas about why we look at things from far away and close up. Next, your teacher will either hand out or have you download the Investigation 1 Document Library. As you review each document, you’ll use the graphic organizer to take notes on the texts you encounter.

Day 2
Now it’s time to write! You’ll develop a five- to six-paragraph essay arguing why we look at things from far away and close up. Remember to use information from the Investigation 1 Document Library along with BHP concepts and other information you’ve learned in this unit as evidence to support your argument or opposing point of view. It’s also important that you cite the sources you use as evidence in your essay.

In order to improve your writing skills, it is important to read examples—both good and bad—written by other people. Reviewing writing samples will help you develop and practice your own skills in order to better understand what makes for a strong essay.

Your teacher will provide sample essays for this unit’s Investigation prompt and provide instructions for how you will use them to refine your writing skills. Whether you’re working with a high-level example or improving on a not-so-great essay, we recommend having the BHP Writing Rubric on hand to help better understand how you can improve your own writing. As you work to identify and improve upon aspects of a sample essay, you’ll also be developing your own historical writing skills!

• Have your graded essay ready to use for annotation and revision purposes.

The purpose of this activity is to show you how to use a rubric-aligned tool to evaluate and improve upon a piece of writing. A useful strategy for improving writing skills is to analyze samples as an editor, using peer drafts or your own graded essays. As you closely analyze the BHP Writing Rubric and evaluate a piece of writing against it, you will develop a better understanding of what makes a piece of writing strong. This, in turn, will make your writing stronger.

In this activity, you’ll first review the Claim and Focus row of the BHP Writing Rubric with your class. Then, you’ll be introduced to the Claim and Focus Revision Tool and how you to use it to improve upon claim and focus in an essay. Finally, you’ll use the tool to evaluate and revise an essay.

Start by reviewing and discussing the Claim and Focus row of the rubric with your class. Remember, a strong thesis/major claim and subclaims will help establish good focus in an essay.

Next, take out the Claim and Focus Revision Tool. First, pay attention to the directions at the top, which ask you to review the prompt for the essay. Review a prompt with your class and underline all the key words in the prompt that relate to what specifically is being asked of the writer. This will help you focus your review on what was specifically asked for in the essay. Next, review the feedback received from your teacher or peers to get a better sense of how the essay fared in terms of claim and focus. This will help give you a general sense of where improvement is needed.

Finally, it’s time to use the table portion of the tool to really start digging into the details of the essay as they relate to claim and focus. This part of the tool is broken into three steps. The first step addresses claim, the second step addresses focus, and the third step addresses counterclaim. Within each step there is a review and revision process. For the review process, look at the checklist under the Review column and see if you can find those elements of writing in the essay. If you find them, check the box and move to the next item in the list. If you didn’t find them, look to the Revision column for suggestions about how to improve that aspect of the essay. Go through each item on the checklist so that you are prepared to revise for claim, focus, and counterclaim in the essay where needed.

Now that you have an idea of how the tool works, it’s time to try this out on your own!