Teaching Students to Debunk the Assumed Authority of Quantitative Sources

This session shows teachers how to help their students pull back the curtain on the wizards behind quantitative primary sources.  Strategies pushing students to think deeply about the agency creating quantitative sources will be demonstrated. Participants will participate in guided questioning of tables and graphs, and discuss how they were shaped in their creation by the historical context from which they emerged, the authors’ intended audiences and purposes, and the points of view of those constructing and presenting the data.