iRubric: Sourcing: Primary Source Analysis rubric

• What is the occasion? When was this said -under what circumstances?
• What is the time & place of the piece?
• What else (some event/period) was going on at that time that might
have had an influence on the author?
• What is the context that might have encouraged the writing to happen?
• Is there another document that was produced before this that the author might
be thinking of when writing this?
• Why was it written (or drawn or photographed)?

• Why did they say this?
• For what purpose was the document produced? What were their reasons,
motives or goals?
• What is at stake for the author in this text? What in the document tells you
this? What does this tell you about the author?
• You need to connect some motivation on the part of the person creating the text with the document itself. This is one of the harder ones to do correctly and the one most often mistakenly cited.

• How is this being said?
• What vocabulary (especially but not only adjectives) does it use? How does this
convey the intent, the point of view of the author (anger, disdain, admiration,
etc.)?
• What is the reason for them to adopt this tone? Are they trying to make a case
and if so how does it affect their presentation? Are they successful with their
strategy?

Can you think of other documents that might offer similar or opposing points of view? What are those opposing points of view?