TEACHER'S GUIDE: HISTORICAL CONTEXT
When reading the documents within the Ontario Time Machine, it is important to keep the information in the documents in their historical context. As with any primary source, these documents reflect the prejudice, opinions and accepted stereotypes of the day. Ensuring that the students are aware of this will minimize misunderstandings and confusion on the their part. The following is a list of tips teachers can use to proactively address these potentially sensitive issues:
- Use the documents as a teaching tool to illustrate the positive and negative influence of print media.
- Link the activities to the Media Literacy curriculum and discuss concepts like bias and stereotypes.
- Have students question history and how it is recorded. Who creates history? Who records it? Whose history do we learn about? Whose history is excluded?
