LEP Strategies and Techniques
Phony Document Strategy
The Phony Document Strategy is a critical reading strategy designed to motivate middle and high school students to use higher level
thinking skills. Originally developed for history classes (Vanderhoof, et al. 1992), it was found to be also useful in other fields, such as
English and science. (Baldwin, et al., 2004) The Phony Document Strategy is founded on a teacher-written letter that presents to the
students a plausible description of a key aspect of a novel, a historical event, or the results of a scientific experiment. This letter,
although seemingly believable and legitimate, contains many errors that must be discovered and refuted by the students.
Procedure:
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The teacher creates a phony but reasonably authentic document. This can take the form of a letter, news article, critique, or
book excerpts. The teacher could also create a phony website to serve the same purpose.
Students are asked to read the document and judge its accuracy, making sure to cross check all the information presented.
The class is then divided into small groups to share their critiques.
Finally, a whole class discussion takes place focusing on the document's accuracy.
Example: (with errors underlined in this example, but not underlined for the students)
The Gettysburg Address
Gettysburg, Pennsylvania
November 19, 1963
Four score and seventy years ago our fathers and mothers brought forth on this nation, a new nation, conceived in Liberia, dedicated to
the suggestion that all men are created unequal.
Now we are enraged in a great political war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long suffer.
We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to surrender a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who
here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this battleground. The brave men and
women, living and or dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little
note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never remember what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated
here to the finished work, which they who fought here have thus far so nobly, advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the
great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased demotion to that cause for which they gave the last
full measure of demotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vanity -- that this nation, under God, shall
have a new beginning of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall forever perish from the earth.
Abraham Lincoln Towncar, 1963
The real thing
Gettysburg, Pennsylvania
November 19, 1863
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the
proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We
are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here
gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead,
who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what
we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work, which
they who fought here have thus far so nobly, advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we
here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and
that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
Abraham Lincoln, 1863
http://www.learningpt.org/literacy/adolescent/strategies/phonydocument.php
rwandateachers.wikispaces.com/file/.../Phony+Document+Strategy.rtf