COMPARE · One core, then deepen it

Students bring the exact starting story from FIND, CHECK sources and their KNOW / THINK / DON’T KNOW claims. If they cannot yet say something meaningful about the investigated perspective, return to CHECK rather than inventing testimony.

Avoid new sources in the core unless necessary. Print the side-by-side grid and the change/claim/“so what?” page. Keep CHECK’s claims page available for revision.

Source timing: 5 / 10 / 8 / 8 / 8 / 5 minutes, plus 3–5 to close. For a strict 45-minute lesson use 4 / 9 / 8 / 7 / 8 / 5, then 4 to close. Do not add production work.

1. Same past, different story. Use the industrial-growth/worker-conditions statements as discussion examples, not claims about the selected place.
2. Put them side by side. Use four rows only: centre, importance, missing people/things and supporting evidence. Compare THE STORY WE STARTED WITH and THE PERSPECTIVE WE FOUND.
3. Find the change. Students complete BEFORE / NOW / WHAT CHANGED. The outcome is a changed understanding, not a filled grid.
4. Don’t stop at “different”. Revisit the same three CHECK categories and keep changed earlier wording visible.
5. Build the claim. This story is also about… / strongest evidence… / still don’t know…
6. Ask “So what?”. Does this perspective change understanding, expose a cost, challenge the starting story or explain different experiences?

Close by naming the two routes. The short route completes the three-moment story plan. The extended route retains the completed sheet and enters UNDERSTAND, then revises the same claim before completing that plan. Assign it once.

Prepare a small contextual selection focused on what was possible for this group in this place and time: laws, work, housing, transport, education, family, expectations, technology, politics or vocabulary. Include only what helps the inquiry.

Select one relevant decision or situation for step 5. Do not invent an individual biography or private emotion. Context can establish possibilities and constraints without establishing one person’s feelings or choices.

Keep the CHECK and COMPARE sheets beside the two-page add-on. Suggested timing is 5 / 12 / 8 / 8 / 7 / 5, then 5 minutes to revise and close. The optional AI/no-AI context challenge needs separate time.

1. Then, not now. Distinguish both technological anachronism and hindsight knowledge.
2. Build their world. What could they know, do, not do, and what happened around them? Every box needs evidence.
3. From context to perspective. Contrast an evidenced low wage with an unevidenced claim that it made someone miserable.
4. What might matter? Choose up to three supported factors and retain one honest unknown. This is not fictional character-building.
5. From where they stood. Ask about actual choices, difficulty, knowledge then, hindsight now and whether everyone would choose alike.
6. Check assumptions. Classify the sample claims using only the material available and ask what evidence could change the judgement.

Extension homework investigates one ordinary aspect through FOUND OUT / EVIDENCE / KNOW / REASONABLY THINK / STILL DON’T KNOW. Do not assign a fictional diary first. The AI challenge and no-AI reconstruction use the same verify/check/gap test and do not replace source research.