Week 1 Primary Source Workshop: Checking a Draft Caption for Columbus's Letter

Part 1 — The Big Picture

Museum captions, websites, and chatbot summaries all retell Columbus's voyage of 1492, and many of them get the landing place, the date of his letter, or the meaning of his words wrong. This week you learned to tell a primary source from a secondary one and to read any source with four moves: sourcing, contextualization, close reading, and corroboration. In this workshop you act as a museum researcher checking a draft caption before it goes on the wall: you source Columbus's letter on the first voyage, test eight caption statements against the record, close-read its pinned fragment, corroborate it with the royal grant or the Treaty of Tordesillas, catch a chatbot making the same kinds of slips, and present your reading in one plain sentence.

Time budget: Plan for about 90 minutes.

Part 2 — The Task

Guiding question: What does Columbus's letter on his first voyage, printed in 1493, show about the meeting at Guanahani, what does it leave out, and which statements in an illustrative draft caption survive a check against the record?

Workshop data: Eight statements from an illustrative draft exhibit caption about Columbus's letter on the first voyage

Source: Eight statements from an illustrative draft exhibit caption written for this workshop and printed in full in Part 4; they come from no real exhibit, and you check each one against Columbus's letter as the Library of Congress presents it and against Chapter 1.

• Rows: 8 statements, one row each in the audit table
• Columns: statement, verdict, which record you used, and a corrected sentence
• Records to check against: the Library of Congress exhibit section on Columbus and the Taíno, and Chapter 1

Part 3 — Materials & Procedure

Tools and materials

• DocsTeach (National Archives, free) or the Library of Congress digital collections (free)
• A notebook or any free note-taking app
• One approved chatbot
• Any free audio or video recorder, or a phone's voice memo app

Ways of working

• source-a-primary-document
• contextualize-and-corroborate
• close-read-for-what-the-text-says-and-omits
• present-and-defend-the-analysis

Procedure

1. Open the Library of Congress exhibit section on Columbus and the Taíno, linked on this week's Readings & Resources page, and find the English rendering of Columbus's letter on the first voyage. Keep Chapter 1, Section 5, open beside it. Tool: DocsTeach (National Archives, free) or the Library of Congress digital collections (free). Check: You can find the fragment that begins with the words There I found very many islands, and the page's note on the Latin printing made at Rome.
2. Fill in the sourcing table for the letter: who made it, when, why and for whom, its type, the host that keeps the text, and whether it is a translation. Tool: A notebook or any free note-taking app. Check: All six sourcing rows have an answer, and the translation row says the English rendering's translator is not named.
3. For each of the eight caption statements, check the letter, the Library's page, and Chapter 1, then write Supported, Contradicted, or Goes beyond the source in the second column and name the record in the third. Write a corrected sentence for every statement that is not Supported. Tool: A notebook or any free note-taking app. Check: Every row has a verdict and a named record, and every row that is not Supported has a corrected sentence.
4. Count your second column by hand and copy the three counts into the tally table, checking that they add up to the number of statements. Check: The three counts add up to 8, one for each statement.
5. Complete the close-reading table: say what the pinned fragment says, what it leaves out, what was happening around it, and how the royal grant or the Treaty of Tordesillas confirms or complicates it, then write one plain sentence. Tool: A notebook or any free note-taking app. Check: The table ends in one plain sentence that names what the letter shows and what it does not.
6. Run the AI-critique step in Part 6 with one approved chatbot, or take the equivalent route printed there, and write your critique report. Tool: One approved chatbot. Check: Your report quotes at least two errors and corrects each with evidence from the letter, your tables, or Chapter 1.
7. Present and defend your reading: record a two-minute spoken explanation, or write its script, that sources the letter, gives your close reading, names your corroborating document, and ends in your one plain sentence. Tool: Any free audio or video recorder, or a phone's voice memo app. Check: The explanation runs about two minutes, or about 250 words as a script, and ends in one plain sentence.

Fallback route

When to use it: Use this route if the Library of Congress page will not load in your browser.

Check the caption statements against the record facts printed in the table below, which restate the Library's page and Chapter 1 in the course's own words, and tally your second column by hand, showing that the counts add up to 8. Then complete every scaffold table, analysis question, the critique step, and the spoken explanation, and submit the same items for equal credit.

This route earns the same credit as the primary route.

These record facts restate the Library's page and Chapter 1, so you can check the statements without loading the page.

Fallback model data

Record fact	Where it comes from
Columbus's letter on the first voyage was printed in 1493; the Library holds a Latin printing made at Rome.	Library of Congress exhibit page; Chapter 1, Section 5
The Library's page quotes an English rendering of the letter and does not name the translator.	Library of Congress exhibit page
The pinned fragment reads: There I found very many islands, filled with innumerable people, and I have taken possession of them all for their Highnesses, done by proclamation and with the royal standard unfurled, and no opposition was offered to me.	Library of Congress exhibit page
In 1492 Columbus reached Guanahani, an island in the Bahamas, home of the Taíno.	Library of Congress exhibit page; Chapter 1, Section 5
The Library notes that Columbus believed to the end that the Caribbean was part of Asia.	Library of Congress exhibit page
Contact is the meeting of peoples who had not met before; conquest is one people taking control of another's land and government by force.	Chapter 1, Section 7

Part 4 — The Scaffold

The data come first: eight statements from an illustrative draft exhibit caption about Columbus's letter, with columns for your verdict, the record you checked, and a corrected sentence.

Student scaffold table 1

Statement	Supported, Contradicted, or Goes beyond the source	Which record	Corrected sentence
S1. Columbus wrote this letter about his first voyage, and it was printed in 1493.
S2. In the letter Columbus describes landing on the coast of Florida.
S3. The English words on the Library of Congress page are Columbus's own English.
S4. The letter says the islands were "filled with innumerable people".
S5. Because the letter says no opposition was offered, it proves the Taíno welcomed Spanish rule.
S6. The Library of Congress holds a Latin printing of the letter made at Rome.
S7. Columbus knew he had reached a continent unknown to Europeans, not Asia.
S8. Columbus's arrival at Guanahani in 1492 was the conquest of the Americas.

Tally your second column so you can read the audit as a small dataset.

Student scaffold table 2

Verdict	Count
Supported
Contradicted
Goes beyond the source
Total

Source the letter itself, one sourcing question per row, before you read it closely.

Student scaffold table 3

Sourcing question	Your answer for Columbus's letter
Who made it
When (the voyage, and the printing)
Why, and for whom
What type of document it is
Which host keeps the text you read
Is it a translation, and who translated it

Close-read the pinned fragment and set it beside one other roster document to corroborate or complicate it.

Student scaffold table 4

Move	Your reading
What the fragment says
What it leaves out
Context: what was happening around it
Corroboration: the royal grant or the Treaty of Tordesillas
One plain sentence

Part 5 — Analysis Questions

1. Using your tally table, how many statements are Supported, how many are Contradicted, and how many Go beyond the source? Show that your three counts add up to the number of statements.
2. Which statement confuses the English words on the Library's page with Columbus's own words, and what does sourcing the letter show instead?
3. Two statements go beyond what the letter can show. Pick one and explain the difference between what the letter claims and what it can prove about the Taíno or about conquest, using the course's definitions of contact and conquest.
4. Using your close-reading table, how does the royal grant or the Treaty of Tordesillas confirm or complicate the letter's claim to have taken possession of the islands? Name the document, its date, and what it adds.
5. Choose one and answer it in 3–4 sentences. (a) Name two things this letter cannot tell a historian about the meeting at Guanahani, and say what kind of evidence each would need. (b) Explain how reading the letter in an English rendering, from a printing made at Rome, limits what you can say about Columbus's exact words.

Part 6 — AI-Critique Moment

Choose one equal-credit critique route. Route A: ask an approved AI tool to critique your completed work, then check its response against your own evidence. Route B is the no-AI equivalent printed below.

Approved tools: Claude, Gemini, ChatGPT, Grok, Microsoft Copilot.

Prompt to paste:

I've pasted my completed Week 1 Primary Source Workshop tables above. They check an illustrative draft exhibit caption about Columbus's letter on his first voyage. Please do six things. First, summarize the letter in three sentences, say when it was written, and say where Columbus landed. Second, quote one sentence from the letter. Third, tell me whether the letter is a primary or a secondary source. Fourth, say whether Columbus's arrival in 1492 was the conquest of the Americas, and which came first, St. Augustine or Jamestown. Fifth, list three crops that crossed in the Columbian Exchange and the direction each one went. Sixth, in one short paragraph, preview how this story leads to later U.S. history through 1877.

Test the response for these likely failures:

• Chatbots often call the letter a secondary source because the Library of Congress page that presents it is a modern exhibit.
• Chatbots often say Columbus conquered the Americas when he landed in 1492.
• Chatbots asked what came after the voyages often name Jamestown as the first European settlement in what became the United States.
• Chatbots sometimes list tomatoes or potatoes as crops Europeans brought to the Americas.
• Chatbots often read an order of events as a cause, for example saying the printed letter of 1493 caused the Treaty of Tordesillas of 1494.
• A chatbot that runs ahead into the colonies may say indentured servitude and slavery were the same status.
• A chatbot previewing later history may call the Declaration of Independence the Constitution, or give it the year 1787.
• A chatbot previewing later history may say the Articles of Confederation let Congress tax.
• A chatbot previewing later history may treat the Federalists who argued for ratification as the same group as the Federalist Party of the 1790s.
• A chatbot previewing later history may credit Washington with the phrase "entangling alliances".
• Chatbots often date the letter to 1492 because the exhibit section and the voyage carry that year.
• A chatbot previewing later history may treat the Missouri Compromise line and popular sovereignty as one rule.
• A chatbot previewing later history may say the same quarrels over taxes caused both the Revolution and the Civil War.
• A chatbot previewing later history may say the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 freed every enslaved person.
• A chatbot previewing later history may say the 14th Amendment gave Black men the vote.
• A chatbot previewing later history may describe Reconstruction as one policy from start to finish.

Write 3–5 sentences naming one thing the chatbot got right and at least two places it went wrong or ran ahead, quoting its words and correcting each with evidence from the letter, your tables, or Chapter 1; flag any slip about later history as something the course takes up later.

Equivalent route (no AI required)

No AI account is required for this workshop. Instead of the chatbot, critique this flawed analysis, printed here in full: "Columbus's letter is a secondary source, because the Library of Congress page that shows it is a modern exhibit. Columbus wrote it in 1492, on the day he landed in Florida, and the English words are his own. His landing was the conquest of the Americas, and it led to Jamestown, the oldest European settlement in what became the United States. Because the letter was printed in 1493 and the Treaty of Tordesillas came in 1494, the letter caused the treaty. The Columbian Exchange then carried tomatoes and potatoes from Europe to the Americas. Later, indentured servitude and slavery were the same status. The Declaration of Independence of 1787 was the Constitution, and before it the Articles of Confederation let Congress tax. The Federalists who backed ratification were the same as the Federalist Party of the 1790s. Washington warned against entangling alliances in his Farewell Address. The Missouri Compromise line and popular sovereignty were one rule, the Revolution and the Civil War had the same tax causes, the Emancipation Proclamation freed every enslaved person, the 14th Amendment gave Black men the vote, and Reconstruction was one policy." Mark it up: quote each flawed sentence, name what is wrong (a primary source called secondary, a misdated document, a wrong landing place, a translation read as the author's own words, contact called conquest, Jamestown placed before St. Augustine, an order of events read as a cause, the exchange run in the wrong direction, or a later-week confusion to flag because it comes later in the course), cite the evidence from the letter, your tables, or Chapter 1, and write a corrected sentence beneath it. This route assesses the same objectives (Objective 1 and Objective 2) as the chatbot critique, takes comparable effort (about 30 minutes and 250–350 words), is scored by the same scoring criteria for the same credit, and its own submission artifact is the marked-up flawed analysis, submitted in place of the chatbot share link and report.

Part 7 — What to Submit

• All four completed scaffold tables
• Written answers to all five analysis questions
• The chatbot critique report with its share link, or the equivalent route's marked-up flawed analysis
• The two-minute spoken or recorded explanation, or its written script

Deliverable:

A short Primary Source Workshop report on Columbus's letter: four completed tables (the caption audit, the tally, the sourcing table, and the close-reading table), written answers to five analysis questions, a critique of a chatbot's answer about the letter, or, on the equivalent route, a marked-up correction of the printed flawed analysis, and a two-minute spoken explanation or its written script. Submit in any accessible file type or as a link; a recorded response may be submitted as audio or video with a transcript, or as text. Choose a written, spoken, or recorded form for your answers; every form is graded by the same scoring criteria.

Rubric

The rubric below shows how each submitted part is evaluated; bands are full, partial, or none.

Workshop evaluation criteria

Criterion	Full	Partial	None
Sourcing the letter	All six sourcing rows are answered from the record: Columbus as maker, the 1492 voyage and the 1493 printing kept apart, his purpose and audience, a letter as its type, the Library of Congress as host, and the English rendering named as a translation whose translator is not given.	Most rows are answered, but the voyage and printing years are merged, the host is missing, or the translation is not named.	The sourcing table is missing, or its answers are copied from a chatbot without checking the record.
Auditing the caption against the record	All eight statements carry a verdict and a named record, every statement that is not Supported has a corrected sentence, and the tally counts add up to 8.	The audit is attempted, but one or two verdicts are wrong, a corrected sentence or record is missing, or a count is off.	No audit is recorded, or the verdicts come from a chatbot with no record named.
Close reading, context, and corroboration	The fragment is read for what it says and leaves out, set in its context, and corroborated or complicated with the royal grant or the Treaty of Tordesillas named with its date, ending in one plain sentence.	The close reading is attempted, but the corroborating document is unnamed or undated, or the reading stops at what the fragment says.	No close reading or corroboration appears.
Critique of the chatbot or of the printed flawed analysis	On either route, at least two errors are quoted and corrected with evidence from the letter, the tables, or Chapter 1, later-week slips are flagged as coming later, and one correct point is acknowledged; both routes earn this band equally.	On either route, errors are named but corrected without evidence, or only one error is caught.	No critique appears, or pasted output is submitted without any checking.
Presenting and defending the reading	The spoken explanation or its script sources the letter, gives the close reading, names the corroborating document, and ends in one plain sentence that says what the letter shows and what it does not.	The explanation is given, but one of those moves is missing or the plain sentence overclaims what the letter shows.	No explanation or script is submitted.
Reflection on the limits of the source	The chosen reflection option is answered in 3–4 sentences that name a specific limit of the letter and the evidence it would need.	The reflection is answered but stays general.	No reflection is submitted.

Quality Gate

• Every verdict in the audit table names the record it came from, the Library's page or Chapter 1, never a chatbot.
• The three tally counts add up to 8, one for each statement.
• The voyage year and the printing year are kept apart everywhere in the submission.
• Every quotation matches the pinned fragment word for word; no quotation, date, person, or document is invented anywhere in the submission.
• The critique quotes the chatbot or the flawed analysis and corrects at least two errors with evidence from the record or the chapter.
• The spoken explanation or its script ends in one plain sentence that names what the letter shows and what it does not.