Week 2 Primary Source Workshop: Checking a Draft Summary of the Mayflower Compact

Part 1 — The Big Picture

Town websites, museum signs, and chatbot summaries all retell the Mayflower Compact, and many of them call it a constitution, misdate it, or quote it in modern spelling as if those were its own words. This week you learned what a covenant is, how to source a document by origin, date, type, and host, and how to tell a claim a source shows from one that goes beyond it. In this workshop you act as a local-history volunteer checking a draft website summary before it is posted: you source the Compact, test eight summary statements against the record, close-read its pinned fragment, corroborate it with the First Charter of Virginia or the Pilgrim Hall Museum's page, 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 the Mayflower Compact, signed at Cape Cod in 1620, show about how its signers meant to govern themselves, what does it leave out, and which statements in an illustrative draft summary survive a check against the record?

Workshop data: Eight statements from an illustrative draft town-website summary of the Mayflower Compact

Source: Eight statements from an illustrative draft town-website summary written for this workshop and printed in full in Part 4; they come from no real website, and you check each one against the Mayflower Compact as the Avalon Project prints it, the Pilgrim Hall Museum's page on the Compact, and Chapter 2.

• 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 Avalon Project's text of the Mayflower Compact, the Pilgrim Hall Museum's page on the Compact, and Chapter 2

Part 3 — Materials & Procedure

Tools and materials

• The Avalon Project (free) or the Pilgrim Hall Museum website (free)
• 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 Avalon Project's page for the Mayflower Compact, linked on this week's Readings & Resources page, and find the sentence that holds the pinned fragment. Open the Pilgrim Hall Museum's page on the Compact beside it, and keep Chapter 2, Section 5, open too. Tool: The Avalon Project (free) or the Pilgrim Hall Museum website (free). Check: You can find the words civil Body Politick in the Avalon text and the museum's note that the original document is lost.
2. Fill in the sourcing table for the Compact: who made it, when (its own date and the museum's second date), why and for whom, its type, the host that keeps the text, and where its wording comes from. Tool: A notebook or any free note-taking app. Check: All six sourcing rows have an answer, and the date row keeps the Compact's own date and the museum's New Style date apart.
3. For each of the eight summary statements, check the Avalon text, the museum's page, and Chapter 2, 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 First Charter of Virginia or the museum's page 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 Compact shows and what it does not.
6. Search DocsTeach or the Library of Congress digital collections for the Mayflower Compact or Plymouth Colony, and note one item's title, date, and maker as a possible further source for the corroboration row of your close-reading table. Tool: DocsTeach (National Archives, free) or the Library of Congress digital collections (free). Check: You have one item's title, date, and maker written down, or a note that your search found no item, and you say which source you used for corroboration.
7. 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 Compact's text, your tables, or Chapter 2.
8. Present and defend your reading: record a two-minute spoken explanation, or write its script, that sources the Compact, gives your close reading, names your corroborating source, 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 Avalon Project or the Pilgrim Hall Museum page will not load in your browser.

Check the summary statements against the record facts printed in the table below, which restate the Avalon text, the museum's page, and Chapter 2 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 Avalon text, the museum's page, and Chapter 2, so you can check the statements without loading either page.

Fallback model data

Record fact	Where it comes from
The Mayflower Compact is a covenant signed at Cape Cod by settlers bound for the northern parts of Virginia; its own text dates it the eleventh of November 1620.	Avalon Project text; Chapter 2, Section 5
The pinned fragment reads: covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil Body Politick, for our better Ordering and Preservation.	Avalon Project text
The original document is lost; its wording comes to us through William Bradford's writings, and the museum prints it in modern spelling.	Pilgrim Hall Museum page
The museum gives a second date, 21 November 1620, marked New Style.	Pilgrim Hall Museum page; Chapter 2, Section 5
The First Charter of Virginia is a royal charter that King James I issued in 1606, a different document from the Compact.	Chapter 2, Section 3
Plymouth was founded on the homeland of the Wampanoag, whose communities live in the region today.	Pilgrim Hall Museum; Chapter 2, Section 5

Part 4 — The Scaffold

The data come first: eight statements from an illustrative draft town-website summary of the Mayflower Compact, 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. The Mayflower Compact is a covenant that settlers signed at Cape Cod in 1620.
S2. King James I issued the Mayflower Compact as a royal charter for Plymouth.
S3. The signers agreed to "combine ourselves together into a civil Body Politick".
S4. The settlers signed the Compact at Jamestown, the colony England founded in 1607.
S5. The Mayflower Compact was the first constitution of the United States.
S6. Because the Compact came before later self-government in the colonies, it caused that self-government.
S7. When they signed, the settlers were bound for the northern parts of Virginia.
S8. The Compact shows that the Wampanoag agreed to English rule over their land.

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 Compact itself, one sourcing question per row, before you read it closely.

Student scaffold table 3

Sourcing question	Your answer for the Mayflower Compact
Who made it
When (its own date, and the museum's second date)
Why, and for whom
What type of document it is
Which host keeps the text you read
Where its wording comes from

Close-read the pinned fragment and set it beside one other source 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 First Charter of Virginia or the Pilgrim Hall Museum's page
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 mixes up the Mayflower Compact with the week's other roster document, and what does sourcing the two documents show instead?
3. Two statements go beyond what the Compact can show. Pick one and explain the difference between what the Compact records and what the statement claims, using the course's distinction between a claim that shows and a claim that goes beyond.
4. Using your close-reading table, how does the First Charter of Virginia or the Pilgrim Hall Museum's page confirm or complicate the Compact's account of why the signers combined into a civil body politic? Name the source, its date or host, and what it adds.
5. Choose one and answer it in 3–4 sentences. (a) Name two things the Compact cannot tell a historian about Plymouth's first years, and say what kind of evidence each would need. (b) Explain how the loss of the original document, with its wording known through later writings and printed in more than one spelling, limits what you can say about the signers' 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 2 Primary Source Workshop tables above. They check an illustrative draft town-website summary of the Mayflower Compact. Please do six things. First, summarize the Mayflower Compact in three sentences, and say who signed it, where, and on what date. Second, quote its key phrase about a civil body politic exactly. Third, tell me whether the Compact is a primary or a secondary source. Fourth, say whether the Compact created American democracy, and whether Plymouth was the first European settlement in what became the United States. Fifth, say whether the Pilgrims brought corn to New England. Sixth, in one short paragraph, preview how colonial self-government leads to later U.S. history through 1877.

Test the response for these likely failures:

• Chatbots often call the Mayflower Compact a secondary source because the text a student reads comes from a modern web page and the original is lost.
• Chatbots sometimes describe the settlers' landing in 1620 as the conquest of the Wampanoag, or the opposite, a peaceful arrival with nothing taken.
• Chatbots often say the Pilgrims at Plymouth, or the English at Jamestown, founded the first European settlement in what became the United States.
• Chatbots sometimes say the Pilgrims brought corn, meaning maize, to New England.
• Chatbots often say the Mayflower Compact created American democracy because it came before later self-government.
• 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 Compact 21 November 1620 without saying why, or give the date the settlers later came ashore at Plymouth.
• 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 Compact's text, your tables, or Chapter 2; 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: "The Mayflower Compact is a secondary source, because the text we read comes from a modern website and the original is lost. King James I issued it in 1606 as a royal charter, and the settlers signed it on 21 November 1620, the date in its own text. Its signers agreed to combine ourselves together into a civil body politic, and with that it created American democracy, because it came before every later colonial government. Plymouth was the first European settlement in what became the United States, older than Jamestown and St. Augustine. The Pilgrims conquered the Wampanoag the day they landed, and they brought corn with them on the Mayflower. 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, the Compact confused with the First Charter of Virginia, a date taken from somewhere other than the document's own text, a quotation reworded into modern spelling, an order of events read as a cause, Plymouth or Jamestown placed before St. Augustine, contact called conquest, 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 Compact's text, your tables, or Chapter 2, 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 the Mayflower Compact: four completed tables (the summary 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 Compact, 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 Compact	All six sourcing rows are answered from the record: the settlers as makers, the Compact's own date read from its text, their purpose and audience, a covenant as its type, the Avalon Project as host, and where its wording comes from as the record states it.	Most rows are answered, but the date is not read from the Compact's own text, the host is missing, or the row on where its wording comes from is left blank.	The sourcing table is missing, or its answers are copied from a chatbot without checking the record.
Auditing the summary 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 First Charter of Virginia or the museum's page named with its date or host, ending in one plain sentence.	The close reading is attempted, but the corroborating source 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 Compact's text, the tables, or Chapter 2, 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 Compact, gives the close reading, names the corroborating source, and ends in one plain sentence that says what the Compact shows and what it does not.	The explanation is given, but one of those moves is missing or the plain sentence overstates what the Compact 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 Compact 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 Avalon text, the museum's page, or Chapter 2, never a chatbot.
• The three tally counts add up to 8, one for each statement.
• The Compact's own date and the museum's New Style date are kept apart everywhere in the submission.
• Every quotation matches the pinned fragment word for word and in its own spelling; 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 Compact shows and what it does not.