Week 3 Primary Source Workshop: Checking a Draft Exhibit Panel on the Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina

Part 1 — The Big Picture

Museum panels, websites, and chatbot summaries all retell how slavery took hold in England's colonies, and many of them get the date of 1619 wrong, blur servitude and slavery, or give a famous name to words no record ties to him. This week you learned that colonial law built hereditary racial slavery over the seventeenth century, and you read one colonial frame of government that wrote enslavers' power into law. In this workshop you act as a museum researcher checking a draft panel before it goes on the wall: you source the Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina, test eight panel statements against the record, close-read the pinned fragment, corroborate it with this week's account of colonial law, 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 Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina's article on slavery, dated 1669 in the Avalon Project's heading, show about the power colonial law gave enslavers, what does it leave out, and which statements in an illustrative draft panel survive a check against the record?

Workshop data: Eight statements from an illustrative draft exhibit panel about the Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina

Source: Eight statements from an illustrative draft exhibit panel written for this workshop and printed in full in Part 4; they come from no real exhibit, and you check each one against the Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina as the Avalon Project presents them and against Chapter 3.

• 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 page for the Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina, and Chapter 3

Part 3 — Materials & Procedure

Tools and materials

• DocsTeach (National Archives, free) or the Library of Congress digital collections (free)
• The Avalon Project's page for the Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina
• 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 Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina, linked on this week's Readings & Resources page, and find the article on slavery and the editors' notes printed below the text. Keep Chapter 3, Section 6, open beside it. Tool: The Avalon Project's page for the Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina. Check: You can find the article that begins with the words Every freeman of Carolina, and the notes that name who framed and amended the form of government.
2. Fill in the sourcing table for the document: who made it, when and whose heading gives the date, why and for whom, its type, the host that keeps the text, and what the notes say and do not say about authorship. Tool: A notebook or any free note-taking app. Check: All six sourcing rows have an answer, and the authorship row says the notes do not name who drafted the slavery article.
3. For each of the eight panel statements, check the Avalon page and Chapter 3, 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. Search the Library of Congress digital collections or DocsTeach for the words Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina, and note in your close-reading table whether the search finds a record of the document and what that record says about its date. Tool: DocsTeach (National Archives, free) or the Library of Congress digital collections (free). Check: Your table names the search words you used and either describes the record you found or says that no record turned up.
6. Complete the close-reading table: say what the pinned fragment says, what it leaves out, what was happening around it, and how this week's account of colonial law or the National Park Service's 1619 record 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 document shows and what it does not.
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 Avalon page, your tables, or Chapter 3.
8. Present and defend your reading: record a two-minute spoken explanation, or write its script, that sources the document, 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's page will not load in your browser.

Check the panel statements against the record facts printed in the table below, which restate the Avalon page and Chapter 3 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 page and Chapter 3, so you can check the statements without loading the page.

Fallback model data

Record fact	Where it comes from
The Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina are a colonial frame of government made by the Lords Proprietors, dated 1 March 1669 in the Avalon Project's heading.	Avalon Project page; Chapter 3, Section 6
The pinned fragment reads: Every freeman of Carolina shall have absolute power and authority over his negro slaves, of what opinion or religion soever.	Avalon Project page
Avalon's notes say the form of government was framed by John Locke and amended by the Earl of Shaftesbury.	Avalon Project page, the notes below the text
The notes record that a different article, on public maintenance of the Church of England, was inserted by some of the proprietors against Locke's judgment; they do not say who drafted the slavery article.	Avalon Project page, the notes below the text
Indentured servitude was labor for a fixed term of years; colonial laws made slavery lifelong, inherited through the mother, and tied to African descent over the seventeenth century.	Chapter 3, Sections 2 and 5
The National Park Service reports "20 and odd" Africans brought to Virginia in 1619; racial slavery was not complete that year.	Chapter 3, Section 3

Part 4 — The Scaffold

The data come first: eight statements from an illustrative draft exhibit panel about the Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina, 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 Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina are a colonial frame of government made by the Lords Proprietors.
S2. The Avalon Project's heading dates the document to 1669.
S3. John Locke wrote the article that gives every freeman power over the people he enslaved.
S4. The slavery article says that power held "of what opinion or religion soever".
S5. Because the article gave enslavers absolute power, it shows how enslaved people in Carolina lived and what they thought.
S6. Racial slavery was already complete in the English colonies in 1619, and this document only repeated it.
S7. Indentured servants in the colonies held the same status as enslaved people, since both were bound labor.
S8. Avalon's notes record that a different article, on public maintenance of the Church of England, was inserted by some of the proprietors against Locke's judgment.

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

Student scaffold table 3

Sourcing question	Your answer for the Fundamental Constitutions
Who made it
When, and whose heading gives the date
Why, and for whom
What type of document it is
Which host keeps the text you read
What the notes say, and do not say, about authorship

Close-read the pinned fragment and set it beside this week's account of colonial law 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: colonial law in Chapter 3, or the 1619 record
Library or DocsTeach search: words used and what turned up
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 gives the slavery article an author the record does not name, and what does sourcing the notes show instead?
3. Two statements are contradicted by this week's account of how slavery was built. Pick one and explain what Chapter 3 shows instead, using the course's definitions of indentured servitude and hereditary racial slavery.
4. Using your close-reading table, how does this week's account of colonial law, or the National Park Service's 1619 record, confirm or complicate what the slavery article shows? Name the source and what it adds.
5. Choose one and answer it in 3–4 sentences. (a) Name two things this frame of government cannot tell a historian about the lives of the people enslaved in Carolina, and say what kind of evidence each would need. (b) Explain how reading the document through a page whose notes come from a much later compilation limits what you can say about who wrote each article.

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 3 Primary Source Workshop tables above. They check an illustrative draft exhibit panel about the Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina. Please do six things. First, summarize the document in three sentences and say who made it, what kind of document it is, and when it is dated. Second, quote its article on slavery word for word. Third, tell me who wrote that article. Fourth, say whether slavery in the English colonies was already complete when Africans were brought to Virginia in 1619, and whether indentured servants and enslaved people held the same status. Fifth, say whether the fact that this document came 50 years after 1619 shows that the arrival of 1619 caused it. 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 blend Avalon's editorial notes into the 1669 document and treat both as one primary source, which is how a famous framer's name gets attached to every article.
• A chatbot retelling the colonial background may say the English conquered the Americas on the day the first colonists arrived.
• A chatbot setting the scene for 1619 often calls Jamestown the first European settlement in what became the United States.
• A chatbot describing the tobacco economy may say Europeans brought tobacco to the Americas.
• Chatbots often read the order of two dates as a cause, saying the arrival of 1619 caused the Carolina frame of 1669.
• Chatbots often call indentured servants slaves for a term, or say the two 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 give the document a date with no source, or give a different year, without saying where the date comes from.
• 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 Avalon page, your tables, or Chapter 3; 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 Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina and the notes on the Avalon page are one primary source written together in 1669, so John Locke wrote every article, including the one on slavery. The document has no date that anyone can check. Slavery was already complete when the first Africans landed in Virginia in 1619, and because the Carolina frame came later, the landing of 1619 caused it. Indentured servants were slaves for a few years, so servitude and slavery were the same status. Jamestown was the first European settlement in what became the United States, the English conquered the Americas the day they arrived, and Europeans carried tobacco to the Americas. Later, 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 (an editor's later notes read as part of the primary source, an author the record does not name, a date given with no source, an order of events read as a cause, servitude and slavery blurred, 1619 read as a finished system, 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 Avalon page, your tables, or Chapter 3, and write a corrected sentence beneath it. This route assesses the same objectives (Objective 1 and Objective 3) 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 Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina: four completed tables (the panel 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 document, 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 document	All six sourcing rows are answered from the record: the Lords Proprietors as makers, the date named as Avalon's heading gives it, the proprietors' purpose and audience, a colonial frame of government as its type, the Avalon Project as host, and the notes read for what they say and do not say about authorship.	Most rows are answered, but the date's source is not named, the host is missing, or an author is given for the slavery article.	The sourcing table is missing, or its answers are copied from a chatbot without checking the record.
Auditing the panel 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 the decades when colonial law built slavery, and corroborated or complicated with Chapter 3's account of colonial law or the 1619 record, ending in one plain sentence.	The close reading is attempted, but the corroborating source is unnamed, 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 Avalon page, the tables, or Chapter 3, 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 document, gives the close reading, names the corroborating source, and ends in one plain sentence that says what the document shows and what it does not.	The explanation is given, but one of those moves is missing or the plain sentence overclaims what the document 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 frame of government 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 page or Chapter 3, never a chatbot.
• The three tally counts add up to 8, one for each statement.
• The date is named as Avalon's heading gives it, and no author is given for the slavery article.
• Every quotation matches the pinned fragment word for word; no quotation, date, law, person, or document is invented anywhere in the submission.
• The submission says enslaved people in its own voice and states slavery plainly, never as a debate.
• 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 document shows and what it does not.