Week 6 · Primary Source Workshop

Week 6 Primary Source Workshop: Checking a Draft Audio-Tour Script on The Federalist No. 10

U.S. History to 1877 Free sample edition

Part 1 — The Big Picture

Audio tours, websites, and chatbot summaries all retell how the Constitution was argued into force, and many of them drop the brackets from a date, mix up the Federalists of 1788 with a later party, or read one persuasive essay as proof of what every voter thought. This week you learned how the Articles of Confederation gave way to the Constitution and how Federalists and Anti-Federalists argued over ratification. In this workshop you act as a researcher checking a draft audio-tour script before it is recorded: you source The Federalist No. 10, test eight script statements against the record, close-read the pinned fragment, corroborate it with this week's account of ratification, 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 Federalist No. 10, Madison's essay as Publius with the editors' date of 22 November 1787, show about how one side argued for ratification, what does it leave out, and which statements in an illustrative draft audio-tour script survive a check against the record?

Workshop data: Eight statements from an illustrative draft audio-tour script about The Federalist No. 10

Source: Eight statements from an illustrative draft audio-tour script written for this workshop and printed in full in Part 4; they come from no real tour, and you check each one against The Federalist Number 10 as Founders Online presents it and against Chapter 6.

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 Founders Online page for The Federalist Number 10, and Chapter 6

Part 3 — Materials & Procedure

Tools and materials

DocsTeach (National Archives, free) or the Library of Congress digital collections (free)
The Founders Online page for The Federalist Number 10
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

Open the Founders Online page for The Federalist Number 10, linked on this week's Readings & Resources page, and find the bracketed date under the title, the signature Publius at the end, and the sentence that names the most common source of factions. Keep Chapter 6, Section 6, open beside it. Tool: The Founders Online page for The Federalist Number 10. Check: You can find the bracketed date, the pen name at the end, and the sentence that begins with the words But the most common.
Fill in the sourcing table for the essay: who wrote it and under what name, when and whose date it is, why and for whom, its type, and the host that keeps the text. Tool: A notebook or any free note-taking app. Check: All five sourcing rows have an answer, and the date row names the bracketed date as the editors' date.
For each of the eight script statements, check the Founders Online page and Chapter 6, 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.
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.
Search the Library of Congress digital collections or DocsTeach for the words Federalist ratification, and note in your close-reading table whether the search finds a record from the ratification debate and what kind of document it is. 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.
Complete the close-reading table: say what the pinned fragment says, what the essay leaves out, what was happening around it, and how this week's account of ratification or the Bill of Rights 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 essay shows and what it does not.
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 Founders Online page, your tables, or Chapter 6.
Present and defend your reading: record a two-minute spoken explanation, or write its script, that sources the essay, 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 Founders Online page will not load in your browser.

Check the script statements against the record facts printed in the table below, which restate the Founders Online page and Chapter 6 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 Founders Online page and Chapter 6, so you can check the statements without loading the page.

Fallback model data
Record fact	Where it comes from
The Federalist No. 10 is a newspaper essay by James Madison, published under the pen name Publius, and the text ends with that name.	Founders Online page; Chapter 6, Section 6
Founders Online prints the date in square brackets, [22 November 1787]; the brackets mark the editors' date, supplied by the modern editors.	Founders Online page; Chapter 6, Section 6
The pinned fragment reads: the most common and durable source of factions, has been the various and unequal distribution of property.	Founders Online page
The essay argues that a large republic controls the effects of faction; it lists divisions such as debtors and creditors and never names slavery.	Founders Online page; Chapter 6, Section 6
In 1787 and 1788 Federalists supported the proposed Constitution and Anti-Federalists opposed it or demanded a bill of rights; the Federalist Party formed later, in the 1790s.	Chapter 6, Section 5
An essay written to persuade is evidence of one side's argument, not of how the voters decided or what caused the delegates' choices.	Chapter 6, Section 6

Part 4 — The Scaffold

The data come first: eight statements from an illustrative draft audio-tour script about The Federalist No. 10, 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 Federalist No. 10 is a newspaper essay that James Madison published under the pen name Publius.
S2. Founders Online prints the essay's date inside square brackets, which marks it as a date the editors supplied.
S3. The date printed with the essay is one Madison wrote at the top of it himself.
S4. The essay names the various and unequal distribution of property as the most common and durable source of factions.
S5. The Federalist Party of the 1790s wrote the essay to win its first election.
S6. The essay's pinned sentence names one vote for each state as the most common and durable source of factions.
S7. Because the essay was printed in a newspaper, it shows that most voters of the time supported ratification.
S8. Because the essay names property as the main source of faction, it proves the Constitution was written only to protect the delegates' own property.

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

Student scaffold table 3
Sourcing question	Your answer for The Federalist No. 10
Who wrote it, and under what name
When, and whose date it is
Why, and for whom
What type of document it is
Which host keeps the text you read

Close-read the pinned fragment and set it beside this week's account of ratification to corroborate or complicate it.

Student scaffold table 4
Move	Your reading
What the fragment says
What the essay leaves out
Context: what was happening around it
Corroboration: the Anti-Federalists' demand, or the Bill of Rights, in Chapter 6
Library or DocsTeach search: words used and what turned up
One plain sentence

Part 5 — Analysis Questions

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.
Which statement treats the bracketed date as Madison's own, and what does sourcing the page show instead?
One statement gives the essay to a party that did not yet exist. Explain what Chapter 6 shows instead, using the course's definitions of Federalists and Anti-Federalists.
Using your close-reading table, how does this week's account of the Anti-Federalists' demand, or the Bill of Rights, confirm or complicate what The Federalist No. 10 shows about the ratification debate? Name the source and what it adds.
Choose one and answer it in 3–4 sentences. (a) Name two things this essay cannot tell a historian about how ordinary people decided whether to support ratification, and say what kind of evidence each would need. (b) Explain how reading a persuasive essay published under a pen name limits what you can say about its author's private views.

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 6 Primary Source Workshop tables above. They check an illustrative draft audio-tour script about The Federalist No. 10. Please do six things. First, summarize the essay in three sentences and say who wrote it, what kind of document it is, and when it is dated. Second, quote its sentence on the most common source of factions word for word. Third, say whether the Federalists of 1787 and 1788 were the Federalist Party, and whether the essay defended the Articles of Confederation, the Declaration of Independence, or the Constitution. Fourth, say whether the essay's focus on property proves why the delegates wrote the Constitution. Fifth, say how the Constitution's three-fifths clause counted free persons, servants bound for a term of years, and enslaved people. 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 treat a modern summary of The Federalist No. 10, or the editors' notes printed with it, as if it were Madison's own essay.
A chatbot setting the long background may say the colonists conquered North America on the day they first met Native nations.
A chatbot tracing the country back to its roots often calls Jamestown the oldest European settlement in what became the United States.
A chatbot describing early American property and trade may say tobacco or maize came to the Americas from Europe.
Chatbots often read the essay's focus on property as proof of why the delegates wrote the Constitution.
A chatbot explaining the three-fifths clause may say the servants bound for a term of years were counted the same way as enslaved people.
Chatbots often say the essay defended the Declaration of Independence, or give the Constitution the year 1776.
Chatbots often say the essay argued for keeping the Articles of Confederation, or that the Articles let Congress tax.
Chatbots often say the Federalist Party wrote The Federalist, or that the essay's Federalists were Hamilton and Adams's party of the 1790s.
A chatbot previewing later history may credit Washington with the phrase "entangling alliances".
Chatbots often give 22 November 1787 as the date Madison wrote on the essay, dropping the square brackets.
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 quarrel over taxes that drove the Revolution later caused the Civil War.
A chatbot running ahead to the Civil War may say the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 freed every enslaved person and ended the clauses this week reads.
A chatbot listing later amendments 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 Founders Online page, your tables, or Chapter 6; 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 Federalist No. 10 and the editors' notes on the Founders Online page are one primary source, both written by Madison, and he dated the essay 22 November 1787 in his own hand. The essay was written by the Federalist Party of the 1790s to defend the Articles of Confederation, which let Congress tax, and it is really about the Declaration of Independence of 1787. Because Madison names property as the main source of faction, the essay proves the delegates wrote the Constitution only to protect their own property. The three-fifths clause counted servants bound for a term of years and enslaved people the same way. The country began at Jamestown, the first European settlement in what became the United States; the colonists conquered North America the day they met Native nations; and Europeans brought tobacco and maize to the Americas. Later, 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 editors' date read as the author's, the ratification-era Federalists confused with the later party, the Articles confused with the Constitution or the Declaration, an argument read as proof of a cause, servitude and slavery blurred, Jamestown placed before St. Augustine, contact called conquest, the exchange run in the wrong direction, or a later-week confusion to flag because a later week takes it up), cite the evidence from the Founders Online page, your tables, or Chapter 6, and write a corrected sentence beneath it. This route assesses the same objectives (Objective 1, Objective 4, and Objective 5) 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 Federalist No. 10: four completed tables (the script 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 essay, 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 essay	All five sourcing rows are answered from the record: Madison as the writer and Publius as the pen name, the bracketed date named as the editors' date, the purpose of persuading readers to ratify, a newspaper essay as its type, and Founders Online as host.	Most rows are answered, but the date is given as Madison's own, the pen name is missing, or the host is not named.	The sourcing table is missing, or its answers are copied from a chatbot without checking the record.
Auditing the script 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 the essay for what it leaves out, set in the ratification debate of 1787 and 1788, and corroborated or complicated with Chapter 6's account of the Anti-Federalists or the Bill of Rights, 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 Founders Online page, the tables, or Chapter 6, 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 essay, gives the close reading, names the corroborating source, and ends in one plain sentence that says what the essay shows and what it does not.	The explanation is given, but one of those moves is missing or the plain sentence overclaims what the essay 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 a persuasive essay 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 Founders Online page or Chapter 6, never a chatbot.
The three tally counts add up to 8, one for each statement.
The date is named as the editors' date, with its square brackets, and the essay is credited to Madison writing as Publius.
Every quotation matches the pinned fragment word for word, comma included; no quotation, date, clause, person, or document is invented anywhere in the submission.
The submission keeps the Federalists of 1787 and 1788 apart from the later Federalist Party and argues no present-day political question.
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 essay shows and what it does not.

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