Week 9 Primary Source Workshop: Checking a Draft Exhibit Label on Jackson's Removal Message

Part 1 — The Big Picture

Exhibit labels, websites, and chatbot summaries all retell how the United States forced the Cherokee Nation and other nations from their homelands, and many of them repeat a President's words as if they settled what removal was. This week you learned how Jacksonian democracy widened the vote for white men while the government drove Native nations west, and how the Cherokee Nation resisted. In this workshop you act as a researcher checking a draft exhibit label before it goes on a museum wall: you source Jackson's message to Congress, test eight label statements against the record, close-read its pinned passage, corroborate it with the National Park Service's account of the Trail of Tears, catch a chatbot making the same kinds of slips, and present your reading in one plain sentence. Removal and the deaths of thousands of Cherokee people are documented facts; the workshop reads the message as evidence of Jackson's argument, never as a debate about whether removal happened.

Time budget: Plan for about 90 minutes.

Part 2 — The Task

Guiding question: What does President Andrew Jackson's annual message to Congress of 1830, kept by the National Archives, show about how he justified removal, what does it leave out about the Native nations it describes, and which statements in an illustrative draft exhibit label survive a check against the record?

Workshop data: Eight statements from an illustrative draft exhibit label about Jackson's removal message

Source: Eight statements from an illustrative draft exhibit label written for this workshop and printed in full in Part 4; they come from no real museum, and you check each one against Jackson's message as the National Archives presents it and against Chapter 9.

• 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 National Archives page for Jackson's message and Chapter 9

Part 3 — Materials & Procedure

Tools and materials

• DocsTeach (National Archives, free) or the Library of Congress digital collections (free)
• The National Archives page for Jackson's message
• The National Park Service page What Happened on the Trail of Tears?
• 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 National Archives page for Jackson's message, which is the one-stop reference on this week's Readings & Resources page. Read the introduction above the transcript, then find the opening sentence of the transcript, which holds the pinned passage. Keep Chapter 9, Section 6, open beside it. Tool: The National Archives page for Jackson's message. Check: You can tell the archive's introduction from the transcript of the message, and you can find the pinned passage in the transcript's opening sentence.
2. Fill in the sourcing table for the message: who made it, when, why and for whom, what type of document it is, and which host keeps the text. Tool: A notebook or any free note-taking app. Check: All five sourcing rows have an answer, and the type row says annual message, not law.
3. For each of the eight label statements, check the National Archives page and Chapter 9, 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. On the National Archives page for Jackson's message, use your browser's find command (Ctrl+F, or Cmd+F on a Mac) to search for the word benevolent, then for the word Cherokee. For each word, write in your close-reading table whether the matches fall in the archive's introduction, in Jackson's transcript, or in both. Tool: The National Archives page for Jackson's message. Check: Your table says where each word appears, and whether Jackson's own text ever names the Cherokee Nation.
6. Search the Library of Congress digital collections or DocsTeach for the words Indian Removal Act, and note in your close-reading table whether the search finds a record connected to removal 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.
7. Open the National Park Service page What Happened on the Trail of Tears?, listed on this week's Readings & Resources page, and note one thing it records about what the Cherokee Nation did before or during removal that Jackson's message does not say. Tool: The National Park Service page What Happened on the Trail of Tears?. Check: Your corroboration row names the park service page and one thing it records that the message leaves out.
8. Complete the close-reading table: say what the pinned passage says, what the message leaves out, what was happening around it, and how the park service 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 message shows and what it does not.
9. 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 National Archives page, your tables, or Chapter 9.
10. Present and defend your reading: record a two-minute spoken explanation, or write its script, that sources the message, 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 National Archives page or the National Park Service page will not load in your browser.

Check the label statements against the record facts printed in the table below, which restate the National Archives page, the park service page, and Chapter 9 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 National Archives page, the park service page, and Chapter 9, so you can check the statements without loading the pages.

Fallback model data

Record fact	Where it comes from
Jackson's message is an annual message from President Andrew Jackson to Congress, dated 1830, and the National Archives keeps it.	National Archives page for Jackson's message; Chapter 9, Section 6
Congress passed the Indian Removal Act in 1830, and Jackson signed it; the act authorized removal treaties with Native nations east of the Mississippi River. The message reported on that policy months later; it is not the law.	National Archives page for Jackson's message; Chapter 9, Section 6
The pinned passage, in the transcript's opening sentence, reads: the benevolent policy of the Government, steadily pursued for nearly thirty years, in relation to the removal of the Indians beyond the white settlements is approaching to a happy consummation.	National Archives page for Jackson's message
A word search finds benevolent twice on the page, once in the archive's introduction and once in the transcript; every match for Cherokee sits in the introduction, and Jackson's transcript never names the Cherokee Nation.	National Archives page for Jackson's message
The words incompatible with the existence of the Union come from Jackson's Proclamation Regarding Nullification of 1832, not from the message.	Chapter 9, Section 8
The Louisiana Purchase Treaty was signed in 1803, 27 years before the message of 1830.	Chapter 9, Sections 1 and 9
The message shows how the President justified removal to Congress; it is evidence of his argument, not of the Cherokee Nation's view.	Chapter 9, Section 6
The park service records that the Cherokee Nation had a written constitution, challenged Georgia in the Supreme Court and won, and protested the Treaty of New Echota, signed by people who held no elected office.	National Park Service page What Happened on the Trail of Tears?; Chapter 9, Section 7

Part 4 — The Scaffold

The data come first: eight statements from an illustrative draft exhibit label about Jackson's message, 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. Jackson's message is an annual message from the President to Congress, and the National Archives keeps it.
S2. The message is dated 1830, the same year Congress passed the Indian Removal Act.
S3. In the message, Jackson calls removal "the benevolent policy of the Government".
S4. The message's own words prove that removal was a kindness to the nations removed.
S5. In the message, Jackson calls a state's claimed power to annul a federal law incompatible with the existence of the Union.
S6. Jackson's message is the law that authorized the removal treaties.
S7. The message came before the Louisiana Purchase Treaty.
S8. Because the message says removal is approaching a happy consummation, it shows how the Cherokee Nation felt about removal.

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

Student scaffold table 3

Sourcing question	Your answer for Jackson's message
Who made it
When it is dated, and how that date relates to the Indian Removal Act
Why, and for whom
What type of document it is
Which host keeps the text you read

Close-read the pinned passage and set the message beside the park service's account to corroborate or complicate it.

Student scaffold table 4

Move	Your reading
What the pinned passage says
What the message leaves out
Context: what was happening around it
Corroboration: the National Park Service page on the Trail of Tears
Word search: where benevolent and Cherokee appear on the page
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 Jackson's message words from another of this week's documents, and which document and year do those words come from?
3. Two statements treat Jackson's words as proof about the world. Explain what the message does show and what it does not, using the course's line between a claim that shows what a source says and a claim that goes beyond it.
4. Using your close-reading table, how does the National Park Service page on the Trail of Tears confirm or complicate what Jackson's message shows? Name one thing the page records that the message leaves out, and say what your word search for Cherokee adds.
5. Choose one and answer it in 3–4 sentences. (a) Name two things this message cannot tell a historian about how the Cherokee Nation and the other removed nations saw removal, and say what kind of evidence each would need. (b) Explain how a message written to persuade Congress limits what you can say about what removal did to the people removed.

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 9 Primary Source Workshop tables above. They check an illustrative draft exhibit label about President Andrew Jackson's message to Congress on Indian removal. Please do six things. First, summarize the message in three sentences and say who wrote it, what kind of document it is, which archive keeps it, and when it is dated. Second, quote its sentence about the benevolent policy of the Government word for word. Third, say whether the message proves that removal was kind, and whether it shows how the Cherokee Nation felt about removal. Fourth, say how the Missouri Compromise of 1820 decided where slavery could go in the territories. Fifth, describe the people who grew the cotton that northern mills spun in these years. Sixth, in one short paragraph, connect this story to earlier American history and preview how it leads to later U.S. history through 1877.

Test the response for these likely failures:

• Chatbots often treat the National Archives' introduction above the transcript, or a modern summary such as a museum label, as if it were part of Jackson's own message.
• A chatbot setting the long background may say the Southeast's Native nations were conquered the moment Europeans first met them.
• A chatbot tracing the Southeast's colonial roots often calls Jamestown the oldest European settlement in what became the United States.
• A chatbot describing the farms the canals served may say maize or tobacco came to the Americas from Europe.
• Chatbots very often report removal as benevolent because Jackson called it a benevolent policy, or treat his confident words as proof of what removal did.
• A chatbot describing the cotton that fed the northern mills may call the people who grew it servants who would go free after a term of years.
• A chatbot may say Jackson's message appeals to the Declaration of Independence as the frame of government, or give the Constitution the year 1776.
• A chatbot discussing nullification may say the Union of 1832 still ran under the Articles of Confederation.
• A chatbot sketching the parties of Jackson's day may call his opponents the Federalists who campaigned for the Constitution in 1788.
• A chatbot opening the story in 1801 may credit Washington's Farewell Address with the phrase entangling alliances with none.
• Chatbots often give the message the date of the Indian Removal Act, or mix the year of the message with a later year from the archive's introduction.
• A chatbot connecting the West to slavery may say the Missouri Compromise of 1820 let settlers in each territory vote on slavery.
• A chatbot previewing later history may say the nullification crisis was the same quarrel that later caused the Civil War.
• A chatbot running ahead may say the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 freed every enslaved person in the cotton South.
• 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 National Archives page, your tables, or Chapter 9; 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 National Archives' introduction and Jackson's message are one primary source, and the message is the Indian Removal Act itself, dated the same day Congress passed it. Because Jackson called removal a benevolent policy, the message proves removal was kind, and it shows that the Cherokee Nation welcomed the move. In the same message Jackson called nullification incompatible with the existence of the Union. The message came before the Louisiana Purchase, and Jackson governed under the Articles of Confederation, which let Congress tax, while appealing to the Declaration of Independence of 1787. His opponents were the Federalists who campaigned for the Constitution in 1788. The Missouri Compromise of 1820 let settlers in each territory vote on slavery, and Washington's Farewell Address said entangling alliances with none. The people who grew the cotton for the northern mills were servants who would go free after a term of years. The country began at Jamestown, the first European settlement in what became the United States; the Southeast's nations were conquered the day Europeans met them; and Europeans brought maize and tobacco to the Americas. Later, the nullification crisis caused the Civil War, 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 archive's later introduction read as part of the primary source, a message confused with the law it reported on, a law's date given to the message, a President's word read as proof of a result or of another people's view, one document's words given to another, the years out of order, the Articles confused with the Constitution or the Declaration, the ratification-era Federalists confused with a later party, the Missouri Compromise line confused with popular sovereignty, Jefferson's phrase given to Washington, slavery and servitude 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 National Archives page, your tables, or Chapter 9, and write a corrected sentence beneath it. This route assesses the same objectives (Objective 1 and Objective 6) 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 Jackson's message to Congress on Indian removal: four completed tables (the label 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 message, 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 message	All five sourcing rows are answered from the record: President Andrew Jackson as author, the year 1830 with the message placed months after the Indian Removal Act, the purpose of justifying removal to Congress, an annual message as its type, and the National Archives as host.	Most rows are answered, but the message is called the law itself, its year is wrong, 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 label 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 passage is read for what it says and the message for what it leaves out, including that no Native nation speaks in it, set in the removal policy of 1830, and corroborated or complicated with the park service page or another named source, ending in one plain sentence.	The close reading is attempted, but the corroborating source is unnamed, or the reading stops at what the passage 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 National Archives page, the tables, or Chapter 9, 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 message, gives the close reading, names the corroborating source, and ends in one plain sentence that says what the message shows and what it does not.	The explanation is given, but one of those moves is missing or the plain sentence overclaims what the message 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 President's message to Congress 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 National Archives page or Chapter 9, never a chatbot.
• The three tally counts add up to 8, one for each statement.
• The message is sourced as an annual message from President Jackson to Congress, dated 1830 and kept by the National Archives, and kept apart from the Indian Removal Act it reported on.
• Every quotation matches the pinned passage word for word, capitals and punctuation included; no quotation, date, figure, person, or document is invented anywhere in the submission.
• The submission states the forced removals plainly, names each removed nation by its own name and in the present tense, gives no death figure as settled, and compares no part of these decades with any present-day party or policy.
• 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 message shows and what it does not.