Week 11 · Primary Source Workshop

Week 11 Primary Source Workshop: Checking a Draft Exhibit Label on the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo

U.S. History to 1877 Free sample edition

Part 1 — The Big Picture

Exhibit labels, websites, and chatbot summaries all retell how the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ended the U.S.-Mexican War, and many of them blur what the treaty promised with what happened afterward, or date it from the wrong step. This week you learned how the United States grew from the Texas declaration of 1836 to the treaty of 1848, how the war began in disputed land and brought violence against Mexican civilians, and how no Native nation was a party to the treaty that moved the border. In this workshop you act as a researcher checking a draft exhibit label before it goes on a museum wall: you source the treaty from its own closing line, test eight label statements against the record, close-read its Article VIII passage, corroborate it with the National Archives' page, catch a chatbot making the same kinds of slips, and present your reading in one plain sentence. The war, its violence, and the losses Native nations suffered are documented facts; the workshop reads the treaty as evidence of what two governments promised, never as a debate about whether those facts happened.

Time budget: Plan for about 90 minutes.

Part 2 — The Task

Guiding question: What does the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, a treaty of peace between the United States and the United Mexican States signed in 1848 and kept by the Avalon Project, show about what the two governments promised the Mexicans of the ceded lands, what does it leave out about the Native nations who lived there, 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 the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo

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 the treaty's text as the Avalon Project prints it and against Chapter 11.

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 page for the treaty and Chapter 11

Part 3 — Materials & Procedure

Tools and materials

DocsTeach (National Archives, free) or the Library of Congress digital collections (free)
The Avalon Project page for the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
The National Archives page for the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
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 Avalon Project page for the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which this week's chapter and Readings & Resources page point to. Read the long heading at the top, then scroll to the end and find the closing line that begins Done in quintuplicate. Keep Chapter 11, Section 5, open beside it. Tool: The Avalon Project page for the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. Check: You can tell the page heading, which lists several steps, from the treaty's own closing line, which dates and places the signing.
Fill in the sourcing table for the treaty: who made it, when and where its own text says it was signed, 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 place row names the city of Guadalupe Hidalgo, not a later step from the heading.
For each of the eight label statements, check the treaty's text and Chapter 11, 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.
On the Avalon page for the treaty, use your browser's find command (Ctrl+F, or Cmd+F on a Mac) to search for Queretaro, then for quintuplicate, then for Stricken. For each word, write in your close-reading table whether the match falls in the page heading or in the treaty's text, and what it tells you. Tool: The Avalon Project page for the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. Check: Your table says where each word appears: one in the heading, one in the closing line, and one at Article X.
Open the National Archives page for the treaty, the one-stop reference on this week's Readings & Resources page. Read the introduction above the transcript and note one thing it records about the treaty that the label leaves out, such as the exchange copy or what the Senate removed. Tool: The National Archives page for the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. Check: Your corroboration row names the National Archives page and one thing it records that the label leaves out.
Search the Library of Congress digital collections or DocsTeach for the words Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, and note in your close-reading table whether the search finds a record connected to the treaty 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 Article VIII passage says, what the treaty leaves out about Native nations, what was happening around it, and how the National Archives 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 treaty 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 treaty's text, your tables, or Chapter 11.
Present and defend your reading: record a two-minute spoken explanation, or write its script, that sources the treaty from its own closing line, gives your close reading of Article VIII, 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 page or the National Archives page will not load in your browser.

Check the label statements against the record facts printed in the table below, which restate the treaty's text on the Avalon page, the National Archives page, and Chapter 11 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 treaty's text, the National Archives page, and Chapter 11, so you can check the statements without loading the pages.

Fallback model data
Record fact	Where it comes from
The treaty is a treaty of peace between the United States and the United Mexican States, and the Avalon Project keeps the text.	Avalon Project page for the treaty; Chapter 11, Section 5
The treaty's closing line, which begins Done in quintuplicate, places the signing at the city of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848.	Avalon Project page for the treaty
Avalon's page heading also lists later steps the same year: the Senate's advice, the President's ratification, the exchange of ratifications at Queretaro, and the proclamation. A word search finds Queretaro once, in the heading.	Avalon Project page for the treaty
Article VIII says the Mexicans of the ceded lands shall be free to continue where they now reside, or to remove at any time to the Mexican Republic. The passage records a promise; it does not show what happened to any family afterward.	Avalon Project page for the treaty; Chapter 11, Section 5
The words the right of trial by jury, that palladium of civil liberty come from the Texas Declaration of Independence of 1836, not from the treaty.	Chapter 11, Sections 2 and 8
The treaty's only parties are the United States and the United Mexican States; no Native nation signed it.	Avalon Project page for the treaty; Chapter 11, Section 6
The Senate struck out Article X, which had protected Mexican land grants; a word search finds Stricken once, at Article X. The National Archives keeps the exchange copy in Spanish and English.	National Archives page for the treaty; Avalon Project page for the treaty
The treaty of 1848 came 12 years after the Texas declaration of 1836.	Chapter 11, Section 8

Part 4 — The Scaffold

The data come first: eight statements from an illustrative draft exhibit label about the treaty, 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 treaty is a treaty of peace between the United States and the United Mexican States.
S2. The treaty was signed in 1848, 12 years after the Texas Declaration of Independence.
S3. Article VIII says that Mexicans in the ceded lands "shall be free to continue where they now reside, or to remove at any time to the Mexican Republic".
S4. The treaty was signed at Queretaro, on the day the two governments exchanged ratifications.
S5. Article VIII says the Mexicans of the ceded lands must remove to the Mexican Republic.
S6. The treaty calls jury trial "the right of trial by jury, that palladium of civil liberty".
S7. Because Article VIII says the Mexicans of the ceded lands were free to continue where they lived, it shows that every family there kept its home.
S8. Because the United States and Mexico both signed it, the treaty shows that the Native nations of the ceded lands agreed to the new border.

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

Student scaffold table 3
Sourcing question	Your answer for the treaty
Who made it
When and where its own closing line says it was signed
Why, and for whom
What type of document it is
Which host keeps the text you read

Close-read the Article VIII passage and set the treaty beside the National Archives' page to corroborate or complicate it.

Student scaffold table 4
Move	Your reading
What the Article VIII passage says
What the treaty leaves out about Native nations
Context: what was happening around it
Corroboration: the National Archives page on the treaty
Word search: where Queretaro, quintuplicate, and Stricken appear
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 gives the treaty words from another of this week's documents, and which document and year do those words come from?
Two statements turn what the treaty says into proof about the world. Explain what the treaty 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.
Using your close-reading table, how does the National Archives page confirm or complicate what the treaty's text shows? Name one thing the page records that the label leaves out, and say what your word searches add about dating the treaty from its own text.
Choose one and answer it in 3–4 sentences. (a) Name two things this treaty cannot tell a historian about how the Mexican families and the Native nations of the ceded lands lived after 1848, and say what kind of evidence each would need. (b) Explain how a treaty written by two governments limits what you can say about the people it was written about.

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 11 Primary Source Workshop tables above. They check an illustrative draft exhibit label about the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. Please do six things. First, summarize the treaty in three sentences and say who made it, what kind of document it is, which archive keeps it, and where and in what year it was signed. Second, quote Article VIII's words about where the Mexicans of the ceded lands may live, word for word. Third, say whether the treaty shows that those Mexicans kept their land, and whether it shows that the Native nations of the ceded lands agreed to the border. Fourth, say how the Missouri Compromise of 1820 bears on slavery in the land the treaty transferred. Fifth, describe the enslaved people in Texas in these years. Sixth, in one short paragraph, connect this story to earlier American history, including the first European settlements and the horses of the Southwest's Native nations, 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 museum label, as if it were part of the treaty's own text.
A chatbot setting the long background may say the Native nations of the Southwest were conquered the moment Spaniards first met them.
A chatbot tracing Spanish settlement in North America often calls Jamestown the oldest European settlement in what became the United States.
A chatbot describing the horses of the Southwest's Native nations may say horses were native to the Americas or crossed from the Americas to Europe.
Chatbots very often report that the Mexicans of the ceded lands kept their homes because Article VIII says they were free to stay, turning a promise into a result.
A chatbot describing slavery in Texas may call the enslaved people there servants who would go free after a term of years.
A chatbot comparing the Texas declaration with earlier American documents may say it copied the Constitution of 1776.
A chatbot explaining how the Senate approved the treaty may say the country still ran under the Articles of Confederation.
A chatbot sketching who opposed the war may name the Federalists who campaigned for the Constitution in 1788.
A chatbot connecting the treaty to early foreign policy may credit Washington's Farewell Address with the phrase entangling alliances with none.
Chatbots often date or place the signing from a later step on Avalon's page heading, saying the treaty was signed at Queretaro or on the day it was proclaimed.
A chatbot connecting the new land to slavery may say the Missouri Compromise line already decided slavery in the Mexican Cession, or that the line let settlers vote on slavery.
A chatbot previewing later history may say the war with Mexico 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 Texas.
A chatbot previewing the citizenship of the ceded lands' residents 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 treaty's text, your tables, or Chapter 11; 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 the treaty are one primary source, and the treaty was signed at Queretaro on the day it was proclaimed. Article VIII says the Mexicans of the ceded lands must remove to the Mexican Republic, and because it also says they were free to stay, every family kept its home. The treaty also calls jury trial a palladium of civil liberty, and since only the United States and Mexico signed it, the Native nations of the ceded lands agreed to the border. Those nations had been conquered the day Spaniards first met them, and the horses they rode were native to the Americas. Jamestown was the first European settlement in what became the United States, and the Texas delegates copied the Constitution of 1776. The Senate approved the treaty under the Articles of Confederation, the war's opponents were the Federalists who campaigned for the Constitution in 1788, and Washington's Farewell Address said entangling alliances with none. The enslaved people in Texas were servants who would go free after a term of years, and the Missouri Compromise line already let settlers in the Mexican Cession vote on slavery. Later, the war with Mexico caused the Civil War, the Emancipation Proclamation freed every enslaved person in Texas, 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 later step on the page heading used to date the signing, the passage's own words misstated, a promise read as proof of a result, one document's words given to another, the treaty's signers read as the Native nations' consent, contact called conquest, the exchange run in the wrong direction, Jamestown placed before St. Augustine, the Declaration confused with the Constitution or the Articles with the Constitution, the ratification-era Federalists confused with a later party, Jefferson's phrase given to Washington, slavery and servitude blurred, the Missouri Compromise line stretched past the Louisiana Purchase or confused with popular sovereignty, or a later-week confusion to flag because a later week takes it up), cite the evidence from the treaty's text on the Avalon Project page, your tables, or Chapter 11, 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 the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo: 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 treaty, 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 treaty	All five sourcing rows are answered from the record: the United States and the United Mexican States as makers, the signing dated and placed from the closing line at the city of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848 rather than a later step on the heading, the purpose of ending the war and setting terms, a treaty of peace as its type, and the Avalon Project as host.	Most rows are answered, but the signing is dated or placed from a later step on the heading, the type 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 Article VIII passage is read for what it says and the treaty for what it leaves out, including that no Native nation is a party to it, set in the end of the war in 1848, and corroborated or complicated with the National Archives 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 treaty's text, the tables, or Chapter 11, 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 treaty from its own closing line, gives the close reading of Article VIII, names the corroborating source, and ends in one plain sentence that says what the treaty shows and what it does not.	The explanation is given, but one of those moves is missing or the plain sentence overclaims what the treaty 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 treaty written by two governments 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 treaty's text or Chapter 11, never a chatbot.
The three tally counts add up to 8, one for each statement.
The treaty is sourced as a treaty of peace between the United States and the United Mexican States, dated from its own closing line at the city of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848 and kept by the Avalon Project, and kept apart from the later steps on the page heading.
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 treats Mexico and Mexican people factually, names each Native 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, policy, or border 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 treaty shows and what it does not.

Built with The Course Maker · samples.thecoursemaker.com