At the end of this week-long project you will be able to:

• analyze historical images;
• create an original argument using primary sources;
• pose historical questions after analyzing and reflecting on primary sources;
• employ search strategies to obtain primary historical data from targeted collections of sources;
• put in historical context the developments of race and ethnicity in America;
• practice cooperative decision making and discussion skills; and
• demonstrate proper bibliographic citation of electronic resources.

Introduction

1. Watch a few baseball video clips chosen by your teacher. Note that the players are from different backgrounds and social classes. As you watch the clips, write down your observations and comments. Discuss your observations with your classmates.
2. Get ready to use observation, analysis, and evaluation of primary sources to learn more about race and ethnicity in America.

3. Before you begin, view the rubrics on Evaluation of Discussion and Evaluation of Final Product to see how the assignment will be evaluated.
4. Review these primary document images of baseball in the nineteenth century.
• Knickerbocker Rules of 1847
• Colonial Baseball Poem and Drawing

5. Share your observations about these images with a partner. Try to answer the following questions:
   • What do you see?
   • What do you these primary sources tell you about baseball in early America?
   • What do the sources tell you about U.S. culture in the late eighteenth and early nineteeth century? Why?

Research

1. Your group will be assigned one of the following time periods: 1860-1879, 1880-1899, 1900-1919, 1920-1939, 1940-1959. As a group, investigate your time period. By examining sources about baseball, you are trying to capture U.S. ideas regarding race and ethnicity during your assigned time period.
2. You may investigate sources from these American Memory collections:
• The African-American Experience in Ohio: Selections from the Ohio Historical Society
• Baseball Cards, 1887-1914
• By Popular Demand: Jackie Robinson and Other Baseball Highlights, 1860s-1960s
• History of the American West, 1860-1920: Photographs from the Collection of the Denver Public Library

3. Searching Hints. Use these resources to help you search for images and documents:
• Synonym List.
• Baseball Synonyms.
• Finding Items in American Memory.
• “How to” Information (how to bookmark, save, and print American Memory materials).
• Citing Electronic Sources.

4. In noting information about each primary source you examine, consider the following questions for each type of source:
• Questions to Consider When Examining Images
• Questions to Consider When Examining Documents

5. From the American Memory collections, each group member is to find two sources for the assigned time period: one visual image and one textual document that characterizes or captures American's idea of race and ethnicity during your time period. Therefore, at the end of your research, each group will be reviewing their collection of images and documents.

Roundtable Discussion

1. Assign these roles to group members:

   Researcher	Discussion Leader	Recorder
   You must identify and explain important events, people, and patterns during this time period. You may reference your notes, your text, or American Memory collections. Ultimately, your job is to set the historical context for the discussion.	You must keep the discussion on track and focused.  You must ensure that all members' ideas are shared. Remember that you are trying to characterize or capture the developments regarding race and ethnicity in America during this time period.	You must take notes and try to capture the group's discussion.  Focus on why group members selected the sources that best represent the changes or challenges of race and ethnicity during your time period. Include comments from each member including yourself.

   Note: All members are responsible for contributing to the discussion.  You will be asked to evaluate the quality of this discussion using the criteria in Evaluation of Discussion.

2. Examine the primary sources (images and documents) selected by your group. List ideas from the sources that provide insight on how they reflect American attitudes regarding race.
3. Decide which one image and one textual document best capture your era.

Final Product

Based on one image and one document that best represent the development of race and ethnicity during your assigned time period, complete the final newspaper page:

1. Create a "newspaper" column or editorial that makes an argument that tries to characterize the tensions, challenges, changes, or reforms regarding race and ethnicity during that period as evidenced through your baseball primary sources. The article must refer specifically to the sources.
2. Compile a newspaper page that includes:
   • a creative title;
   • city, state, date (from your assigned time period);
   • your group's selected image;
   • your group's selected document;
   • an editorial analyzing how Americans' ideas about race and ethnicity are illustrated in the group's baseball sources; and
   • a bibliography with proper citation format.
3. Before you begin, see the Evaluation of Final Product rubric.
4. You may also look at an example of a newspaper created by other students.