For this lesson, students get into five groups. Each group examines one primary source document, looking for answers to specific questions about the Wright brothers’ first flights. The students come together to compare answers, to discuss the reliability of the sources, and to reach conclusions about the best—or most likely—answers to the questions. They then compare their work to a secondary source, an article that appeared the next day, December 18, 1903, in the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot.
Primary Sources Used
The primary source documents are a) Orville Wright’s diary entry for December 17, 1903, b) a telegram Orville sent to Bishop Milton Wright on the same day, c) a letter in which Bishop Wright reports the news to a journalist, d) an oral history of the first flights by the lifesaving man John T. Daniels, and e) the Wright brothers’ recollections of the flights, from a magazine article they wrote in 1908.
What to Hand Out
Make enough copies of the primary source documents to give every student a copy of his or her group’s document. Make enough copies of the graphic organizer and the newspaper article for everyone in the class.
Vocabulary
aeronautics, alchemist, altitude, ascent, breakers, discontinuance, glider, hummock, lateral, maneuver, mythical, navigator, rigors, rudder, sidling, stature, velocity
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The First Flight
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The first flight, December 17, 1903, at the moment of takeoff
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