The Renaissance

Coach Conner's Social Studies Project

Government	Art (Painting/Sculpting/Architecture)	Science/Technology	Writers/Philosophers/Religious
Elizabeth I	Sandro Botticelli	Leonardo Da Vinci	Machiavelli
Henry VIII	Raphael	Copernicus	William Shakespeare
Lorenzo De Medici	Michelangelo	Galileo Galilei	Sir Thomas More
Mary Queen of Scots (last letter)	Leonardo Da Vinci	Johannes Kepler	Miguel de Cervantes
Pope Leo X	Albrecht Dürer	Tycho Brahe	Martin Luther
Ferdinand I	Giovanni Bellini	Rene Descartes	Giovanni Boccaccio
Catherine de Medici	Donatello	Gutenberg, Johann	Girolamo Savonarola
Henry IV	Ghiberti		Francis Bacon
	Giotto di Bondone		John Calvin
	Titian (Vecielli, Tiziano)		Dante Alighieri
	Jan van Eyck		Erasmus, Desiderius
	Benvenuto Cellini		John Knox
	Andrea Del Verrocchio
	Filippo Brunelleschi
	El Greco

I. YOUR TASK:

Your mission is to create an example of a primary source document for an important figure of the Renaissance. Please check with your teacher for your assigned person!

A primary source is an original record created at the time a historical event occurred. Primary sources may include letters, manuscripts, diaries, journals, newspapers, speeches, interviews, memoirs, or government documents. These sources provide ways for historians to understand and interpret the past directly from the people who made history!

In this assignment, you may choose to create one of the following:

Letter
- Who will your person write a letter to?
- What emotions does your person write with? Is he/she scared, frustrated, happy, excited, or sad?
- What event will you write about? Pick something important that happened in your person's life!
Diary or Journal entry (see Leonardo Da Vinci's journal for example!)
- What would your person find important to record?
- What emotions would you person write with? Are they scared, frustrated, happy, excited, or sad?
- Who would your person talk about? Would they say nice or angry things?
Speech
- What would your person give a speech about?
- Is your person trying to convince people of something? What?
- What kind of emotion does your person give the speech with? Funny, angry, scared, excited?
- Who would your person give a speech to? Would they be happy or upset to hear it?
Interview between two people (recorded by a scribe...you!)
- Who would your person have an important conversation with?
- What kinds of relationship do the two people have? Are they friends? Enemies?
- What event would be interesting for your person to talk about?
Last Will and Testament
- What would your person want to write before dying?
- Who would your person have left articles to?
- Has your person had a good or bad life?

What other questions do you need to ask before you begin looking for information?

II. INFORMATION SEEKING:

In order to write a primary document about your person, you will need INFORMATION. Where will you find information about your person?

Encyclopedia (in print and online)
Print resources (books and magazines)
Databases (GALILEO listed below)
Search engines with a keyword search (www.google.com) - REMEMBER! If you use Google, you will want a teacher to check the information you are using! Make sure your website is reliable information!

Recommended Websites:

Encyclopædia Britannica Online (School Edition)	Funk & Wagnalls New World Encyclopedia (for children)
Kids Search (EBSCOhost)	KidsClick! Web Search for Kids by Librarians
SIRS Researcher (SIRS Knowledge Source)	Searchasaurus: Middle Search Plus
Biographies of the Renaissance	Grove Art Online

III. POWERPOINT Template

You will also be responsible for taking notes on the PowerPoint template while you are researching. For your final presentation, you will present BOTH your imaginary primary source document AND your PowerPoint slides!

CLICK HERE FOR YOUR POWERPOINT TEMPLATE