Courses
- British Columbia History
- Canadian History
- British North American Colonial History
- Daily life in the Crown Colony of Vancouver Island around 1858
- Important events in the historical development of British Columbia
- Primary and secondary source analysis including visual sources
- Continuity and change in history
Daily Life in Victoria before and after the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush
Step 4: Analyze pre-gold rush images and texts
Students are now ready to examine multiple visual and textual sources to learn about daily life in Victoria prior to the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush. You may want to distribute the nine source documents found in #9 Pre-Gold Rush Sources in one of several ways:
- with younger students, use only the four images (Pre-Gold Rush Documents #1-4);
- assign students to work in pairs to analyze one image and one page of text documents (in most cases, there is one document per page);
- create groups of four students, and expect them to analyze all nine documents.
Distribute multiple copies of the activity sheet, #2 Portrait of Daily Life, so that students have one copy for each page of source documents they are assigned to analyze. Remind students to look at the aspects of daily life listed across the top of the activity sheet. Not every image and text source will provide information about each of these aspects. Encourage students to focus on the themes that best apply to the particular documents they are analyzing.
Encourage students to use the questions on the activity sheet, #8 Reading Around a Document, as a pre-reading guide to each text document. You may want to require older students (individually or in groups) to provide a completed copy of this activity sheet for each text document analyzed.
Before embarking on the activity, remind students to review the rubric, #4 Assessing Observations and Inferences. If desired, after completion of the activity arrange for students to assess their own or each others’ observations and conclusions.
Invite students to check the accuracy of their observations and the plausibility of their inferences with other students who have been assigned the same documents.
