ABSTRACT
At first, it is probably best for students to practice using the Speaker, Occasion, Audience, Purpose, Subject, Evidence, and Tone (SOAPSETone) technique as part of whole-group instruction. However, as they begin to feel more comfortable analyzing documents, they can begin to use it on their own. Once students have become accustomed to reading texts more closely and asking good, high-order questions about their reading, as teachers, need to help them organize their questions in a way that will enable them to extrapolate meaning from historical documents. While the authors' tone may be harder for students to detect in this case, students may nevertheless offer up words like serious, solemn, or sad. When it comes to analyzing point of view, students may choose to focus their attention on historical context rather on audience or purpose. This chapter concludes that the cartoon was probably intended less for colonists who supported these events than people in Great Britain who would surely oppose them.
