Analyzing Your Historic Site

Instructions: Please print this worksheet and take it with you on your site visit. Ideally, you will take notes while on your visit. When you are finished, please type your answers into this Word document and submit it via the assignment tab in the module.

Name ________________________________
Date ________________ Name of museum or historic site _____________________________________________

Overview: What do you see?

Please describe the general place and its setting?

What do your observations suggest about the place's age, purpose, function, and evolution?

Look at your answers above. Why do you think your wrote what you did? Did the organization or design of the site affect your answers? How influential were previous knowledge or assumptions?

**MAKE SURE TO GO TO THE NEXT PAGE BELOW**

Specific Analysis: Now, choose something more specific to focus on-- a specific exhibit or monument, for example. If your major site is a

1) What is the general story line of the entire exhibit or monument?

2) What is displayed? Do you know its age or approximate age?

3) Why do you think the creator of the exhibit designed it this way? What was the creators purpose?

4) Describe its physical qualities (material it is made of, dimensions, probable weight, texture, color, condition, lettering).

5) Do the physical qualities of the exhibit affect the tone or the story that is told?

6) How does this object fit into the theme or help tell the exhibit's story?

7) What other objects are nearby and how does it tie together with your specific exhibit, if at all?

8) Read the objects label and evaluate its quality - Enough information? Too much?

9) Put yourself in the role of a curator. Describe a different or better way you might choose to present it
in this exhibit.

Adapted from the Truman Presidential Museum & Library website (http://www.trumanlibrary.org/educ/docanal1.pdf)