Ziying Chen

Hist7A
Prof. Sachtjen
2 February 2016
Document Interpretation Reflection #1

The assignment that I chose to reflect my learning on is the Document Interpretation #1:
The Other. In this assignment, I chose to analyze a primary source From the Journal of
Christopher Columbus, which was the journal written by the famous explorer, Christopher
Columbus, to record what have occurred during his voyage in find new land. To be honest, I felt
that I did not do well in this assignment, thus, I hope by reflecting on what I have done well and
what I still need to work on in this assignment, I will be able to do a better interpretation next
time.
The skill that I found myself started to pick up is how to interpret primary sources.
Before taking this class, I have no clue at all on how to interpret historical documents. However,
by using or reviewing the Document Interpretation tutorial that provided by Professor.
Sachtjen before starting to interpret document, it helped me to clear some confusions that I had
before and gave me a path to follow through when I do the assignment.
The goal that I have for the upcoming document interpretation assignments is to be extra
careful not to just write the interpretation as merely summary of the document, instead, I needed
to think critically on the document that I choose to read at the same time to keep in mind of what
was happening during that period of time in the world or in a particular country that related to the
document. I should also try to apply knowledge from the textbook that we used into my
document interpretation since they were closely related to each other. Lastly, I really needed to

and hoped to start drafting or planning my interpretation ahead of time so that I can make sure I
spend enough time on each assignment.