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Lesson Objectives To use bias sources to suggest what really happened. Learning Ladder L5: Use observations to develop an account of what might have actually happened. L4: Explain why their accounts differed. L3: Describe what each character said about the incident.

Hi, Chief Wiggum here, young Bart Simpson has been run over by Old Man Burns. It’s a classic case of DOA; Driven-Over Adolescence. As the top cop in town, it’s down to me to find out what happened.

There are two types of evidence PRIMARY and SECONDARY. Lucky for us, we have two pieces of PRIMARY evidence. Do you know why it’s better to have PRIMARY evidence?

As Bart is the victim, we’ll start with his story.

Testimony #1 Bart Simpson (Victim)

Write down Bart’s side of the story. He must be telling the truth – he was the victim after all. Am I right? 5 mins

Now it’s time for Mr Burns’ side of the story.

Montgomery Burns (Perpetrator) Testimony #2 Montgomery Burns (Perpetrator)

Write down Burns’ side of the story. That was a pretty convincing story, and he is the richest man in town, surely he was telling the truth? 5 mins

Who is telling the truth? They can’t both be telling the truth, can they? Who is telling the truth? Write your answer in your book and explain your reasoning As the top cop in town, I think we need to find out a little bit more about these characters – that should help us decide whether they are telling the truth. Can you give examples of bias in these sources?

Burns Bart 10 mins Divide your page in half and write as many things about these two characters as you can think of. This will help us to work out how likely they are to tell the truth.

Make a list of the similarities between the testimonies. Can we trust either of these guys? I don’t think we can, so the best thing that we can do is look for similarities between their testimonies. Make a list of the similarities between the testimonies. Why are we doing this? 5 mins

Using your list of similarities, write a report of your own stating what you think really happened. 10 mins

What really happened...

How accurate was your account How accurate was your account? Give yourself a mark out of 10 for accuracy (10 being the most accurate and 1 being the least)