• Login
  • Register
  • FAQ
  • Contact Us
  • Home
  • Documents
  • Activities
  • Activity Tools
    • All Tools
    • Analyzing Documents
    • Discussion Topic
    • Compare and Contrast
    • Zoom/Crop
    • White Out / Black Out
    • Spotlight
    • Finding a Sequence
    • Making Connections
    • Mapping History
    • Seeing the Big Picture
    • Weighing the Evidence
    • Interpreting Data
  • Popular Topics
    • See All
    • National History Day
    • The Constitution
    • Sports: All-American
    • Rights in America
    • American Indians
    • Women's Rights
    • American Revolution
    • The Civil War
    • World War I
    • World War II
    • The Vietnam War
    • 1970s America
    • Congress
    • Amending America
    • Elections
    • What Americans Eat
    • Signatures
    • Nixon and Ford Years
  • Resources
    • Getting Started
    • Document Analysis
    • Activity-Creation Guide
    • Manage Assignments
    • iPad App
    • Presentation Materials
    • Webinars
      • Recorded Webinars
      • Live Webinars
MENU
DocsTeachThe online tool for teaching with documents, from the National Archives National Archives Foundation National Archives

Analyzing a Letter About Ford Pardoning Nixon

Focusing on Details: White Out/Black Out

Print
Created by the National Archives
Bookmark this Activity in My Activities:
Copy this Activity to My Activities for editing:
Analyzing a Letter About Ford Pardoning Nixon

About this Activity

  • Created by:National Archives Education Team
  • Historical Era:Contemporary United States (1968 to the present)
  • Thinking Skill:Historical Analysis & Interpretation
  • Bloom's Taxonomy:Analyzing
  • Grade Level:Middle School
Start Activity
Please use a tablet or desktop computer to use this activity.
In this activity, students will analyze a document sent from a child to President Gerald Ford in 1974. Anthony Ferreira wrote to the president to express his opinion regarding the pardon of Richard Nixon.
https://docsteach.org/activities/student/half-right-and-half-wrong

Suggested Teaching Instructions

Begin the activity in a full-class setting and ask students to try to decipher information about the author, including age, location, and purpose for writing. Ask students to focus on the details to try to answer these questions to teach effective document analysis.

Ask students what they think is written behind the black spots. What kind of event do they think happened for Anthony to write this kind of letter?

Finally, students can use the clues they have found in their analysis to form a hypothesis about what specific event happened.

When students have shared their answers, share with them that a third-grade student named Anthony Ferreira wrote this letter to President Gerald Ford in 1974 regarding the pardon of Richard Nixon.

Documents in this activity

  • Letter to President Gerald Ford from Anthony Ferreira

CC0
To the extent possible under law, National Archives Education Team has waived all copyright and related or neighboring rights to "Analyzing a Letter About Ford Pardoning Nixon".

  • Explore Primary Source Documents
  •  
  • Discover Activities You Can Teach With
  •  
  • Create Fun & Engaging Activities
Follow us on Twitter:twitter
Follow us on Facebook:facebook
Please enter a valid email address

View our webinars:youtube

Get our iPad app:apple
New Documentsshare
New Activitiesshare

The National Archives

DocsTeach is a product of the National Archives education division. Our mission is to engage, educate, and inspire all learners to discover and explore the records of the American people preserved by the National Archives.

The National Archives and Records Administration is the nation's record keeper. We save documents and other materials created in the course of business conducted by the U.S. Federal government that are judged to have continuing value. We hold in trust for the public the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights — but also the records of ordinary citizens — at our locations around the country.
  • All Education Programs
  • Student Visits
  • Distance Learning
  • Professional Development
  • National Archives Museum
  • Presidential Libraries
  • Archives.gov
  • National Archives Foundation




Creative Commons License

Except where otherwise noted, DocsTeach is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Primary source documents included on this site generally come from the holdings of the National Archives and are in the public domain, except as noted. Teaching activities on this site have received the CC0 Public Domain Dedication; authors have waived all copyright and related rights to the extent possible under the law. See our legal and privacy page for full terms and conditions.