An interactive DBQ by Kelly Marx explores the last days of the Romanovs and the mystery of Anastasia. A chapter excerpt from Exploring History Vol IV. http://bit.ly/2iyHMaX

1. THE REAL ROMANOVS:
HOW MEDIA AFFECTS PEOPLE’S PERCEPTION OF EVENTS
LESSON DESIGNED BY: KELLY MARX
Image Credit: Beinecke Rare
Book & Manuscript Library

2. Grand Duchesses Maria (left) and Anastasia (right) on an official
visit to soldiers at their hospital, c. 1915
Anastasia Growing Up
GENERATIVE QUESTION:HOW
DOES MEDIA AFFECT PEOPLE’S
PERCEPTION OF EVENTS?
Anastasia Nikolaevna was the youngest
daughter of Tsar Nicholas II, the last
sovereign of Imperial Russia. After the
Bolshevik revolution of 1917, the Tzar
and his family were murdered.
Persistent rumors of her possible
escape circulated the globe and
provoked many books and films. This
lesson will examine the differences
between the movie “Anastasia”(1997)
and what actually happened involving
the Romanovs and the Tsarina.
Image credits: All images from gallery can be found: Here

3. Watch 20th
Century Fox's
"Anastasia"
from 1997.
Note: Full
length movie
can be found:
Here
What do you learn
about Anastasia
from the movie?
What do you want
to know more
about?
Guiding Questions:
What does the movie tell you about Anastasia?
What does it tell you about her family?
What does it show happened to her and her family?
Anastasia - 20th Century Fox (1997)

4. THE REAL LIFE OF ANASTASIA
Extracts from the Letters of Anastasia to her Father:
May 8,1913, 12.30 p.m.
"...I am in Tatiana's room. Tatiana and Olga are here... I am
sitting and digging in my nose with my left hand. Olga wanted
to slap me but I ran away from her swinish hand..."
Jan.30,1915, p.58
"...I taught Ortino to sit up and beg and today I've taught her
to give her paw and now she can do it. She is so sweet..."
ANASTASIA WROTE
EXTENSIVELY TO HER FATHER,
NICHOLAS II, WHILE HE WAS
AWAY FROM ALEXANDER
PALACE FOR WORLD WAR
ONE.
WHAT DO THESE LETTER
EXTRACTS TELL US ABOUT
ANASTASIA’S LIFE AT THE
TIME?
Letter excerpts found: Here

5. The Russian Imperial Romanov Family - Their Mysterious Killings | History Documentary
File
Between the this and the 20th Century Fox Anastasia videos:
What information is different?
Is there any information that is the same?
Which do you think is more reliable?
What
actually
happened
to
Anastasia
?
Video found: Here

6. Nicholas II of Russia with the family (left to right): Olga, Maria,
Nicholas II, Alexandra Fyodorovna, Anastasia, Alexei, and
Tatiana. 1913.
Photo of Tsar Nicholas II and his daughters Olga,
Anastasia and Tatiana in captivity at Tobolsk in the
winter of 1917-1918
COMPARING LIFESTYLES
ANASTASIA AND HER FAMILY HAVE BEEN ARRESTED AFTER THE FEBRUARY REVOLUTION. HOW HAS
HER LIFE CHANGED?
Image Source: HereImage Source: Here
DOUBLE
CLICK
PHOTOS FOR
QUESTIONS!
Click by Thomas Uebe from
the Noun Project

7. Tobolsk 8/21 March 1918
My darling, sweet Aunt Xenia,
Thanks heaps for the postcard which has
just come. For now we are, thanks be to
God, alive and in good health. We are
always so glad when we get news from
you. How is Grandma's health? We often
reminisce and talk about you all.
These days it's almost always sunny here
and it's getting warm quite pleasant! So
we do our best to get out in the fresh air
more. We can't slide down the mountain
anymore (though it's still standing) as
they've wrecked it and put a drainage
ditch through it and so we can't ride
down it.Well, they seem to have calmed
down about it now because it was an
eyesore for many for some time. It's truly
dumb and pathetic.
От Вел. Кнж. Анастасии Николаевны
Вел. Кн. Ксении Александровне+).
Тобольск. 8/21 марта 1918 г.
Моя милая тетя Ксения душка,
Спасибо Тебе большое за открытку,
которую только что получила. Мы все
пока, слава Богу, живы и здоровы.
Всегда бываем очень рады, когда
имеем от Вас известия. Как здоровье
Бабушки (Императрица Мария
Феодоровна). Часто Вас вспоминаем
и говорим. Эти дни у нас почти все
время солнце, и уже начинает греть,
так приятно! Стараемся поэтому
больше быть на воздухе. - С горы мы
больше не катаемся (хотя она еще
стоит), так как ее испортили и
прокопали поперек канаву, для того,
Letter found: Here
COMPARING LIFESTYLES
ANASTASIA AND HER FAMILY HAVE BEEN ARRESTED AFTER THE FEBRUARY REVOLUTION. HOW HAS
HER LIFE CHANGED?
This letter is from Anastasia
to her Aunt Xenia during her
imprisonment in Tobolsk,
Siberia.
What does this letter tell you
about her new life compared
to her previous letters to her
father?

8. FINALITY OF DEATH
One of the greatest mysteries for most
of the twentieth century was the fate of
the Romanov family, the last Russian
monarchy. Following the abdication of
Tsar NicholasII, he and his wife,
Alexandra, and their five children were
eventually exiled to the city of
Yekaterinburg. The family, along with
four loyal members of their staff, was
held captive by members of the Ural
ANASTASIA IS FOUND
What do you know now about Anastasia?
How does media affect
people’s, especially
children’s, understanding
of events?

9. Reflection:
I very much loved the concept of
document based lessons. It aligns with
the high school history standards very
well as most of them are related to
primary and secondary sources. I also
liked creating the flow to a unit where
the students eyes would be opened
progressively throughout the unit. It is
generally the way that I like to teach.
Creating the PowerPoint and the
Google Site were useful ways to get to
know the technology. Both Google
Sites and Google Slides are very
useful in the classroom and if I had
not already known how to use both of
them I would have thought that it was
worth the time to be able to fiddle
around with them. I did find it very
redundant to be doing it on the same
topic over and over again, especially
with the time that each took from our
work on our unit plans and our thesis.
Ibooks on the other hand was a
different story. The technology is so
cool and does have so many options
that are functional, interactive, and
engaging. This was weighted however
with the fact that it can only be used
on Macs and the whole process
essentially felt like the struggle we
deal with in our classrooms of the
students who have access to
technology and those who do not. I
was very grateful for the flexibility to
be given the chance to work more on
the books for a second class period as
it definitely helped to mediate that
have/have-not mentality.
Overall it was a good projects that
would be helpful in the future that
utilized cool technological assets. It
was a lot of work to be doing during
everything else but by it's self was
worth it.
Image source: Here

10. Exploring History Vol IV
University of Portland Students
Peter Pappas, Editor

11. This eBook is a collaborative project of Peter Pappas
and his Fall 2016 Social Studies Methods Class
School of Education ~ University of Portland, Portland Ore.
Graduate and undergraduate level pre-service teachers were assigned the
task of developing an engaging research question, researching supportive
documents and curating them into a DBQ suitable for middle or high
school students.
For more on this class, visit the course blog EdMethods
For more on this book project and work flow tap here.
Chapters in chronological order
1. Mysterious Bronze Age Collapse by Sam Hicks
2. From Revolution to Government by Valerie Schiller
3. Imagination, Innovation & Space Exploration by Molly Pettit
4. The Real Romanovs by Kelly Marx
5. World War I: The Human Cost of Total War by Anna
Harrington
6. Collectivization and Propaganda in Stalin’s Soviet Union by
Clarice Terry
7. Holy Propaganda Batman! by Karina Ramirez Velazquez
8. The Nicaraguan Literacy Crusade by Scott Hearron
EXPLORING HISTORY: VOL IV
i
Engaging questions and historic
documents empower students to be
the historian in the classroom.

12. Peter Pappas, editor
School of Education ~ University of Portland
His popular blog, Copy/Paste features downloads of his instructional
resources, projects and publications. Follow him at Twitter @edteck.
His other multi-touch eBooks are available at here.
© Peter Pappas and his students, 2016
The authors take copyright infringement seriously. If any copyright holder has
been inadvertently or unintentionally overlooked, the publisher will be pleased to
remove the said material from this book at the very first opportunity.
ii
Cover design by Anna Harrington
Cover image: Timeless Books
By Lin Kristensen from New Jersey, USA
[CC BY 2.]
via Wikimedia Commons