Guide students in using the documents to develop inferences and conclusions about the perspectives of the Chinese community. Encourage students to use the following prompts when reading the documents to develop conclusions about the community’s perspectives:
• Clues: What clues or evidence does the document to suggest the perspectives of the Chinese community? For example, an excerpt such as “We have been residing in British Columbia as merchants for dozens of years” may be a clue about loyalty and economic values.
• Conclusions: What conclusions can be reached using the discovered clues? For example, it may be plausible to conclude that some members of the Chinese community would have had some capitalist values given the excerpt “We have been residing in British Columbia as merchants for dozens of years”.
• Questions: What questions arise during consideration of the clues and conclusions? For example, although members of the Chinese community may have had some capitalist values, it may be appropriate to ask whether “Is it possible that Chinese merchants may have owned businesses but not embraced capitalist values?”
