Document-based question assignments, common in history classrooms, can be adapted for a cross-curricular unit pairing primary source materials from the Klondike Gold Rush, letters, photographs, newspaper accounts, with London's fictionalized treatment of the same era in The Call of the Wild, asking students to synthesize both kinds of evidence into a single argument.

This format works especially well for departments looking to build genuine interdisciplinary skill, requiring students to handle both primary historical documents and literary text within the same extended written argument, rather than treating history and literature as entirely separate skill domains.

A sample prompt might ask students to argue how accurately London's novel captures the lived experience of the gold rush, using both primary source documents and specific scenes from the text as evidence for the claim.

Selecting primary sources to pair with the novel

Strong primary source choices include firsthand prospector letters describing harsh conditions, period photographs of sled dog teams and mining camps, and newspaper coverage from the era, giving students a range of document types to draw evidence from alongside the novel itself.

• Require at least two primary source documents cited alongside evidence from the novel
• Ask students to identify one point of agreement between the historical record and London's fictional portrayal
• Ask students to identify one point of clear divergence between historical fact and the novel's depiction
• Require proper citation distinguishing primary source evidence from literary textual evidence
• Score synthesis specifically: does the essay integrate both source types, or treat them as separate sections?

Adapting a DBQ rubric for a literary component

A standard DBQ rubric, built around document analysis and historical argumentation, needs an added literary analysis criterion to fully capture what this cross-curricular assignment requires, since it asks for more than historical synthesis alone.

Weighting the historical document analysis and the literary analysis roughly equally in the rubric keeps the assignment genuinely cross-curricular, rather than accidentally becoming a history essay with a token literary reference, or a literature essay with token historical citations.

Coordinating grading between departments

When history and English teachers co-grade this kind of assignment, splitting the rubric so each teacher scores their area of expertise, historical accuracy for one, literary analysis for the other, produces more reliable scoring than either teacher grading the full rubric alone outside their primary area of training.

Even without formal co-grading, sharing the rubric and a brief scoring discussion between departments before grading begins helps align expectations on what genuine synthesis between the two source types should actually look like.

Building this into a broader interdisciplinary program

This assignment can serve as an early, accessible entry point for a broader interdisciplinary program combining history and literature, since the novel's compact length and clear historical setting make the connections between the two disciplines unusually visible for students encountering this kind of assignment for the first time.

Departments building out a full interdisciplinary sequence often use this unit as a template, adapting the same primary-source-plus-literature structure to other historical periods and novels later in the curriculum.