Historical Thinking and Reading - Creating Analytical and Observant Citizens
What is history? What in history should be taught? Whose history should we teach? Who owns history? These are all questions that have been at the forefront of the standards based movement with social studies / history. Every social studies educator I meet has a different perspective on what social studies should look like and what it should definitely not look like.
I place my emphasis on historical thinking skills in my social studies instruction. The focused and purposeful reading or analyzing of primary documents to develop an answer to a historical question and to possibly come up with more questions. To often people look at history through one account or worse one perspective (one person from the past) and that does not give an accurate picture of what or why an event occurred. We focus on multiple perspectives, sourcing, contextualizing, and corroboration to develop a holistic picture of the past. I do not expect students to memorize every fact about 18th century American history but, I do expect them to have an understanding of the major factual information to help them develop a better picture of the historical context they study.
Most of my instructional practices come from the books Historical Thinking and Other Unnatural Acts by Sam Wineburg, Why Won’t You Just Tell Us the Answer? by Bruce Lesh, FOCUS by Mike Schmoker, Lies My Teacher Told Me by James Loewen, Teaching What Really Happened by James Loewen, and Classroom Instruction that Works by Robert Marzano. These four books have been pivotal in establishing the basics behind what I do in the classroom on a daily basis. I do not stand in front of the class and lecture every day (this is a tiny portion of lessons), instead students become the historians and investigate the past, creating their own interpretations about past events. Students use their textbook as one account of the past and often we attempt to rewrite what the textbook says about certain topics to create a “more accurate” picture.
I place my emphasis on historical thinking skills in my social studies instruction. The focused and purposeful reading or analyzing of primary documents to develop an answer to a historical question and to possibly come up with more questions. To often people look at history through one account or worse one perspective (one person from the past) and that does not give an accurate picture of what or why an event occurred. We focus on multiple perspectives, sourcing, contextualizing, and corroboration to develop a holistic picture of the past. I do not expect students to memorize every fact about 18th century American history but, I do expect them to have an understanding of the major factual information to help them develop a better picture of the historical context they study.
Most of my instructional practices come from the books Historical Thinking and Other Unnatural Acts by Sam Wineburg, Why Won’t You Just Tell Us the Answer? by Bruce Lesh, FOCUS by Mike Schmoker, Lies My Teacher Told Me by James Loewen, Teaching What Really Happened by James Loewen, and Classroom Instruction that Works by Robert Marzano. These four books have been pivotal in establishing the basics behind what I do in the classroom on a daily basis. I do not stand in front of the class and lecture every day (this is a tiny portion of lessons), instead students become the historians and investigate the past, creating their own interpretations about past events. Students use their textbook as one account of the past and often we attempt to rewrite what the textbook says about certain topics to create a “more accurate” picture.
How Do Students Investigate the Past?
Reading Like a Historian Program
Below are a few videos that briefly summarize what we do on a daily basis in class. I have also included some images and PDF documents that are used throughout the entire year. The videos to the right of the documents help explain the concepts in more detail.