Think historically? What's that?
You may have heard the term but been puzzled by it
We're all familiar with historical stories
we learn them from our textbooks
popular histories, movies, documentaries, and grandparents and neighbors
Historical thinking is the reading, analysis, and writing
that necessary to tell these stories
It's not only what we know about the past, it's how we know it
Because the past is hard to retrieve
We can't travel back in time to see what happened
at the Boston Massacre or at Wounded Knee,
to hear Sojourner Truth's words
or understand how Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta
mobilized the Farmworkers Movement
But thinking historically helps us get closer to that past to retrieve
and construct a more accurate picture of what happened and what it meant
This video focuses on five aspects of historical thinking
Many people think of history as a single account
but in fact, we must use multiple sources to get
as accurate a picture as possible of events in the past
Whether we use textbooks, original documents, photos, drawings, or film
teaching for historical thinking demands
that students work with multiple accounts
and learn to analyze and synthesize them
No single account written from one perspective
captures the complexity of the past
Primary sources are original documents and objects created at the time under study
and they are vital to reconstructing the past
Historical thinking includes learning how to read, question, contextualize,
and analyze these sources, as they can
tell different stories about the same event
So, when we study what came to be known as the Boston Massacre
we can read a report from the commanding British officer
that says that soldiers fired on the crowd of colonists without orders
We can then read a contrasting account from someone
in the crowd who remembers that officer giving orders to fire
But we can't just assume that one is lying and the other isn't
instead, we have to ask questions about what these two
eyewitnesses had to lose or gain with their accounts
What interests were at stake?
We consider how soon after the event
and for what audience each account was recorded
We look for points of agreement and
disagreement between the two contrasting accounts
To be useful in retrieving the past,
primary sources need to be questioned and read closely
Okay, you may be saying, "Wait a minute, this all
sounds good but what about my state standards?
And the fact that I'm expected to cover my textbook's 26 chapters?
How does that fit in?
Isn't this some pie in the sky way to teach history?"
Actually, teaching kids how history is known
may very well be in your state standards
at least 38 specify this learning outcome
For example, various state standards
say students should be using multiple sources
and learning to analyze those sources for
purpose and perspective, credibility, and validity
analysis akin to what we call sourcing
Sourcing is about identifying and asking
questions about the origin of the source
about the author's purposes and perspective
when the source was created and for whom; about its trustworthiness
Imagine your students are working with two accounts
related to the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott
The first, a textbook, says, "Rosa Parks was
arrested for refusing to give up her seat to a white man
African Americans heard this and decided to boycott the buses."
The second, a letter written by English professor Joan Robinson
in May 1954 to the mayor of Alabama states
"There has been talk from 25 or more local organizations of
planning a city-wide boycott of busses
[ E ]ven now plans are being made to ride less, or not at all, on our busses."
This letter was written more than a year
before the start of the Montgomery Bus Boycott
A student who notices this learns that
plans for a bus boycott preceded Rosa Parks' arrest
and can better understand the boycott and its causes
Alternatively, a student who ignores the date of
Robinson's letter easily misses its real significance
the familiar story that depicts the boycott as an impulsive movement
motivated solely by Parks's arrest is left unchallenged
Sourcing the letter gets us closer to the fuller story
Context is at the center of historical reasoning
Consider these words spoken by Abraham Lincoln in 1858
"I have no purpose to introduce political and
social equality between the white and black races.
I...am in favor of the race to which I belong having the superior position."
Historians resist initial judgments to brand these words as bigoted
and instead realize that they must ask questions
Such as, who was Lincoln talking to and for what purpose?
What were the perspectives on race at the time?
What political tensions was Lincoln navigating?
They realize to get as accurate a picture as possible of the man
his times, and the event at which he spoke
they have to contextualize these words
and this requires making connections
Lincoln did not live in a vacuum
his speeches and actions are deeply intertwined
with what was going on in his own world
Context includes many different factors, from the ideologies of the day
to the words that came before those under investigation.
But in the big picture, historical context is about locating events
and sources in time and space and asking questions to do so
Taking a page from the math curriculum,
we can say that the coordinates of history are space and time
These sources are not free-floating items that speak for themselves
their historical context matters
When we write histories we tell stories and answer questions
To be called history, these stories must be supported by evidence
Sources, like the Lincoln speech and the Joan Robinson letter
provide evidence for claims made about the past.
History isn fiction
We can't change the story to create a more intriguing or satisfying plot
Truth claims in history need to be supported by evidence
That is how we distinguish plausible claims from balderdash
and good history from pure fiction
These five elements of historical thinking are all integral
to understanding how we know what we know about the past
But of course, there are more elements, concepts like causation
significance, change over time, and reading strategies like corroboration
Historical thinking is complex and it is vital
to helping students become better readers, thinkers, and citizens
It's not separate from the content we want students to learn
instead, it is the vehicle that will help them master it
Explore the Clearinghouse to find teaching resources that
will help you bring historical thinking into your classroom
It's a gift your students will use for the rest of their lives