Visualizing History

Several years ago I came across a book, Sam Wineburg’s Historical Thinking and Other Unnatural Acts: Charting the Future of Teaching the Past, which significantly changed the way I thought about teaching history. Historical Thinking challenges many common conventions about how history is taught in school. Wineburg posits that instead of asking what do students know about history, we should be asking how do students think about the past? At the 2007 Northern Nevada Council of the Social Studies Symposium I had the opportunity to attend a talk given by Dr. Wineburg and, in addition to being a dynamic thinker and writer, he is also a captivating and entertaining speaker. The following observations came from that talk and serves as an introduction to Wineburg’s research, which focuses on the concept that history teachers should engage their students with sources of historical information other than the textbook, and that wrote memorization of trivial historic facts is counterproductive to history education.
In my first year of teaching I found a copy of quiz at my social studies department’s photocopier left by a U.S. history teacher. Always eager to learn from my more experienced colleagues, I examined it only to discover, more often than not, that the teacher’s assessment involved questions that asked students to recall through wrote memorization obscure names, dates and other minutiae of history. Being a new teacher I believed that was how we should be teaching the subject. While standards certainly hold students accountable for knowing certain facts of American history, I believe that instructors make the mistake of substituting trivial details for larger themes in the quest to teach their students “factual history.” For example, the quiz asked the following: “At the Boston Tea Party how many chests of tea did the colonists throw into the harbor?” A student should not have to memorize such pointless facts, what is important is the idea that defiant colonists dumped tea into the harbor in protest of English taxation, and was another step towards American independence. “Memorization and regurgitation” is the traditional approach to learning history. In many classrooms the history textbook is used exclusively to drive the curriculum, with lessons focusing on reading the textbook and assessment consisting of chapter review questions. It is no wonder that many students hate history. Teaching in this manner robs historical events of their interest and excitement; historical figures become remote and impersonal, void of emotion resulting in the perception that history is boring and irrelevant.

Wineburg’s research concludes that the textbook is one of the worst ways to transmit historical knowledge in that it presents history as a declarative narrative, an omnipotent voice that relates events of history void of alternative outcomes. He goes on to add that this method is short-sighted because it fails to take into account that history is a process and that historical events have to be contextualized. That is, we must understand who is writing the history why they are writing it and what is the temporal-political-regional-ethnic-cultural-religious framework of the historical interpretation (historians call this historiography, how history is written and interpreted). While using the textbook may be inevitable it is best used as a resource much like an encyclopedia rather than as a historical narrative. In stark contrast to “memorization and regurgitation”, Wineburg believes that students should be taught “historical thinking”- how to process, evaluate, and critically analyze historical documents and events. Wineburg’s research suggests that the most effective way to engage students with “historical thinking” is Document Based Questions or DBQ.

Wineburg also points out that history is an ongoing argument, unlike the declarative statements of fact found in textbooks; history is constantly changing in light of new evidence and changing social norms. As historian Frederick Jackson Turner reminds us, “Each age tries to form its own conception of the past. Each age writes the history of the past anew with reference to the conditions uppermost in its own time.” The present and the past are connected by the thread of continuity where past events are played out in the contemporary. Students must be taught to challenge the dogmas of tradition inherent in history textbooks; historical claims need not be blindly accepted but substantiated. Once students begin to question and critically analyze historical events through the use of primary source documents they will finally be engaged in the unnatural act of historical thinking.

The following is my adaptation of an exercise presented by Dr. Wineburg in his talk. This lesson can be used to interpret historical documents and encourage critical thinking and analysis skills; the exercise is also useful in bringing a human element into history instruction. When student’s read personal letters and documents they may bring historical figures to life.

Lexington and Concord Exercise

First have students brainstorm what they know about the skirmishes at Lexington and Concord.
Confrontation between minutemen and redcoats;
Opening volley of the American Revolution; and
“Shot heard around the world.”

Have students evaluate painting #1. What does the painting tell us about the battle at Lexington?[1]

Now have students examine Painting #2. Have them evaluate the painting.[2]

Painting #2, Colonists can clearly be seen fleeing the field of battle

Have students compare and contrast the two paintings. How can they account for the discrepancies?
Have students read the order given to Lt Colonial Francis Smith from Thomas Gage[3] Prompt students to answer whether or not Smith was to attack the Colonists.
Read an account of the events from the point of view of the British Lt Colonial John Barker[4]
Now have students read an account of the battle from the point of view of American colonist John Robbins [5]
Again ask students how we can explain the discrepancies of the two eye witness accounts given this new information?
Who is right?
What might be their motivation for the account given?
Wrap up the lesson by asking why the battles of Lexington and Concord have traditionally been depicted as a few brave colonists bravely facing off against an overwhelming number of redcoats?
This common depiction is best expressed in a 1925 postage stamp the minutemen are seen in brave defiance of the British (notice one has his arm raised in a clenched fist) see image # 3.
Lexington and Concord have become creation myths from which American principles and character have sprouted. American ideals of bravery and self-sufficiency are clearly illustrated in depictions of these battles and speak to the intransigence and commitment to liberty held by early Americans.