Making Historical Thinking a Natural Act

Nicole came to my class last year assuming that history would be taught as it has always been. The textbook would serve as the core instrument for delivering the catechism, lecture would break up the reading, and she would again memorize and then regurgitate the content dictated by the curriculum. Nicole understood historical thinking as a methodology defined by the consumption of facts that are communicated by an authority—textbook or teacher—and processed in order to replicate an approved narrative about the nation’s past. But she left my class nine months later with a different perspective. She now likes the “idea of debating the past and looking at different types of sources to understand the past.” Her definition of thinking historically now encompasses notions of evidence, investigation, discussion, and interpretation. Nicole’s testimony confirms my core belief about classroom instruction: history teaching must move from lecturing about the past to investigating it. My efforts over the past fifteen years, narrated in “Why Won’t You Just Tell Us the Answer?” Teaching Historical Thinking in Grades 7–12, have focused on creating a history course that promotes the investigation of historical questions through the analysis of historical evidence.¹

Why take time to develop, implement, and promote a course that is so different from the tried and true methods that have defined history instruction for well over one hundred years?² Simply because every major measure of students’ historical understanding since 1917 has demonstrated that students do not retain, understand, or enjoy their school experiences with history.³ This dismal track record, combined with an alternative model for history instruction— first manifesting itself in England, and now growing in the States—provides an avenue by which we can alter students’ comprehension, appreciation, and performance in historical studies. A growing body of research indicates that students can evaluate various historical sources, apply them to the development of an evidence-based historical interpretation, and articulate their interpretations in a variety of formats. When taught to pose questions about evidence, causality, chronology, change and continuity over time, and other “categories of historical inquiry,” students become powerful creators of history rather than consumers of a predetermined historical narrative.⁴

Sam Wineburg describes historical thinking as “an unnatural act,” and he’s right. But Wineburg’s conclusions are not a death sentence for invigorating classroom instruction; instead they are a challenge. In my classroom I try to teach my students to think historically. The traditional approach to teaching history centers on identifying the dates, individuals, events, or ideas that students must know. In my view, instead of identifying content, curricula should identify core historical questions for students to investigate. These questions should be provocative and encourage debate. They should compel students to consider causality; chronology; multiple perspectives; contingency; empathy; change and continuity over time; influence, significance, and impact; contrasting interpretations; and intent and motivation. The question-driven investigative process requires students to formulate evidence-based historical interpretations. To develop responses to the questions students must become comfortable with analyzing a variety of historical sources.

A great way to get students to start thinking historically is to expose them to primary sources from the past and ask them to consider the following questions: What does the source say? What information does it provide? What was going on when the source was produced? What do you know about the historical context for the source that helps to explain the information it provides? Who created the source and why? For whom was the source created? Structuring students’ source work so that they habitually approach all historical sources in the same manner enables them to develop the cognitive skills necessary for making the unnatural natural. Once students have examined the sources, they then work together to aggregate, compare, contrast, and apply this information to the discussion of the investigatory question.⁵

A lesson on the Panama Canal that I have taught for a number of years can serve as a window onto how this kind of exercise works in my classroom when historical thinking collides with teenagers.⁶ The investigation begins with students confronting a selection...