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How can you think like a Historian?

Discover the methods and strategies historians use to investigate and reconstruct historical events. Learn key tools like contextual thinking, CAPS analysis, and SPRITE framework to gain insights into the past. Help students develop critical thinking skills for interpreting history accurately.

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How can you think like a Historian?

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  1. How can you think like a Historian? “Not to know what happened before one was born is always to be a child.” Cicero 100 B.C. By PMcElhaney (Point Loma High) From Sam Wineburg’s Historical Thinking and Other Un-Natural Acts

  2. What do they do? Why study history? History serves as a bank of examples for contemplating present problems. What tools do they use? How do Historians Reconstruct the Past?

  3. Historians use the following tools to investigate and reconstruct the past.

  4. Define As Many of these as possible.

  5. One Pager • TERM: Definition of term across the top of page (write neatly) • Create a visual depiction of the term. • This can be a diagram, image, chart, graph, or symbols • In your own words write a brief explanation of how this term may be useful for students of history.

  6. Think like a Historian, Look for: • the author’s intention. • bias • evidence • argument • sources • Context of the period the document was written

  7. Contextual Thinking:Context of a document or event offers clues that help understanding. • When, Where, How? • What proceeded? • What followed? • Why the document or event took place • Who wrote or said it • To whom was it written? • What purpose? • What intent? • What Consequence?

  8. A.C.A.P.S. is a great strategy. • To understand documents and the meaning they hold, analyze them according to this method: • Author • Context • Audience • Purpose • Significance

  9. How about a S.P.R.I.T.E.? • S. Social • P. Political • R. Religious • I. Intellectual • T. Technological • E. Economic

  10. Questions Kids should ask themselves: • How is the past different than today? • What is the significance of this event, person, place, or document…? • What can the modern generation learn from the past?

  11. Kids need to • Read aloud and think aloud through the Historical Process. • Think about people, places, and events in the past through the eyes of someone living in the past. • balance present minded thinking with thinking in the past • Make connections and draw conclusions.

  12. “Just the Facts”? • Facts by themselves are meaningless. • Facts are only important when we give them meaning.

  13. Skilled Readers of History • Talk to themselves as they read- • The conversation ranges: • Meaning of the text • Author’s purpose, message, and personality/background- • Think about why the author says what he says and what he means by saying it.

  14. Contextual Thinking • or thinking about events through the perspective of the period it unfolded.

  15. Context of an event or document includes: • When, Where, How • What proceeded? • What followed? • Why the document or event took place • Who wrote or said it • To whom was it written or said • What purpose • What intent • What consequence

  16. Students of History Need to: • Talk to each other • Write term papers • Discuss the significance of topics they study • Debate • Get into the mind of the people who lived history! • Search for cause and motive • Investigate- values, perspectives, • Students need to embrace beliefs not their own and argue them with zest.

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