what happened then matters now

1. what happened then matters now

2. Historical thinking CONCEPTS TO THINK BY

3. The 6 Benchmarks of Historical Thinking • To think historically, you need to be able to: • Establish historical significance. • Use primary source evidence. • Identify continuity and change.

4. The 6 Benchmarks of Historical Thinking • Analyze cause and consequence. • Take historical perspectives. • Understand the ethical dimensionof historical interpretations.

5. Historical Thinking = Historical Literacy • Taken together, these concepts tie “historical thinking” to competencies in “historical literacy.” • “Historical literacy” means gaining a deep understanding of historical events through active engagement with historical texts.

6. Historical Literacy • Historically literate citizens can assess claims that there was no Holocaust, that slavery wasn't so bad for African-Americans, that Aboriginal rights have a historical basis, and that the Russian experience in Afghanistan serves as a warning to our previous mission there.

7. Historical Literacy • Such students/citizens have thoughtful ways to tackle these debates. • They can assess historical sources. • They know that a historical film can look "realistic" without being accurate. • They understand the value of a footnote.

8. Historical Thinking = Historical Literacy • In short, they can detect the differences between the uses and abuses of history. • “Historical thinking” only becomes possible in relation to substantive content.

9. Historical Thinking = Historical Literacy • These concepts are not abstract “skills.” • Rather, they provide the structure that shapes the practice of history and the understanding of history.

10. The 6 Benchmarks of Historical Thinking • To think historically, you need to be able to: • Establish historical significance. • Use primary source evidence. • Identify continuity and change.

11. The 6 Benchmarks of Historical Thinking • Analyze cause and consequence. • Take historical perspectives. • Understand the ethical dimensionof historical interpretations.

12. Historical Thinking = Historical Literacy • Taken together, these concepts tie “historical thinking” to competencies in “historical literacy.” • “Historical literacy” means gaining a deep understanding of historical events through active engagement with historical texts.

13. Historical Literacy • Historically literate students/citizens can assess claims that there was no Holocaust, that slavery wasn't so bad for African-Americans, that Aboriginal rights have a historical basis, and that the Russian experience in Afghanistan serves as a warning to our previous mission there.

14. Historical Literacy • Such students/citizens have thoughtful ways to tackle these debates. • They can assess historical sources. • They know that a historical film can look "realistic" without being accurate. • They understand the value of a footnote.

15. Historical Thinking = Historical Literacy • In short, they can detect the differences between the uses and abuses of history. • “Historical thinking” only becomes possible in relation to substantive content.

16. Historical Thinking = Historical Literacy • These concepts are not abstract “skills.” • Rather, they provide the structure that shapes the practice of history and the understanding of history.

19. So How do we decide what is worth remembering about the past?

20. 1. Historical Significance • We can’t remember, learn, or cover everything that ever happened. • What is important historically speaking? • Who or what should be remembered, researched, taught, and learned?

21. 1. Historical Significance • There is much too much history to remember all of it. • So we tend to highlight significant events. • Significant events are those that resulted in great change over long periods of time for large numbers of people.

22. 1. Historical Significance • Significance depends upon one’s perspective and purpose. • A historical person, event, or development can acquire significance if we can link it to larger trends and stories that reveal something important for us in history and contemporary life.

23. 1. Historical Significance • For example, the story of an individual worker in Winnipeg in 1918, however insignificant in the post-World War II sense, may become significant if it is recounted in a way that makes it a part of a larger history of workers’ struggles, economic development, or post-war adjustment and discontent.

24. 1. Historical Significance • Watch: Historical Significance Explanatory Video • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62wYq1RGBNg • 7:14 mins • Source: The Critical Thinking Consortium (TC2)

25. Guideposts to Historical Significance Review • 1.  Events, people, or developments have historical significance if they resulted in change. That is, they had deepconsequences, for many people, over a long period of time.

26. Guideposts to Historical Significance Review • 2.  Events, people or developments have historical significance if they are revealing. That is, they shed light on enduring or emerging issues in history or contemporary life.

27. Guideposts to Historical Significance Review • 3.  Historical significance is constructed. That is, events, people, and developments meet the criteria for historical significance only when they are shown to occupy a meaningful place in a narrative.

28. Guideposts to Historical Significance Review • 4.  Historical significance varies over time and from group to group.

30. How do we know what we know about the past?

31. 2. Evidence • How do we know what we know about the past? • Asks us to consider: • 1. How reliable is the evidence? • 2. What other evidence exists? • 3. What other interpretations are possible?

32. 2. Evidence • Primary sources are the litter of history —letters, documents, records, diaries, drawings, newspaper accounts and other bits and pieces left behind by those who have passed on — are treasures to us.

33. 2. Primary Source Evidence • A history textbook is generally used more like a phone book: it is a place to look up information. • Primary sources must be read differently – like a clue in a murder. • To use them well, we need to set them in their historical contexts and make inferences from them to help us understand more about what was going on when they were created.

34. Guidepost to Evidence • 1.  History is interpretation based on inferences made from primary sources. Primary sources can be accounts, but they can also be traces, relics, or records.

35. Guidepost to Evidence • 2.  Asking good questions about a source can turn it into evidence.

36. Guidepost to Evidence • 3.  Sourcing often begins before a source is read, with questions about who created it and when it was created. It involves inferring from the source the author’s or creator’s purposes, values, and worldview either conscious or unconscious.

37. Guidepost to Evidence • 4.  A source should be analyzed in relation to the context of its historical setting: the conditions and worldviews prevalent at the time in question.

38. Guidepost to Evidence • 5.  Inferences made from a source can never stand alone. They should always be corroborated -checked against other sources (primary and secondary).

39. 2. Evidence + Interpretation • Watch: Evidence and Interpretation Explanatory Video • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIzUXZb3xE4 • 6:55 mins • Source: The Critical Thinking Consortium (TC2)

41. How do we understand the complexity of the past?

42. 3. Continuity and Change • How can we make sense of the complex course of history? • Asks us to look for similarities and differences in the lives and conditions of people and societies that came before us.

43. 3. Continuity and Change • Sometimes we misunderstand history as a list of events. • Once we start to understand history as a complex mix of continuity and change, we will reach a fundamentally different sense of the past.

44. 3. Continuity and Change: The Steps • We need to see historical events as interrelated = continuous changing not isolated, discrete events. • Identify turning points that help to locate the change. • Use progress and decline to evaluate change. • Organize our understanding via chronology and periodization.

45. 3. Continuity and Change • One of the keys to continuity and change is looking for change where common sense suggests that there has been none and looking for continuities where we assumed that there was change.

46. 3. Continuity and Change • Judgments of continuity and change can be made on the basis of comparisons between some point in the past and the present, or between two points in the past, such as before and after Confederation in Canada. • We evaluate change over time using the ideas of progress and decline.

47. 3. Continuity + Change • Watch: Continuity and Change Explanatory Video • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFHyQmk1khw • 6:19 mins • Source: The Critical Thinking Consortium (TC2)

48. Guidepost to Continuity and Change Review • 1.  Continuity and change are interwoven; both can exist together. Chronologies - the sequencing of events - can be a good starting point.

49. Guidepost to Continuity and Change Review • 2.  Change is a process, with varying paces and patterns. Turning points are moments when the process of change shifts in direction or pace.

50. Guidepost to Continuity and Change Review • 3.  Progress and decline are broad evaluations of change over time. Depending on the impacts of change, progress for one people may be decline for another.