SYNTHESIS AND REFLECTION

Historical Citizenship and Scholarship

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Thinking like a historian requires significant background knowledge, a healthy dose of skepticism, and an ability to think creatively while supporting conclusions with hard evidence. The American Historical Association asserts that true historical thinking requires chronology, historical comprehension, historical analysis, interpretation, historical research skills, and analyzing the decision-making of historical issues.[1] Mankato’s graduate program, in turn, asks students to “demonstrate critical thinking through interpretation and synthesis of primary and secondary sources within a historical context,” building on an initial outcome looking for students to “analyze primary and secondary sources, and place them in historical context.”[2] Together, these outcomes demonstrate the highest levels of thinking. I help students understand the importance of this work, using causation, comparison, and continuity and change over time to frame their consideration of historical processes. My goal is to empower students to think deeply, freely, and collaboratively about the material that they encounter, connecting it to the past, present, and future. 

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Traditional history classrooms feature an instructor who delivers information to students diligently taking notes; however, the modern classroom challenges students to consider the context and implications of historical events as they critically analyze them. The American Historical Association asks questions like “What might have been done differently to resolve problems?  ... What can we learn about how people made decisions to do the things they did?”[3]  My AP World History students practice this in culminating discussions that bring together the knowledge and context of each unit.  It helps them see that “history is not just about remembering answers, it involves following and evaluating arguments and arriving at usable conclusions based on what evidence you have.”[4] In a chapter from Why Nations Go to War, “The Iron Dice” helps students examine the human reactions that caused WWI.  They annotated the reading for AP themes, combining this information with the knowledge they had built through traditional textbook reading as well as poetry and visual propaganda from the war.  I supplied each student with sentence starters that help them challenge and corroborate one another’s claims.  Students evaluated causation of political and social issues that exist today in part because of the events of WWI, making accurate and astute observations over a century apart to better understand modern global contexts.  They saw that history is about consequences, not inevitabilities. 

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Historical thinking does not occur in a vacuum; in government class, students use critical thinking skills to analyze the socio-political norms that dictate voting trends, Supreme Court decisions, and protest movements.  I considered this in Civil Rights of the Twentieth Century when I synthesized connections between slavery, Reconstruction amendments, and the modern mass incarceration of African Americans. As a teacher, I helped students to connect Reconstruction, the Civil Rights Movement, and Black Lives Matter as a series of social continuities and changes that built on strategies and complicated by Supreme Court decisions from the Voting Rights Act of 1965 to Shelby County v Holder; this activity was inspired by my coursework connecting LGBT+ rights movement strategies to Obergefell v. Hodges.   To understand political controversies, students must learn about their historical context; students did so through a free-response question that scaffolded them through the Constitutional issues, political processes, and outcomes before advocating for a specific government response. Putting this information together helps them develop skills that will assist them as they become active, educated citizens in a democratic society, which is the goal of an effective social studies classroom.

Focusing on continuity and change over time helps to connect chronology and causality, showing the development of modern America. When students synthesize and analyze historical context and fact to understand today, it empowers them to be more active citizens and scholars.

Bibliography

Corley, Christopher and Lori Lahlum. “Alternate Plan Paper.” Syllabus, MNSU-Mankato, Mankato, MN, 2019.

"What Skills Should You Have When You Leave a History Class?" American Historical Association. Accessed March 03, 2019. https://www.historians.org/teaching-and-learning/teaching-resources-for-historians/teaching-and-learning-in-the-digital-age/the-history-of-the-americas/the-conquest-of-mexico/for-teachers/setting-up-the-project/historical-thinking-skills.

[1] "What Skills Should You Have When You Leave a History Class?" American Historical Association, accessed March 03, 2019. https://www.historians.org/teaching-and-learning/teaching-resources-for-historians/teaching-and-learning-in-the-digital-age/the-history-of-the-americas/the-conquest-of-mexico/for-teachers/setting-up-the-project/historical-thinking-skills.

[2] Christopher Corley and Lori Lahlum. “Alternative Plan Paper” (syllabus, MNSU-Mankato, Mankato, MN, 2019).

[3] “What Skills”

[4] Ibid.