Learning Historical Content and Skills
The inquiries on this webpage tell interesting and puzzling stories that are important in Utah and United States history. We anticipate that students will enjoy working through these challenging questions. Research has shown that students who learn history by doing history retain historical content knowledge better than students who are merely told about history (Nokes et al., 2007; Reisman, 2012). Based on the same research, we also expect that students who engage in these inquiries will develop historical reading, thinking, and writing skills that will help them learn history content better and be better readers in their other school subjects. But there is a more important reason to use these inquiries with students.
Preserving Constitutional Government
Research suggests students should be encouraged to apply the strategies and dispositions practiced in historical inquiry in order to become informed on political issues in an era when most individuals learn about current issues through the Internet and social media. In the 21st century, a majority of people have access to information as never before. Today, the challenge is not finding information, but evaluating information. The ability to decide which information to believe and act on is increasingly important in an age of Internet trolls, partisan propaganda, and false news.
At the founding of the United States, Jefferson, Franklin, and others acknowledged the need for an informed citizenry to maintain the republic. As reforms have contributed to political systems becoming more democratic, the need for citizens to be able to find and vet information has become even more vital. We contend that the skills and dispositions developed during skilled historical inquiry are vital for maintaining democracy in a pluralistic society. Traditional history instruction and coursework in other fields are unlikely to build the skills needed to maintain democracy. Practice in historical inquiry can. We encourage teachers to talk openly about the following skills and dispositions that are associated with both historical inquiry and with becoming informed on civic issues and participating civilly in a pluralistic democracy.
- Seeking diverse perspectives: Historians intentionally seek accounts of an event from different points of view. They know that their research will be incomplete if the voices of one group of participants are silenced. Likewise, someone hoping to become informed on civic issues needs to gather and humbly consider information from different sources, including sources with whom they might disagree. While working on historical inquiries, teachers should encourage or require students to consider at least two disagreeing perspectives.
- Interrogating evidence: Historians do not accept information at face value, even when they want to agree with what the account is saying. Instead, they think critically about the information they receive. They use the strategies listed here to evaluate the evidence they find. Individuals should also interrogate the evidence they find online or that they receive through social media. We must ask ourselves, Who is behind this information? What are other sources saying? What evidence supports these claims? Teaching resources linked here provided by the Digital Inquiry Group (formerly Stanford History Education Group) can be used to teach students to answer these questions through “civic online reasoning.”
- Holding views as tentative: Historians exhibit academic humility, recognizing that their understanding of events should change as they find new evidence or discover more enlightened ways of thinking about old evidence. Such an attitude leads to lifelong learning as they continue to refine and revise their thinking. When engaged in historical inquiry, students should resist reaching a conclusion until after they have thoughtfully reviewed several pieces of evidence. In a similar way, individuals should try to keep an open mind, regularly returning to their ideas and seeking ways to improve them. When they find new trustworthy information that requires a shift, individuals should change their mind on political issues.
- Inviting and valuing academic challenges: Historians recognize that thoughtful challenges produce fruitful conversations and yield richer and more accurate conclusions. Admittedly, historians sometimes quarrel in an unproductive way. But frequently when a colleague expresses a legitimate doubt in their claims, historians reason through those concerns, search for more evidence, and ultimately improve their work. When engaging in historical inquiry, small group work can provide opportunities for students to review and challenge each other, moving them toward better interpretations. In a similar way, differences of opinion within a pluralistic democracy can lead to more broadly satisfying solutions. Thoughtful challenges improve the democratic process.
- Avoiding the jump to a conclusion: Historians understand that settling on one interpretation too quickly can prevent a researcher from discovering better interpretations. They understand the tendency toward confirmation bias, which occurs when a person values evidence that supports their view while ignoring evidence that weakens their position. The same thing can happen during civic engagement, when a person makes up their mind before thoroughly examining the evidence. They can consciously or subconsciously dismiss information provided by sources they disagree with and focus exclusively on the voices most like their own.
- Entertaining multiple hypothesis: Rather than jumping to a conclusion, historians consider several different hypotheses at the same time. For instance, as they study an event, rather than reaching a conclusion too quickly they acknowledge that the event may have happened this way, that way, or another way. New evidence might help them narrow their thinking until eventually they are relatively confident about what happened. The Mountain Meadows Massacre inquiry included on this page gives students four hypotheses to test as they investigate the evidence. Their analysis of evidence can help them narrow down their conclusion to the best theories. Likewise, as members of a community seek to solve a problem, they should be willing to sincerely consider multiple possible solutions, eventually narrowing it down to the best based on all the available evidence.
- Disagreeing productively: Historians with the same subspecialties sometimes disagree about causation, significance, and even basic facts. Frequently, their disagreements enrich conversations about their research topic. Debriefing sessions during inquiry activities are opportunities for students to share their views and critically analyze the interpretations of their peers. Even when consensus is not reached, these discussions can deepen students’ understanding of historical events. Disagreement is also common during civic engagement. Rather than preventing positive outcomes, people who have found ways to disagree productively, often through compromise, find mutually acceptable ways to promote the common good. The best solutions are often found when people who see the world differently collaborate.
- Ignoring extreme views: In historians’ work they sometimes find seriously flawed evidence that conflicts with all the reliable sources from various points of view. They do not spend much time considering information from such an unsound source. Some of the documents in the inquiries on this website are seriously flawed, such as William Drannan’s account of the Bear River Massacre. Students can be taught to identify a source as extreme (because it disagrees with all the other accounts on many basic facts) and to not spend much time on it during their inquiry. Likewise, the Internet contains extreme views on many issues. It is a waste of time to include seriously flawed sources to study civic issues when reliable sources are available. Of importance, not everyone who disagrees with a person represents an extreme view. Extreme views can be identified when they are a lone voice or contain information that diverges widely from what is expressed in reputable sources. A media bias chart can be found
here suggesting news outlets that are mainstream and those that are extreme. - Weighing issues separately: As historians investigate a historical event, they develop a complex picture, exposing the strengths and weaknesses of all the participants. Rarely do they choose one side and present that perspective as entirely moral or noble and the other side as entirely evil. Instead, they follow the evidence to lay out a complex story that shows the good and bad on both sides. In contrast, sometimes those engaged in politics pick a side then fail to continue to explore the issues, instead adopting a party’s platform lock, stock, and barrel. Conversations on civic issues are much richer when each issue is explored separately. Uncritical devotion to party inhibits the deep exploration of issues that can lead to the best solutions.
- Considering outcomes for diverse groups: Historians are aware of the audience of their work and think about how an audience might react to their publications. Likewise, those engaged in civic problem solving should be aware of the impact of their work on various groups. By considering others’ perspectives, individuals can support policies that not only help them but do so in a way that also helps (or at least does not harm) others.
Students can be taught to develop these ten skills and dispositions during historical inquiries. In addition, teachers should model for students how these ten skills and dispositions can be used to become informed on civic issues. Preparing students for civic engagement can make history an essential part of the curriculum.
The claims about historians’ work comes from the following research:
Nokes, J. D. & Kesler-Lund, A. (2019). Historians’ social literacies: How historians collaborate and write during a document-based activity. The History Teacher, 52(3), 369-410.
Other sources cited:
Nokes, J. D., Dole, J. A., & Hacker, D. J. (2007). Teaching high school students to use heuristics while reading historical texts. Journal of Educational Psychology, 99(3), 492- 504.
Reisman, A. (2012). Reading like a historian: A document-based history curriculum intervention in urban high schools. Cognition and Instruction, 30, 1, 86-112.