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Teaching American History

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Teaching American History. Today's definition: ... (1) There are numerous meanings of 'history,' but in this workshop when we use the 'h' word, ... – PowerPoint PPT presentation

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Title: Teaching American History


1
Teaching American History
  • Welcome to the TAH Workshop!
  • Lets begin with a simple question
  • What is history?

2
Teaching American History
  • Etiology of the word in ancient languages
  • Sanskrit no equivalent
  • Greek historia means learning by inquiry

3
Teaching American History
  • Etiology of history in modern languages
  • French LHISTORIE means sum total of past
  • lhistorie means an account of a piece of the
    past
  • English Dictionary definitions 1 a tale or
    story
  • 2 a a chronological record of significant
    events, often including an explanation of their
    causes b a treatise presenting systematically
    related natural phenomena c an established
    record
  • 3 a branch of knowledge that records and
    explains past events
  • 4 a events that form the subject matter of a
    history b events of the past c one that is
    finished or done for ltyou're historygt

4
Teaching American History
  • How others have defined history.
  • Which definition do you like best?
  • Any story about the human
  • past that tries to exclude
  • fable and error in search of
  • truth.
  • (John Higham)

5
Teaching American History
  • Reasoned arguments about the past by which we
    seek an understanding of actions, thoughts and
    feelings.
  • (Alan Lichtman and Valerie French)

6
Teaching American History
  • The mess we call life reduced to some order,
    pattern or purpose.
  • (Unknown)
  • History is bunk! (Henry Ford)

7
Teaching American History
  • Todays definition
  • Any story about a real past that is based on
    reasoned arguments drawn from sources from the
    past.

8
Teaching American History
  • So let me get this straight ...
  • (1) There are numerous meanings of history,
  • but in this workshop when we use the h word,
  • we mean the discipline that studies the past,
  • not the past itself.

9
Teaching American History
  • (2) Also when we use the h-word,
  • we refer to a discipline that seeks to identify
    and rationally connect events
  • across time and place.
  • Our primary concern this week is to better
    understand how this task is accomplished

10
Teaching American History
  • But how large is the past historians study?
  • What subjects or units,
  • what time and
  • what place
  • do we explore?
  • Is our discipline limited in subject, time or
    place?

11
Teaching American History
  • For example, what subjects do historians study?
  • Minerals, Vegetables, Animals, the Divine?
  • Human individuals? (including Lucy?)
  • Villages, Towns or City-states?
  • States or regions?
  • Nation states?
  • Ethnic groupings?
  • Civilizations?

12
Teaching American History
  • Are any places off-limits to historians?

13
Teaching American History
  • When does historic time begin?
  • 15,000,000,000 years ago at the big bang?
  • 5,000,000,000 years ago when the earth was
    formed?
  • 500,000 years ago when creatures made tools?
  • 50,000 years ago when wise-men populated the
    globe?
  • 5,000 years ago when writing was invented?
  • 500 years ago at European contact?

14
Teaching American History
  • Before we try to answer questions about historic
    time, lets first consider
  • How does history differ from two other
    approaches to knowledge
  • myth and science

15
Teaching American History
  • Differentiate between the following approaches
  • Discipline Subject Matter
    Evidence Required
  • Myth
  • History
  • Science

16
Teaching American History
  • Note that some disciplines think seriously about
    what evidence is necessary in order to
    demonstrate causation
  • For example, philosophers may think about
    Aristotles four causes,
  • and
  • medical scientists may invoke
  • Kochs four postulates

17
Aristotles four kinds of causes For
example, what is the cause of a house?
Material cause
Efficient cause
Formal cause
Final cause its reason for being built
Should historians consider Teleological causes?
18
Kochs Postulates on what evidence is necessary
to determine the cause of an illness
The microorganism must be found in all organisms
suffering from the disease, but not in healthy
organisms
The microorganism must be isolated from a
diseased organism and grown in pure culture
The cultured microorganism should cause disease
when introduced into a healthy organism
The microorganism must found in the diseased host
Does our discipline have postulates that must
be met before historical cause is accepted?
19
Teaching American History
  • Now lets explore the question of historic time.
  • Envision a time before history
  • Describe this time
  • What were people like in this world?

20
Teaching American History
  • What conditions must exist before there can be a
    discipline of history?
  • What peoples first provided these prerequisites
    for us?

21
Teaching American History
  • So what are we saying?
  • Surprise!
  • History is a relatively recent human invention
  • and still does not exist for some peoples.
  • The scope of history also is not unlimited.

22
Teaching American History
  • Who can we thank for the rise
  • of this discipline?
  • Most historians give credit to the Greeks,
  • but I also give credit to the Hebrews for
    insisting on the importance of linear time

23
Teaching American History
  • What are the limits of historical knowledge?
  • Considering
  • historical questions
  • and
  • non-historical questions

24
Teaching American History
  • Four types of questions
  • Zen questions what is the sound of a single
    hand clapping?
  • Trivial questions how many es are in KJV of
    the Bible?
  • Historical questions who killed JFK?
  • Existential questions what is the meaning of
    the universe?

25
Teaching American History
  • One more set of questions for today
  • What are the uses of history
  • and the potential misuses of history?

26
Teaching American History
  • Thats enough for one morning, but next
  • on our agenda are the primary questions
  • for this week
  • How do historians work?
  • and
  • What are the sources and methods of history?

27
Teaching American History
  • Come back tomorrow and be prepared to have some
    fun doing history!
  • Tonights Assignment Read the Introduction to
    CAP and be ready to debate the question,
  • Did Hamilton try to kill Burr?

28
Teaching American History
  • Session 2
  • How do historians work?
  • and
  • What are the sources and methods of history?

29
Teaching American History
  • Introducing Primary Sources
  • Define
  • List common types of primary sources
  • Describe the uses and potential misuses of each
    type of source

30
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32
Teaching American History
  • Introducing Secondary sources
  • Define
  • List common types of secondary sources
  • Describe the uses and potential misuses of each
    type of source

33
Teaching American History
  • Now really get creative
  • List other types of non-traditional
  • primary sources
  • Do any of these sources have classroom
    applications?

34
Teaching American History
  • Can the same source
  • be both a primary and a secondary source?
  • If so, explain.

35
Teaching American History
  • What is the difference between
  • a fact and an inference?
  • How would you label each of the following
    statements

36
Teaching American History
  • Thomas Jefferson was born on April 2, 1743.
  • President Garfield was shot by Charles Guiteau, a
    disappointed office seeker.

37
Fact or inference? Isnt this the cutest
grandbaby you have ever seen?
38
Teaching American History
  • Is it appropriate for historians to make
    inferences from the sources?
  • For inferences to be persuasive, what
    conditions should be met?

39
Teaching American History
  • A few more definitions!
  • Two types of historical criticism
  • External (lower) criticism
  • Internal (higher) criticism

40
Teaching American History
  • External Criticism determining the authenticity
    of a source
  • Provide examples of external criticism
  • Describe the methods of external criticism

41
Teaching American History
  • Internal Criticism determining the credibility
    of a source
  • Provide examples of internal criticism
  • Describe the methods of internal criticism

42
Teaching American History
  • Now, lets do some history!
  • Reading with the eye of a historian
  • Using the first doc presented
  • in CAP, answer this question
  • how did Americans in the 1820s heat their homes
    at night?

43
Teaching American History
  • What other clues about life in upstate New York
    during the 1820s are presented in this poem?
  • Argument by silence is there anything missing in
    the poem that you expected to be there?
  • What statements in the poem do you reject as
    fabrication rather than fact? How and why did
    you reach these conclusions?

44
Teaching American History
  • Look at texts that you have read before with the
    eye of a historian and you may find things you
    never saw
  • Just for fun compare the images attributed to
    Jesus in the New Testament gospels with the
    images attributed to Paul in the New Testament
    letters and from this speculate about the
    upbringing of each
  • Also read the story in Mark 51-20 and ask if the
    message is more than the sum of the facts

45
Teaching American History
  • Now back to American History
  • From the docs presented in the Introduction to
    CAP, answer the question
  • Did Hamilton try to kill Burr?
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