How can pupils learn to think, analyse and argue, and build historical knowledge at the same time

1
How can pupils learn to think, analyse and
argue, and build historical knowledge at the
same time?

• WORKSHOP
• 2 December 2006
• Christine Counsell
• University of Cambridge, UK

2
History as a practiceSome ideas, structures and
big concepts that shape typical historical
questions and organise historical argument

• working with evidence
• making sense of different interpretations.

• cause and consequence
• change and continuity
• similarity, difference and diversity
• historical significance

3
14-year-olds in Northern Ireland build an
argument in response to a question of historical
causation

• Did one monk change Germany?

4
Pupils make cause cards

• Martin Luther challenged
• the Pope

• Luther developed new views on faith

• Luther burned
• the Papal Bull

• Growing power and aspirations of the German
  princes

• Abuses in the Roman Catholic church

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Why is structuring argument difficult?

• Students must move from narrative to analysis
• Students must move from description to discussion
• They dont usually want to do this!

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Constructing a causal argument

• STEP ONE
• Students need to understand that there is a
  problem to be solved! So get them playing with
  different causal arrangements until they realise
  the nature of the problem.

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Question
Most important
Least important
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Event
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Heading?
Heading?
Heading?
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Do the lower-order thinking for them so that they
can do the higher-order thinking for themselves
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History as a practiceSome ideas, structures and
big concepts that shape typical historical
questions and organise historical argument

• working with evidence
• making sense of different interpretations.

• cause and consequence
• change and continuity
• similarity, difference and diversity
• historical significance

12
Working with evidence

• Avoiding some pitfalls in evidential thinking

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No source is unreliable

• Reliability is a meaningless idea unless we ask
  reliable for what?
• A source that is unreliable for facts (e.g.
  because of bias, propaganda intentions, partial
  witnessing) is likely to VERY reliable for
  opinions

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Choose one visual source

• How might this source help us with the
  knowledge, beliefs, ideas, views of the period in
  which it was made?
• Consider the positioning of the
  author/artist/creator? What might his/her
  intention have been? How is this helpful to the
  historian?
• Ask not is it biased? but what is the bias?
  How does that bias help me find out whatever I am
  trying to find out?

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• This source tells me that
• This source suggests that
• Make two types of boxes for your claims!

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This suggests that
This tells me That
Source
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Now colour-code your boxes

• In what other ways might you ask pupils to
  colour-code their boxes, and why? What kind of
  historical thinking would you be trying to
  promote?

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Two types of conclusion or inference

• What we can find out about author, attitudes,
  values, assumptions (of author, of audience, of
  period)

• What we can find out about the object of the
  commentary in this case - conditions/ experience
  of poor, treatment of poor, town buildings, etc.

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Source
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tells and suggests is only a starting point

• How could we take pupils further in developing
  their language for and awareness of the degree of
  certainty or uncertainty with which they want to
  make a claim?

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Certainty-uncertainty

• A human continuum where the pupils arrange the
  statements!

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certainty - uncertainty continuum
This definitely tells us
This strongly indicates to us
This probably shows us
This seems to suggest
There is a possible, outside chance that this
just MIGHT be!
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How does a switch to the first person (I) help
pupils to be more precise about the degree of
certainty/uncertainty?

• Ask ten pupils to stand in a line. Give each
  pupil a statement (in large letters!) expressing
  a claim with a particular degree of certainty or
  certainty.
• Ask the other 20 pupils to decide where each of
  the ten should stand in the line, so that there
  is a continuum of certainty through to
  uncertainty. Encourage open discussion so that
  pupils really think about the strength/ weakness
  of each claim, and so that they learn new
  language for being tentative, speculative,
  cautious at the same time.

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• ...I know that...
• ...I am definitely able to conclude that...
• ...I am absolutely certain that...
• ...I can make a strong case for saying that...
• ...I think it probable that...
• ...I judge it possible that...
• ...I am persuaded that...
• ...I infer that ...
• ...I want to suggest that...
• ...I am wondering if...
• ...I am inclined to suggest...
• It occurs to me that there might be an
  alternative explanation

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Why would a history teacher bother to do this?We
broaden pupils language options in order to

• broaden the scope/range of pupils ability to
  express uncertainty/ certainty
• broaden pupils awareness of certainty/uncertainty
  as an issue
• interest pupils in certainty/uncertainty and the
  strength or weakness of any truth claim
• support pupils thinking when they over-attribute
  authorial intention to a source (or display any
  other weak, immature or unhistorical ideas about
  evidence)
• develop the habit of making tentative,
  speculative claims that declare their
  relationship with the evidence, rather than
  dogmatic claims that cannot easily be
  substantiated or warranted.