History can be boring, but . . .

The typical texts in history are textbooks, at least when I was going to school. As I entered college, this changed a little in instead of just text books, we read secondary sources on historical events written by historians. Now, don’t get me wrong, I love my discipline but history (and historians) can be SOOOO boring. However, every once in a while a teacher will leave the textbook behind and teach students history with historical novels, pictures, journals, political cartoons, maps, and so on. These classes were always much more enjoyable because we got to be explorers, historians. We discovered for ourselves what was happening rather than reading what someone else wrote about it. The historical novels were also a novel idea (pardon the pun). We could read about a true event in history through the eyes and story of someone who may never have lived. They we exciting, sometimes sad, but always made you reflect on the event. One such book was The Book Thief. It was creative the way it was narrated by Death and told the story of normal Germans during the rise of Hitler and World War II, the fear they had, the almost hopelessness of the situation when there was no work or food. It was a way to better connect with history than to read in a textbook that in the late 1930s Hitler rose to power in Germany, many Germans were starving and scared, Jews were being put in concentration camps, the end. For my Teaching Social Studies Methods class last semester, we were introduced to the idea of graphic novels as an alternative to textbooks. They, too, are more emotional and easier to connect to than textbooks. My experience with them were such that I am going to use historical novels and graphic novels in my classroom.

I have never really had a hard time with textbooks, but I have with primary source documents, which is now the focus in a lot of history classrooms. While I enjoy learning from them, we never really used them in school and therefore I never because proficient at reading and understanding what it was trying to tell me beyond the very literal. I would use those around me to figure out what was being said and sometimes did have to take it at face value—I would try too hard to be symbolic and would sometimes miss the point. My teacher, Ms. Boberg, would always guide/scaffold what we were supposed to be looking for in our sources. She would do an example for us, have us do an example with her, work with a partner on an example, and then as homework we would do one ourselves and then come back to class and discuss it. I had four of five different examples of how to read historical documents and while it was still difficult for me, I really enjoy doing it.

When it comes to history and writing, the possibilities are endless. However, most assessments come in the form of multiple choice, fill in the blank, true-false, and short answer. Other times it is a persuasive essay. I feel that there should be no limit to how we assess our students in history. Have them create artifacts to prove they learned something. Get them writing persuasive essays on cereal boxes. Let them choose how best to show you they learned within the parameters you set. Most times, we think history is a subject to be taught in events and dates to be memorized. It is not true; there are so many other facets, faces, voices, and perspectives that are never seen that can be viewed through student writing.

In my classroom, we will use writing as a new way to explore history, as a way that my students can join history themselves. While we will still use paper and pencil tests as formative assessments, my summative assessment will include activities, students creating things to prove to me that they understood what was going on in a specific time period. We will get out of the textbook and only use it as a resource not as our “bible” so to speak. Student will have a choice in what they read whether it be historical fiction, graphic novels, or primary source documents. They will have a choice in what they write whether it be in journals, essays, in projects. And finally, they will have a voice in how successful their learning can be; it won’t just be me telling them how to learn but they will discover how to make learning their own.