Teaching American History

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Teaching American History

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

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Teaching American History

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

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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

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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)

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Teaching American History

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

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Teaching American History

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

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Teaching American History

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

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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.

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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

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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?

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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?

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Teaching American History

• Are any places off-limits to historians?

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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?

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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

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Teaching American History

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

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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

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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?
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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?
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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?

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Teaching American History

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

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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.

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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

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Teaching American History

• What are the limits of historical knowledge?
• Considering
• historical questions
• and
• non-historical questions

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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?

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Teaching American History

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

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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?

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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?

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Teaching American History

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

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Teaching American History

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

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Teaching American History

• Introducing Secondary sources
• Define
• List common types of secondary sources
• Describe the uses and potential misuses of each
  type of source

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Teaching American History

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

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Teaching American History

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

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Teaching American History

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

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Teaching American History

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

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Fact or inference? Isnt this the cutest
grandbaby you have ever seen?
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Teaching American History

• Is it appropriate for historians to make
  inferences from the sources?
• For inferences to be persuasive, what
  conditions should be met?

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Teaching American History

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

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Teaching American History

• External Criticism determining the authenticity
  of a source
• Provide examples of external criticism
• Describe the methods of external criticism

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Teaching American History

• Internal Criticism determining the credibility
  of a source
• Provide examples of internal criticism
• Describe the methods of internal criticism

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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?

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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?

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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

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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?