This article is an empirical analysis of history teaching as a communicative process. Dialogic history teaching develops as a designed meaning-making process that depends on thorough pedagogical strategies and decisions, and requires cohesion in teacher expectations, introductions and interventions. A micro-dialogic study is presented in this article to document a paradoxical teaching situation where history as subject-related content all but disappeared from a group of students' meaning-making processes because they were preoccupied with figuring out their teacher's intentions. History teaching thus turned into 'just teaching' without the teacher or the students being aware of it. A strong emphasis on history teaching as a communicative process and dialogue as a key pedagogical tool have potential with regard to pedagogical decision-making and strategies on the one hand, and for relationships between students and history as subject-related content on the other. The analysis presented in this article contributes to a growing field of studies on dialogic history teaching, of which the focus on students as an important part of classroom dialogues is central.

Didaktiske læremidler fylder meget i historieundervisning i forhold til etablering og forankring af viden i faget. Men udviklingen i faget efter folkeskolereformen i 2014 løfter spørgsmålet om elevens rolle som den lærende, herunder sammenhænge mellem lærer, læremidler og elevers læreprocesser frem på nye måder. Artiklen undersøger, hvad læremiddelbrug er, herunder hvordan læremidler som ressourcer i historieundervisning betyder noget for facilitering af elevers læreprocesser. På grundlag af learning design theory viser artiklen, at iscenesættelse af undervisningsindhold er afgørende for, hvordan elever i første omgang tolker og transformerer informationer til mening. Historielæreren adskiller sig fra læremidlet ved at kunne intervenere og respondere på udviklingen i elevforståelser, men artiklen viser også, at ingen af lærerne i to casestudier faciliterer deres elevers meningsskabende læreprocesser så langt, at elevernes egne repræsentationer af mening danner afsæt for diskussion og metareflekterende overvejelser. Det er således uklart, hvad eleverne reelt lærer.