Energizing the History Classroom: Historical Narrative Inquiry and Historical Empathy

Abstract

The article presents a historical narrative model designed to encourage analytical thinking. My historical narrative inquiry model (a) teaches procedural knowledge (the process of “doing” history); (b) enhances interpretative skills; (c) cultivates historical perspectives based upon evidentiary history; and (d) encourages student authorship of historical narratives. The instructional model emphasizes small- and large-group activities, including oral presentations, discussions about primary documents, and considerations relative to the creation of written history. Students generate their own historical narratives in order to articulate their perspectives. The purpose of the model is to facilitate students’ historical understandings by developing more empathetic perceptions of the people of the past.

Operationalizing Historical Consciousness: A Review and Synthesis of the Literature on Meaning Making in Historical Learning

“…First, a whole subfield of scholarship deals with the ways in which students negotiate the power dynamics and divisions, which are inherent in narratives that relate to national identity and the sense of belonging in ethnic, racial, or religious groups or a wider imagined community, especially when there is a clash or interplay between official or dominant narratives on one hand, and counter or minority narratives on the other (Anderson, 2017;Barton, 2001;Barton & McCully, 2010;Epstein, 2009;Létourneau, 2017;Lopez et al, 2014;Van Alphen & Carretero, 2015;Wertsch, 2004;Zanazanian, 2015). Second, an increasing body of literature highlights the role of the affective domain in the process of negotiation, showcasing how feelings, intuition, imagination, values, relationality, and desires to identify with what is being studied shape the stories students tell about the past and the ways they interpret it (Colby, 2008;Rudolph & Wright, 2015). A third area of scholarship, though relatively marginal, brings to light the ways in which students' engage in the process of attributing significance to some stories over others (Barton, 2005;Chinnery, 2010;Kansteiner, 2017;Levstik, 2000;Simon, 2004), especially when it comes to attending to the difficult and serious facts, traces, images and testimonies, or trauma narratives that "demand a reckoning" (Simon, 2004, p. 186) because they "wound" or "haunt" us today (p. 190), thereby participating in a public practice of remembrance as a form of "ethical learning" (p. 187).…”

Historical Empathy and Pedagogical Reasoning

“…Pedagogical examples of historical empathy in the classroom are well situated in the literature (Brooks, 2008;Colby, 2008;D'Adamo & Fallace, 2011;Doppen, 2000;Endacott, 2010;Grant, 2001;Kohlmeier, 2006;van Someren, Barnard, & Sandberg, 1994;Yeager et al, 1998). Recently, Endacott and Brooks (2013) have synthesized these works in order to posit an updated theoretical and practical framework for historical empathy based on the commonly accepted psychological conceptualization of empathy as a dual-dimensional, cognitive-affective construct.…”

Re‐thinking historical consciousness in a pandemic: From commemoration to contestability

“…Children need to be able to develop their historical consciousness to re‐imagine the past and reconstruct their narratives for the future. Pedagogies that enable the development of historical consciousness using multi‐perspectivity (Colby, 2008) create these opportunities.…”