Understanding History: Thinking Like a Historian

What IS History? Notes – 8/16/13 HOW TO THINK LIKE AN HISTORIAN – AP World History

What IS History • Take a few minutes to write down what you were doing in your 10th year (5th grade). • Now, what kind of evidence would you need to validate this information (give at least five examples?

What IS History • Now, take 5 minutes to write down what you did yesterday. • Again, what kind of evidence could you show to validate this (give five examples)? • What part does memory play?

Memory vs. Evidence • Primary Sources • Secondary Sources • Best? • Problems • Context • Interpretations • Point(s) of View (later relate to DBQs)

Historical Thinking Skills There are four generic thinking skills that are important for historians: • Crafting Historical arguments from Historical Evidence • Constructing and evaluating arguments using evidence to make valid arguments • Chronological Reasoning • Assess continuity and change over time and over different regions. • Seeing global patterns and processes over time and space while connecting local developments to global ones.

Historical Thinking Skills cont… 3.Comparison and Contextualization • Comparing within and among societies, including comparing societies’ reactions to global processes • Considering human commonalities and differences 4. Historical Interpretation and Synthesis • Exploring claims of universal standards in relation to culturally diverse ideas • Exploring the persistent relevance of world history to contemporary developments

1) Recalling the Facts • History is what we, as individuals, as a nation, or an historian choose to remember about the past, or what to focus on, and it is open to interpretation. • We can’t put every president on Mt. Rushmore • We choose which people and events to memorialize • History is the common experience that binds us together as people – in a nation, and the world. • It is our heritage, what we pass onto our children, and grandchildren, on into the future…..

2) Interpretation • History involves explaining people and events. • You can read between the lines. In your own words – what is happening here? • You can listen for false statements: What sounds out of place? What facts don’t fit? • You can speculate: What made the American colonies want to be independent? • You can be a poet, a songwriter, an artist or a journalist: And if so, what would you say, sing, draw or write about? • You can illustrate: If you were to draw a political cartoon about the American Revolution, what would it look like? In this way, you can begin to be an HISTORIAN!!!!!!

3) Apply • History involves applying lessons and information from the past to the present. • History must be a dialogue between the past and the present. • You can personalize: What experience have you had that would help others to understand an event, such as immigration? • You can create a hypothetical situation : If you were not allowed to attend Lakewood just because of the color of your skin, how would you react? • You can apply the rules of the past to current events: What would happen today if we applied the same rules that existed prior to the Civil Rights Act of 1965? (Think about the Rodney King incident….)

4) Analyze • History involves figuring out complicated situations and their connections. • You can break a world war down to its parts – which parts can you identify? Which battles or events are turning points? • You can examine each part of a war, or event – how are they related or connected? • You can create a timeline of events: What are the causes? What are the effects? • You can list similarities and differences in wars, events, leaders, etc. Compare and Contrast all of them to get a greater understanding of history, and to ask questions that need answering.

5) Synthesize • History involves making sense out of multiple facts. • You can search for patterns, that you may have seen before. • You can speculate. What choices were not chosen. Why? • You can predict. The policy of appeasement – where was it headed? • You can make generalizations. When a nation fails to live up to its promises, what may happen as a result? • You can draw conclusions. Was dropping the atomic bomb justified and wise, or unjustified? Why? • You can add up the facts. What new reality might you be able to draw today from the outcome of World War II?

6) Evaluate • History involves making judgments about people and events. This isn’t prejudice. • You can examine all the sides of an issue, such as Civil Rights. • You can debate the pro’s and con’s of integrating schools. • You can describe the strengths and weaknesses of a leaders policies. • You can examine the advantages and disadvantages of a leaders strategies such as non-violence (Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr.) • You can judge, based on fact, whether a person, policy, or event measured up to a high standard. Such as, did MLK measure up to the standards of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Golden Rule?

AP World History Themes • Historical events are unique, however there are certain themes that are repeated all over the world. In this course, we will focus on five reoccurring themes: • Creation, expansion and interaction of economic systems • Development and transformation of social structures • Development and interaction of cultures • State-building, expansion and conflicts • Interaction between humans and environments

Creation, expansion and interaction of economic systems This is a powerful force throughout history – as human cultures have been concerned with how to use their scarce resources to satisfy their needs. • Agricultural and pastoral production • Trade and commerce • Labor systems • Industrialization • Capitalism and socialism

Development and transformation of social structures • Gender roles and relations • Family kinship • Racial and ethnic constructions • Social and economic classes

Development and Interaction of Cultures • Throughout history, humans around the world have developed and diffused their cultures by interacting on various levels: • Religions • Belief systems, philosophies, and ideologies • Science and technology • The arts and literature

State Building, expansion and conflict • Often, throughout history, great change has been achieved through force. Sometimes this is through overthrow of government, or through radical change in thoughts, or discoveries or technology. • Political structures • Empires • Nations and nationalism • Revolts and revolutions • Regional, trans-regional, and global structures and organizations

Interaction between humans and environment • History is often related to interaction with the environment. As you read, think about these questions/issues: • Demography and disease? • Migration (who, what, where, when, why)? • Patterns of settlement? • Technology (used, developed, diffused)? • Note: ESCPE themes

Understanding History: Thinking Like a Historian