Ms. Cunningham's Class
Email:
  • Home
    • Class Updates
    • Resources >
      • Historical Thinking Concepts & Terms
      • Research Skills
    • Brief Bio.
  • Model UN
  • English 9
    • Part Time Indian
  • Socials 9
    • Revolution >
      • Anatomy of Revolution
      • French Rev Overview >
        • The Best of Times
        • The Worst of Times: Revolution
        • Napoleon
        • Connections
    • WWI >
      • Causes of War
    • Colonization >
      • The Northwest >
        • Fur Trading Economy & Impact
        • Red River Colony & Changes
        • Louis Riel >
          • Riel Trial
          • Louis Riel Defence
        • Northwest Rebellion
      • Confederation
    • Defining Canadian Moments: Immigration >
      • Victorian Era & Early Settlers >
        • Victorian Era
        • Industrial Revolution
        • Upper & Lower Canada
        • The Great Migration
      • Continuity and Change: Canada Then & Now
      • Gold Rush
      • Underground Railroad
      • CPR & Head Tax
      • Komagata Maru
  • Social Studies 10
    • Geography
  • History 12
  • English 12

Command Terms: IB 

Picture
Picture

Concepts:

Researchers have identified concepts that provide the basis of historical thinking. The Historical Thinking Project follows this approach, and works with six distinct but closely interrelated historical thinking concepts. To think historically, students need to be able to:

  1. Establish historical significance
  2. Use primary source evidence
  3. Identify continuity and change
  4. Analyze cause and consequence
  5. Take historical perspectives, and
  6. Understand the ethical dimension of historical interpretations.


Taken together, these concepts tie “historical thinking” to competencies in “historical literacy.” In this case, “historical literacy” means gaining a deep understanding of historical events through active engagement with historical texts.

Historically literate citizens can assess claims that there was no Holocaust, that slavery wasn't so bad for African-Americans, that aboriginal rights have a historical basis, and that the Russian experience in Afghanistan serves as a warning to our mission there. They have thoughtful ways to tackle these debates. They can assess historical sources. They know that a historical film can look "realistic" without being accurate. They understand the value of a footnote.

In short, they can detect the differences, as Margaret MacMillan phrases it in her recent book title, between the uses and abuses of history. “Historical thinking” only becomes possible in relation to substantive content. These concepts are not abstract “skills.” Rather, they provide the structure that shapes the practice of history.

© Centre for the Study of Historical Consciousness
Historical Thinking Project

Handouts: 

hist_sig_template_11.doc
File Size: 33 kb
File Type: doc
Download File

primary_sources_.doc
File Size: 24 kb
File Type: doc
Download File

ethical_dimension_template_1.doc
File Size: 31 kb
File Type: doc
Download File

cause_and_cons_template_1.doc
File Size: 26 kb
File Type: doc
Download File

hist_perspective_template_1.doc
File Size: 31 kb
File Type: doc
Download File

hist_perspective_template_2.doc
File Size: 31 kb
File Type: doc
Download File

cont_and_change_template_1.doc
File Size: 32 kb
File Type: doc
Download File