Center for History EducationHistory Labs
A Guided Approach to Historical Inquiry in the K-12 Classroom
Presenting and Supporting Interpretations
In this video segment students and teachers discuss developing, defending, and revising answers to the historical questions that frame various History Labs. It is at this point that students move from simply regurgitating historical “facts” to using evidence and information to defend their answers to historical questions.
As they work through the History Labs, students develop, present, and revise their answers and the interpretations that underpin them. Students use their analysis and corroboration of the relevant historical sources, together with their content knowledge about the subject under examination, to craft positions on the nature, causes, consequences, or significance of the events, individuals, and/or ideas under examination.
It is essential that students “ground” their answers to the overarching question in the evidence provided by the sources. Interpretations that emphasize some sources over others, or critically evaluate the sources to validate certain information or perspective, or use the sources to construct an entirely new narrative of the subject, mirror the interpretative work of historians, and are the effective learning outcomes of History Labs.
Here are several ways that students can present and discuss their interpretations:
- Student presentations (individual or group) — In their presentations, students discuss specific evidence that led them to develop their answers. The degree of formality is up to the teacher. They can be simple oral presentations, where students highlight and present the key facts in the documents that support their argument, or more formal presentations that utilize multimedia technology tools.
- Whole-class discussions — By conducting a general class discussion, students are placed in the position of articulating their position and supporting their arguments with evidence. The teacher serves as the facilitator.
- Small-group discussions — Working in small groups, students present their answers and the evidence that supports their decisions. The teacher provides prompts to further student-to-student communication, as well as time limits to help focus the conversation. To foster student accountability, teachers should periodically stop the discussion and ask random students to explain what the other members of their group shared, or what the students indicated were the most significant pieces of evidence.
- Visual arrangement of evidence — To reinforce the need for History Lab answers to be grounded in the evidence, students are asked to arrange the available evidence in the sequence or pattern that helps them develop their answer to the overarching question. Working individually or in groups, students may also post or tape their evidence to the classroom wall in the order of its usefulness or reliability to the historical question being studied.
- Contrasting student interpretations with those of historians — The teacher projects or distributes short excerpts from historians. Students then determine which interpretations from the class are most similar to that of a historian and why. Students can also point to the sources they have used that may have also have influenced the historian’s interpretation. In this way, students learn to compare and contrast their historical thinking with that of historians.
- Altering the overarching question — Students can revisit the History Lab’s overarching question. By changing the parameters of the question, debating contrasting definitions of key terms, or by altering the emphasis on a particular element, students engage more deeply with the ideas brought forth in the History Lab.
- Change your mind or “cement” your opinion — After presenting and discussing their interpretations, students should be given a chance to return to their original ideas or interpretations to explain what in the discussions or presentations changed their minds or reaffirmed their opinions.
“It’s definitely more difficult when you have to interpret...because you have to take into consideration multiple viewpoints and where they are coming from with their information and their past and how it effects their decisions. It’s a lot more that you have to do, and it’s a lot more fun!”
—Student