Center for History EducationHistory Labs
A Guided Approach to Historical Inquiry in the K-12 Classroom
Building Background Knowledge
Watch as teachers describe how they develop the background knowledge that students need for an effective History Lab experience.
Background knowledge helps students place the historical sources used in a History Lab into their appropriate context. Through contextualization, students unlock the claims made by authors and sources, and engage more deeply in understanding their purpose and perspective.
For students to think deeply about historical questions, they must first have a sufficient grasp of the time period and event they are investigating. They need to know the key concepts, personalities, and the chronology of their topic in order to investigate the overarching question, analyze evidence, and develop an evidence-based response.
Students can acquire background information through:
- Preliminary readings assigned for homework, or at the start of class, and then debriefed at the outset of the History Lab;
- Video clips;
- Preparing short, focused presentations;
- Brief topic lectures delivered by the teacher.
Regardless of the format, teachers must be aware of the pitfalls of providing too much or too little background information. Inadequate background knowledge makes it difficult for students to situate the question framing the History Lab and to analyze the sources.
Imagine, for example, trying to interpret a question about Southern reactions to Abraham Lincoln’s decision to issue the Emancipation Proclamation, without having adequate background knowledge of the factors that influenced this seminal decision. To make sense of the question and accompanying evidence, students should know the meaning of the term “contraband.” They should understand the impact of African-American self-emancipation, and the relationship between the United States and Britain, as well as Britain and the Confederate states. They should realize the significance of the border states and the early military progress of the Civil War. Lacking this context, it would be difficult, if not impossible, to understand the documents, as well as the larger historical question framing the investigation.
How much background information do students need? It is important that teachers not overteach the background information portion of a History Lab. The "need to know" information is prioritized over that which is simply interesting to know. Too much information about too many extraneous issues can eat up precious instructional time and cause students to lose sight of the end-goal of developing an interpretive response to the historical question.
With an appropriate amount of background knowledge, students can analyze historical sources effectively and apply the relevant information in order to develop evidence-based responses to the overarching question.
