Center for History EducationHistory Labs
A Guided Approach to Historical Inquiry in the K-12 Classroom
Developing Overarching Questions
Watch as students and teachers demonstrate how well-constructed overarching questions facilitate historical inquiry.
Good questions are central to the historical method and the History Lab model. Historians pose questions about the past. They examine the available evidence and develop answers to their questions. Such questions serve as the primary prompt for all History Labs.
Effective History Labs are based on engaging, open-ended questions that draw student interest and enable them to craft their own answers based on the available evidence. The questions should be intriguing or provocative, avoid single or simplistic answers, and be linked with relevant historical evidence. When students are captivated by an overarching question, they will delve into their exploration of the historical topic.
Questions should be intriguing and open-ended.
As with most classroom instruction, local or state curriculum standards will define the content of a History Lab and overarching question. After consulting the curriculum, teachers should consider the questions historians pose when embarking on the study of a historical topic.
Questions posed by historians include:
- Is the topic open to debate about, say, the role, agency, or effects of key events, factors, or individuals?
- Has new evidence emerged that challenges the traditional interpretation of an event or individual?
- Have historians constructed divergent or conflicting interpretations from the same evidence?
- Have the interpretations of an event or individual changed significantly over time?
Questions must not have a single or simple answer.
Questions that intentionally lead to a predetermined answer will only hinder student learning. History seeks to recover a past that is long gone and accessible only through its surviving traces. Historical work is about the critical analysis, selection, and organization of complex (yet inadequate) information in order to develop interpretations of what happened in the past. The interpretations are derived from evidence, which will always be partial, possibly contradictory, and open to different readings. The nature of the evidence results in the likelihood of multiple and divergent interpretations. History Labs enable students to develop evidence-based interpretations and then defend and, if necessary, revise, their understandings in light of further debate and review.
Questions must be linked to significant historical evidence.
In a History Lab, an effective overarching question is accompanied by relevant historical evidence. Evidence may be textual or in the form of visual, audio, or physical artifacts. Evidence should be both complementary and contradictory. By analyzing the evidence, students draw out the relevant information and consider how authorship, intention, and context affect its meaning. Significant evidence also sheds light on the historical question, helping students to develop their responses.
Teachers will know they have crafted an effective question when their classroom is full of lively discussion and informed debate.
