A Rigorous Dialectic: Writing and Thinking in History

by Jack Schneider & Sivan Zakai — 2016

Learning how to write like a historian is a complex venture. Historians have a number of skills, some of which are common to professional writers, and some of which may be unique to the discipline; no clear boundary exists. And this project was not designed to separate out general writing skills from those entirely distinct to history.

Yet it is clear from this study that, among the many skills of historical writers, four particular authorial dispositions—signature competencies, it would seem—stand out as critical to success. These dispositions are not developed in the writing, but rather in the writers. And insofar as that is the case, it seems that they offer a useful framework for thinking about the development of historical writing skills among novices.

So, what might we say about these dispositions? How might we foster conversations among K–12 and college educators about the teaching of historical writing?

1. HISTORICAL WRITERS ARE ADEPT AT FINDING PATTERNS

The ability to find and organize disparate information from a variety of sources is an essential characteristic of good historical writers. But a sense of when more puzzle pieces need to be found, or when the puzzle can be put together, is not easily acquired—something many historians have discussed when reflecting on their craft (e.g., Carr, 1961). Our historians-in-training worked diligently, and often grew quite frustrated, in pursuit of patterns that all too often seemed elusive. Knowing that such work was essential, but not yet having developed total mastery, these novice-experts were dedicated to a process that often left them feeling uncertain. Yet over time, they expressed greater confidence in their abilities to piece together stories from fragments.

K–12 students can only learn to find and organize puzzle pieces when they understand that history is puzzling. Too often, however, students believe that history is about memorizing lists of names, dates, and major events (Wineburg, 2001). But when teachers frame history as a subject involving solving puzzles, students can develop both their skills and interest in history (VanStedright, 2000). Thus, as scholars of teaching history have explained, framing work in the discipline as about solving puzzles is a necessary first step to helping students develop as historical writers and thinkers (Wineburg & Schneider, 2009).

Once students understand that the process is a puzzling one, they next have to see the limits of the puzzle metaphor. Historical writers, after all, understand that their work involves constantly sorting out whether they are in possession of the right pieces. So while basic understanding of the discipline is about seeing puzzles, developing expertise involves the acts of searching and weighing. Thus, presenting students with packets of primary source documents—a seemingly unquestioned “best practice”—may be insufficient for developing disciplinary expertise unless it is accompanied by exercises in which students ask whether their sources are sufficient and, if not, what else they need to find. More than just sources, historians possess a sense of when something is missing, where they might search, and when to stop looking for it.

2. HISTORICAL WRITERS ARE ADEPT AT TELLING ENGAGING AND PLAUSIBLE STORIES

Historical writers seek meaning and push past description to tell stories of significance. But they never push past the evidence base. As Amy put it, “I think that the overlap between storytelling and history is something that a lot of historians are interested in but could make history education more compelling for younger students.” Historical writers tell engaging, well-supported, stories (eg. Hexter, 1971). Yet the process of learning to walk the line between what is interesting and what is likely to be true is challenging. For the novice-experts in this study, it often evoked feelings of anxiety and doubt. Yet even these feelings were employed in the service of history, for as they doubted themselves, our participants redoubled their efforts to revise their work. They understood that history is as much about rewriting as it is about writing.

To learn to tell stories that are compelling and true, K–12 students and college undergraduates would need to do two things. First, they would need to learn about what makes storytelling in general engaging—supported, perhaps through cross-curricular writing instruction. Second, they would need to develop a felt sense for when their stories have been adequately rooted in historical evidence. After all, historians work with shards of evidence, giving them greater freedom to arrange their narratives in ways that are provocative or engrossing. Yet despite this freedom, historians are restrained by the concept of evidence, always conscious of when documents are being read too narrowly, or when sources are being stretched too thin.

3. HISTORICAL WRITERS ARE ADEPT AT MODIFYING THEIR POSITIONS

Historical writers stake out claims and seek to find further evidence to substantiate them. They constantly ask questions of both the texts they examine and the arguments they are constructing. And when they find contradictory evidence, they adjust their claims. Sometimes that means throwing out an entire argument. Usually, however, it means making adjustments and maintaining a position of doubt toward one’s own argument. Historians can sometimes make this sound easy (Collingwood, 1946). But our participants often erred on one side or the other—expressing high levels of confidence or extreme doubt. As they developed expertise, however, they moved toward the middle—feeling increasingly sure of the stories they were telling, while also becoming more willing to imagine scenarios in which they might need to start over. Their journey involved both standing firm and being ready to change because they developed a robust evidence base, yet had learned to recognize the potential insufficiencies of their evidence.

History educators can help their students develop as historical writers by working to nurture these habits of mind in the classroom. By emphasizing the importance of evidence and teaching them how to find and deploy it, educators can teach students to stand firm. But they must also promote among their students a readiness to change positions. This can be done by cultivating a culture of humility and incomplete understanding in the classroom—helping students to see the limits of their assertions. It also, however, requires building a community of engaged learners who “check” each other’s reasoning and who collectively nudge each other toward the ledge where expert historical writers stand—on the edge of knowledge and disbelief.

4. HISTORICAL WRITERS ARE ADEPT AT TRANSLATION

Historical writers recognize difference and respect it—seeing other worlds as inherently unlike ours and deeply valuable in their own right. At the same time, however, they try to communicate that difference and find ways to make it comprehensible to others. In sum, they work to represent what is different in an intelligible way while preserving its very difference. Experts have practiced this so frequently that they can sense when they are deforming the past, or when they are failing to communicate. But our participants often expressed frustration with what occasionally felt like what one called “an impossible task.” Yet as they continued to work on their projects, they developed a new sense of mastery—not only over the subject, but increasingly over the process of historical writing. They felt more confident about translating the strangeness of the past for an audience of the present.

If historical writers are adept at translation, it would seem to suggest that students need to practice seeing where the past is “foreign” (Lowenthal, 1999). Teachers, for instance, might move away from exercises where students are asked how they would have felt had they lived in a particular historical setting. And, instead, teachers might move toward exercises in which they ask students how specific individuals from the past may have felt. Teachers might additionally ask students to consider the evidence base for such speculation, and also ask students to consider what is familiar and what is surprising. Students are inclined to see people from the past as very much like themselves, and that can be productive, but only if that perspective exists in tension with the view that people differ radically across time and space, and that it takes work to understand them.

CONCLUSION

Historians make distinct moves when plying their trade—something scholars in education have documented in the past two decades in research on historical reading and writing. But while much has been written about how to read like a historian (Hynd-Shanahan, Holschuh, & Hubbard, 2004; Shanahan & Shanahan, 2008; Wineburg, Martin, & Monte-Sano, 2011), less work has been done on how to write like a historian. In that smaller body of scholarship, little work has been done in terms of identifying the key challenges faced by those writing evidence-based interpretations (cf. Monte-Sano, 2010).

Historical writing is a complex enterprise involving the deployment of a range of tools. But the development of expertise seems to require the navigation of several critical tensions. Historical writing challenges students to seek appropriate evidence and to craft plausible stories even in the face of incomplete information. It demands flexibility of mind and requires students to modify their positions in light of new evidence or ideas. And it allows students to translate knowledge to different audiences, as well as to carefully frame the importance of their work. These are hallmarks of historical writing—signature competencies developed in the acquisition of expertise.

As this work reveals, historians-in-training are not born with these skills and dispositions. Nor do they master them quickly. In this study, our novice-experts needed to keep working to navigate these tensions. They were learning through the work itself—developing mastery in historical writing inductively, through daily experience.

Yet not all students go on to Ph.D. programs or engage in sustained historical writing projects. Might it be possible, then, to help K–12 students and college undergraduates develop these skills in some developmentally appropriate yet authentic way?

Before answering that, it is worth re-exploring the question of why such an aim might prove valuable.

As our research reveals, the novice-experts mastering the skills of writing like historians were not merely learning a professional practice. They were developing dispositions and modes of thought. They were cultivating a unique approach to cognition characteristic of experts in the field. And they were learning to think in new ways—making tough judgments, doing so with open minds, with a concern for the truth, and with a willingness to revise their opinions. This form of critical thinking is, we argue, important not just in the abstract, but also for the very concrete act of citizenship.

As for how K–12 students can develop these skills, much work remains to be done, and this study does not offer clear instruction about what educators should do in the classroom. We can say, however, that awareness of these critical dispositions is an important first step. Knowing what we want our students to be able to do—knowing the skills we want them to acquire and the dispositions we want them to develop—we can begin to talk knowledgeably about what activities might produce those outcomes.

One final point is worth making, and that is about the joy of history. The joy that historians experience is the joy of discovery—of assembling puzzle pieces, finally figuring out a messy problem, and communicating something new. Yet that joy, which so powerfully draws historians into the profession, is all too often absent from K–12 classes and undergraduate seminars where students dutifully, if reluctantly, read through accounts of “what happened.”

Historians start new projects not because they have been assigned, but because they promise to surprise, and perhaps even to enlighten. That, too, is something that our novice-experts learned. And all students should be so lucky.

Writing to Learn

Check out this link: Writing to learn history: annotations and mini-writes

Michigan's Department of Education has compiled this guide for writing to learn in social studies.

How writing leads to thinking