The Pitfalls of Chronology
History is a series of events and causal relationships, stories and tragedies and successes, that when strung together weave narratives of peoples and places. To teach this has proven quite tricky throughout American education. Any history teacher watching Jay Leno and his random trivia questions cringes in horror at the utter lack of historical understanding in the greater American populace. However, one must ask, “If we teach history every year in school, why do the students retain so little of the information?”
This is the perfect time to invoke Einstein’s famous quote, “Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” After a number of years of teaching history chronologically, I made the curricular decision to shift to a thematic approach. I am privileged to work in schools that allow me the flexibility to make these types of classroom decisions.
My rationale for this change was grounded in a number of gut-check teacher experiences but also in the writings of Sam Wineburg, Eric Foner, David Perkins, andJames Loewen. America has never excelled at knowing its own past. As I watched the school days pass, I observed that students participated and engaged, but still did not meaningfully retain the information. Something had to give. I ditched chronological teaching.
The way that I choose to envision the problem for the average student of history involves papers, books, and bookshelves. We teach students history by giving them pieces of paper (facts) with no real understanding of how to connect or make meaning. These papers stack up, but the learner can never find anything because the information is without structure or organization. Our students need bookshelves before we can really expect them to put any of the information away. Once the bookshelves exist, they can then begin to shelve their information in a way that allows for understanding and recall. In my classroom, each of the themes then becomes a shelf and as students understand the greater historical narrative they look for patterns and trends and flow over time. This long look at history invites the student into the story. Also, it provides shelves on which they can then store historical knowledge as they move into adult life.
The themes that I teach in American History are: American Identity, Political Participation, War, Business, Balance of Power, The American Dream, Environment, and Pivot Points. This is certainly not a comprehensive list or the “right” list, but it is the one that I settled on after much collaboration, discussion, and debate with a number of teachers. We work through two themes per quarter and have a project attached to the learning goals of each theme.
One unit that gets better each time I teach it is the War unit. Many K-12 history students feel like history class is one long study of America at War, rather than of the rich narrative that accompanies the nation’s endeavors. My War unit asks students to define war. One would think that with the amount of conversation about war we foster in America that this would be an easy process. Let me assure you it is not.
I start by asking students to write their own definition, then work with a partner to get one definition between the two.
After that, the partners join another partnership. We stop for a bit at this point and the students take their group definition and apply it to the American historical record. Each student is responsible for a section of years and applies their group’s war definition to determine if America was at war that year. They then name the war and the place it occurred and report the death tolls. This is a bit time consuming, but I find that this process makes students reconsider the definition as well as thoroughly examine the historical record. We then return to the definition activity and repeat the consensus process until we get to a whole-class discussion.
The goal of the whole-class discussion is for the students to come to consensus on the definition of war. It takes all 65 minutes of class. I do not actively participate at all; I observe. This is about them and their ideas. The students sit in a circle and decide a process and go. Watching it unfold this year was like educational bliss: students asking really tough questions, listening hard to the answers, pushing back when they did not agree—but doing so respectfully, other students making sure each person’s voice was honored in the process. In the end they have a definition, but they also have a sense of the concept that I could not possibly instill in them in any other way. They did this. The creation of the definition was also the creation of their learning.
We then layer this theme over the previous themes and discuss connections and patterns and flow and trends that exist when we look at multiple themes at once. Then we move forward with another theme. By the end of the year they have seven shelves onto which to load their learning. The final unit has students choose a pivotal point in history and change the outcome. This final unit draws upon all the previous themes to craft a story that retells history.
Thematic teaching may not be the answer to improve the responses for the Jaywalk All-Stars, but in my 14 years of teaching, I have never felt more confident that my students are learning history in a way that allows them to learn beyond my classroom, beyond the textbooks, and beyond the boredom that many of them attribute to history class. Our struggles as a nation require a populace that is engaged and informed. Our history classes need to be a place that establishes the framework that assists them in becoming the citizens we need them to be. I believe that thematic teaching moves us closer to that goal.
Jenny said:
A lot of my conversations this week at the writing project have focused around the idea of believing in our students and what they can do. (Not sure why exactly.) Reading your account of students creating their own definitions and applying them to American history made my heart sing. Your faith in your students and in their brilliance and thoughtfulness allowed them to gain a much deeper understanding than they could have done if you had simply walked them through the information. I know I’m not saying anything new here, but reading this at the end of a week full of conversations about the deficit model of teaching was so hopeful and positive.
Pingback: Top 25 High School Teacher Blogs of 2012
Edna Levy said:
This idea makes so much sense to me intuitively. Do you think it is possible or advisable for a new History teacher to just jump in with the thematic approach? Or did you rely on your early experiences teaching chronologically?
dlaufenberg said:
I think it is possible and advisable – there are quite a few resources and teachers pursuing this approach with resources to share. I think it is completely appropriate to shift to this kind of thinking early on in a career…
mbowman said:
I absolutely loved reading this. I think greater emphasis on fostering comprehension of greater themes and how they relate to the big picture is essential to developing a true understanding of history. I think it is great that you allow students to take control of their own learning by asking them to construct their own definition of historical terms. You have given me a lot to consider!
ViLevin said:
I couldn’t agree with you more Monica. I loved reading this article. This is exactly the kind of history teacher I want to be, one that teaches the themes, the bigger picture, and those connections. As dlaufenberg stated, “Our struggles as a nation require a populace that is engaged and informed. Our history classes need to be a place that establishes the framework that assist them in becoming the citizens we need them to be.” This statement is true for every teacher of every subject, but I believe as history teachers we have the potential to make the biggest impact in creating this framework for our students. I want my future classroom to be one that is focused on fostering students that will be civically responsible citizens of the world! Teaching history thematically is a great way to accomplish this and I most certainly will consider using this method!
Constance winkelmann said:
I think this is a brilliant approach to teaching history. I think it really develops student’s critical thinking, and it makes them create their own ideas while also learning history. What do you recommended for new teachers? Dose it work each time you teach the class?
dlaufenberg said:
I recommend this for anyone that has either the flexibility to allow for it, or the support for it. I do not recommend this approach if there is departmental or school based mandate to teach in another way. Basically, if you wanted to teach this way, and you were a new teacher, I would suggest looking for a school that was open to this approach.
I taught this way for the last two years of my middle school teaching and four years of high school… and it works every time. Turns out, chronology is one of the least understandable ways to work with students and history.
Moving in this direction takes some rethinking and retooling in terms of how class time and teacher time are structured.
Melanie Fick said:
As a first year teacher, I have not had experience teaching history just yet. However, I have always said that “I know how to make history fun for students”. Of course, I have yet to actually prove that in a classroom seeing as how I have not been given the opportunity. Even if I do teach history in the near future, I think I overestimate how much interest my students will have in it. Just because I am passionate in it does not necessarily mean my students will share that passion. However, I think it is our job as educators to do our best in sharing our passion. I would love to work in a school that would allow for this teaching approach, but I also have concerns. For instance, how do you get all of the students to actively participate?
Pingback: Defining 21st Learning | Runyan
Melissa said:
Hi there! I really hope that you are still active on this site, because what I’ve read from you has been inspiring. I am about to start my student teaching semester in an 8th grade American history classroom. I’ve noticed that students in the class seem to be engaged, but that’s largely because they like the teacher and not necessarily the content. I am hoping to do exactly what you write about: teach the themes and big ideas in American history, since that makes students able to relate seemingly disparate events from totally different eras with one another.
I know that you’re teaching this in a high school classroom, and teaching 8th grade is significantly different from 11th of 12th, especially when it comes to facilitating discussion. I’m curious about what you would recommend in facilitating a thematic discussion in which a largely didactic classroom environment has been established. I feel that teaching thematically relies heavily on student input and engagement, and I would love to know what tools you’ve brought in to make your students able to follow courteous discussion protocols.
Thanks!
~Melissa
dlaufenberg said:
So sorry that I never responded to this… shoot me an email and I’ll email you some resources dlaufenberg at gmail dot com
Marika said:
As a pre-service teacher I have really enjoyed reading your blog. I am so interested in the idea of teaching thematically rather than chronologically. One thing that has been discussed in my classes is that teachers often run out of time by the end of the year to address more recent events in history. Do you find that by using a thematic approach you are able to include more than with a chronological approach?
dlaufenberg said:
I believe that a thematic approach moves away from the march of chronology which invites a more fluid inclusion of current events in the study of history. Those that run out of time are trying to teach a timeline… I approach it as trying to teach historical thinking, reasoning which frees up the sense of teaching the timeline as the expected outcome.
Ryan said:
Thank you for such a thought provoking take on teaching history! Like many others who have responded, I am also a teacher-in-training, yet in a government classroom. In government it makes a great deal of sense to teach from a thematic position as one can progress through types of governments, American founding, the different branches, citizenship, etc… Transposing this onto a history class makes a lot of sense. You are able to make connections across time that are not normally made when looking chronologically. On top of that, retaining information must become much easier when there is a common theme within which you can align relevant information. I wonder though how you work in both causal and consequential thinking. If you take, for example, the Civil War and place it into the ‘war’ box, do you take with it the power struggle of federalism that was one of the major cause for the war? And what about slavery, another pivotal cause of the war, it seems as though the best way to study why the war is so important is to put it within context of what comes before it and what directly follows. Causal and consequential thinking patterns seem imperative for both chronological and thematic teaching, it just seems to be set up much easier when looking at events as they occur in time. Thank you again for a wonderful piece, I look forward to putting it into practice very soon!