Interpretation in Year 9 (2)

Sometimes history is seen as something fixed and static. What is past, is past. This year, I took the first unit in Year 9 seriously. Theoretically, we should readdress the issue of what is history and how we make it. I decided to spend three lessons dealing with historiography. Actually, this was the last step. First, I introduced students to multiperspectives in intepretations with another activity. In this lesson, I wanted to show them why historians can say different things of the same event.


As a starter, I asked them to sort the odd-one-out from the following rulers: Napoleon Bonaparte, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, Louis XIV and Adolf Hitler. I asked each student who he/she thought should be ruled out and note it down. Then I asked each one for their reasons and also wrote them on the board. One Year group came up with seven categories, the other one with eleven. 

This means that they found at least eight different ways of ruling someone out. In general, it was the same person (CFK) but for distinctive reasons: she is a woman, she is alive, she lives in South America, etc.  


After that, we plunged into different historiographic lines of thought (with the basic example of the French Revolution). By the end of the lesson, many students could make the connection between the starter and the rest of the lesson. They stated that the reason for doing the first activity was to realize that depending on what we pay attention to, we will write history in different ways. It was magical. Spontanenous. Incredible. 

Interpretation in Year 9

To introduce the course, I always try to surprise my students. Also, I devote one or two lessons to history itself, so that students remember that we do more than listing facts (actually, this is the least that we do). To introduce Year 9 to interpretation, I came up with an activity that worked really well. 

The main topic this year is Argentina in the 19th century, but this is by no means dislocated from European history thus we start with a revision of the French Revolution and we plunge into Napoleon's rule. But, since I first want to deal with historical practice per se, I planned to mention some historiographic lines of thought (liberals, materialists, romantics, positivists). So, to connect Napoleon to historiography (i.e. different interpretations of history), I thought of the following activity, which I do not remember if I invented it myself or got it from someone else. Here it goes:

I called one of the students to my laptop and showed him/her this picture (due to copyright reasons, I will not publish it here). It shows Napoleon Bonaparte fleeing a battle. So the student would describe it and the rest would draw. It is really funny to see them try to describe what they see and the others trying to get what he/she says. In the end, I showed them the picture and, after they made some comments, I ask them if what they have drawn is the same or not. They usually answered "yes but no" which is great because you can dig with more questions: How come they are the same? Look at them! or Are not your drawings based on the same description? How come they are all different? and you can get to the concept of different ways to see/understand/interpret history. 

Lovely.