What is History?

1
What is History?

• History is the record of the life of people
  through the ages, written after careful study,
  which attempts to interpret the significance to
  human beings of the events recorded.

2
Elements of History

• Time dimension
• Collection of information or data about human
  experiences through the ages
• Method of studying or interpreting the
  significance of this data

3
History Sources

• Primary Sources- first hand information
• Physical remains (buildings, bridges, artifacts)
  Artifacts are man made items such as tools,
  coins, weapons, sculptures, monuments, battle
  sites
• Geographical Records
• (maps, charts, travel guides, place names)

4

• -Visual records
• (drawings, paintings, photos, motion pictures)
• -Oral records
• (Informal- legends, sagas)
• (Formal- tapes, interviews)

5

• -Written Testimony
• (inscriptions, graves, buildings, handwritten
  letters, diaries, printed books, papers, trial
  records)

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Secondary Sources

• Anything that is not first hand
• Textbooks
• Research
• Hearsay
• -Based on point of view of the recorder
• -Not necessarily less reliable than primary
• -Written long after events take place after using
  all available sources

7
History- process of change

• Must go beyond recital of facts
• Try to show the significance of facts
• (judge, interpret, select)
• Historians try to discover trends

8

• History is ongoing- conclusions change
• -new data
• -new experiences
• -different frame of reference
• -overlooked data found
• -passage of time

9
Historical Inquiry Process

• GATHER
• (G) Get an overview
• (A) Ask a probing question.
• (T) Triangulate the data.
• (H) Hypothesize a tentative answer.
• (E) Explore and interpret the data.
• (R) Record and support your conclusions.

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(G) Get an overview

• Historical understanding requires a basic
  knowledge of the content and the historical
  context. The student of history cannot ask good
  questions without some understanding of the
  facts, people, events, and ideas within which the
  answer must be found. Furthermore, students need
  contextual knowledge and perspective of time and
  place in order to construct sound historical
  arguments.

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(A) Ask a probing question.

• Historical inquiry requires that students ask
  one or more good questions. Good questions are
  those that launch an investigation into the data,
  and require students to analyze the data in order
  to find an answer. Good questions are therefore
  probing questions. For example, students'
  questions might indicate what they want to learn
  more about, verbalize a problem they are having
  trouble understanding, identify an issue to
  resolve, or explore cause and effect over time.

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(T) Triangulate the data

• Historical research requires that students
  obtain data from multiple sources. At least three
  types of information can be use primary sources,
  secondary sources, and expert opinion (personal
  consultation). We can envision these sources of
  information as the three points of a triangle and
  see the process as "triangulation" . Embedded in
  the idea of triangulation is that of searching
  out information from multiple sources and using
  information from different types of sources. (See
  above illustration)

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(T) Triangulate the data
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(H) Hypothesize a tentative answer

• A good working hypothesis is an educated guess
  that provides the basis for further
  investigation. When students hypothesize answers
  to their questions, they are making explicit a
  possible explanation for the facts as they
  understand them at the moment. A working
  hypothesis might be an unproved theory, a
  proposition, a supposition, a tentative
  explanation for a set of "facts", or a logical
  sequence for a disputed set of events.

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(E) Explore and interpret the data

• Once a working hypothesis has been generated,
  the student must continue research to verify
  whether the original hypothesis holds up under
  further scrutiny. The students must analyze and
  synthesize the new information gathered and
  relate that information back to the hypothesis
  (interpretation). If the data support the
  hypothesis, the student can move on to write up
  and sharing of his/her conclusions (next step).
  If the data do not support the hypothesis, the
  student must revise the hypothesis, constructing
  another tentative answer (previous step) which in
  turn must be subjected to further scrutiny (this
  step).

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(R) Record and support your conclusions

• "Real historical inquiry requires that students
  have an opportunity to create historical
  narratives and arguments of their own" (National
  Center for History in the Schools, 1999). These
  narratives and arguments can take many forms
  (e.g. reports, essays, debates, editorials,
  hypermedia presentations) but the underlying
  purpose is share the conclusions students have
  drawn from the data they examined and provide
  evidence that these conclusions have validity.

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Fact vs. Opinion

• Facts can be proven
• Opinions are what individuals believe

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Cause and Effect

• Cause- a reason for an action or condition
• Something that brings about an effect
• Effect- the result of an action