Influences in history refer to ideas that shape the course of history, regardless of which time period or history you are studying. They are constants that historians use to understand the past.
Change Over Time
Change over time refers to how there is constant, if gradual, change in society over time. When we are living in it, change is often difficult to perceive. Even so, adults in 2009 can well recall how as teenagers, most if not all telephones were dial. There were no cell phones and no internet for Generation X growing up. The rapid technological change of the twenty-first century is an excellent example of how society changes over time. But, for the adolescent historian, it is better to change this aspect of history into an interpretive question. Why was there great change in communication technology in twenty-first America? How did technological change in America affect society? Did the technological change in communication make life simpler or more complicated?
The Individual in History
In A Preface to History, Carl Gustavson writes that there are two extremes in judging the role of the individual in history. The first extreme is known as “The Great Man Theory,” the second extreme is held by the “determinists.”
The Great Man Theory is the seemingly natural inclination for students of history to believe that it is only through the genius of individuals that change occurs in society. Who caused World War II? Hitler did. This response is typical of what you might here from a very young history student. This simplistic view throws out all other forces and reduces all of mankind to the masses of ignorant and following hordes. In this light, the individual small-fry in society loses his free-will, his choice, and is reduced to a mere subject. It seems the younger or more inexperienced the history student, the more likely he will assume the “Great Man Theory” is the reason for all twists and turns of the past.
The "determinists" hold the opposite view. They view that the world turns on a preordained set of principles and societal evolution, and that the individual leader is created by the movement. The Marxist view of history, where society evolves from a capitalistic to a communist society, holds that it is not the Great Man, but the evolution of social and economic development that determines history. Both extremes tend to be false, but present students strategies with which to analyze history.
For the young mind, the Great Man Theory is the one that is easiest to hold onto. “Hitler caused World War II,” or, “Einstein created the nuclear bomb,” or “Lincoln freed the slaves,” or even “Martin Luther King freed the slaves” are typically heard among students in k-12 education. The appropriate question, then, is to challenge this assertion of the Great Man Theory and to ask students if this person, or that person, was solely responsible for a certain event.
Causation
One challenge young people face when studying history is of placing oneself in history, at the time of the event, and imagining the variety of outcomes. It is too easy for us to imagine that what happened
in history had to happen. And, the further back we go, the easier it is to do this. Washington as victorious Commander-in-Chief? Of course! Lincoln leading the North into a struggle to save the Union? Who else
could there have been? When we get closer to our time, it becomes much more challenging to do this.
In cause and effect essays, students attempt to see historical events in their true light, in context. Events are not encapsulated moments, separated from what came before and after. They are instead a part of the whole story. Understanding a particular era means to realize what came before, what came after, and to decide the most influential of these. This is not always easy to do, and, provides for excellent opportunities for debate.
It is easier to imagine a debate about the causes of events when we focus on current events. For instance, the cause of the Iraq war that removed Saddam Hussein from power in the early 2000s is a topic that could cause fierce debate. Who caused it: the failure of intelligence from Russia, the United States of America, the European Union countries, or Hussein’s inability to cooperate and come clean? This topic, because it is
so close to many historian’s lives, would be easy to generate debate and discussion, although it might be nearly impossible to have a dispassionate discourse on it.
Events that occurred long ago, however, are more difficult to see the various causes. Perhaps because of this difficulty, cause and effect essay questions are excellent to train the mind of the young person. Instead of being told what the causes to an event are, the young person is given the freedom to think on their own and make their own decisions.Cause and effect essay assignments are therefore excellent for the young person to grapple with.
The Role of Ideas
This scenario or one similar is practiced on nearly every high school campus across America: It is a school election where all students get to choose class representatives. Each first-period class will send their
representative to a meeting of the Associated Student Body, where they will decide the theme of the Senior Prom. Imagine the student response if they were told that instead the most unpopular teacher would get to
decide the theme and the music to be played. If there wouldn’t be a violent protest, then perhaps it would be the least attended Senior Prom in school history!
The role of ideas may sound like the most challenging of the aspects of historical reasoning in this book, but surprisingly for young minds it is perhaps the easiest to grasp. Because ideas appear to transcend time, it is simple to get youth to relate to with this aspect. Teaching representative democracy versus tyranny is perhaps the easiest, because almost every school practices representative government when deciding school functions like dances.
While the term “role of ideas” may sound dull, it actually may bring about the most excitable response from students. Which ideas are better for society: socialism, capitalism, communism? A young person’s
mind seems naturally inclined to analyze and discuss these ideas.
The Interpretive Question
A common complaint among adolescent history students who do poorly is, “History is boring.” This remark, uttered over the ages, is not based on the actual content itself, but on the teaching method implemented in the classroom or the type of history books students have tried to read. When history is taught as a set of items to memorize, it is cold, scientific, without life, and for the adolescent, it is boring. Professor Michael Allen states, “History is not boring, but often history teachers are boring!” Memorization is necessary to learn and understand history, however, the idealistic adolescent mind yearns for more, and the study of history calls for more.
History is a subject of disagreement, argumentation, and debate. Adolescents love to disagree, argue, and debate. The subject and the student are perfect matches for each other. This is a match made in heaven! Kids love to argue. Just listen to some of their conversations to find out. What is the best movie of all time? Which music is the best to listen to? Who makes the best hamburger? What is the toughest sport toplay? Which game system is the best? These are topics adolescents will spend countless hours debating. “Kids think they know it all.” How many times have you heard an adult say this phrase? Therefore, if kids like to argue, and they think they know it all, then let’s give them an academic subject to slug it out over.
Any parent with a teenager knows that very often, the kid thinks he knows it all and will tell you so. My physics teacher in high school would tell us, “When you’re a teenager, your parents are some of the most
stupid beings on the planet. But, as you get older, it seems like they get more intelligent, too. The older you get, the smarter your parents get.”
History is the best subject to debate. It is not the facts that are the focus of the argument, but the meaning of history. Contrast your school’s textbook with a book by Communist historian Howard Zinn. The meaning of historical events will be greatly different, depending on the historian. Listen to news stations MSNBC and Fox News report on presidential candidates, and you will hear two different stories. Read a local liberal paper and contrast it with a local conservative paper. You will find that each interprets the day’s events with often opposing interpretations. Read a Protestant Christian’s interpretation of the Reformation and contrast it with a Roman Catholic’s view, and you will get two varying sides.
Because the meaning of history lends itself to interpretation, and because the adolescent wants to argue, the two have to be brought together. Starting at least in the sixth grade classroom, the student should be challenged to interpret the meaning of historical events and people. The more a student progresses in his abilities as a historian and a reader, the more challenging tasks he can take on, including reading more
primary sources.
A key ingredient to the historical debate is to begin with the correct type of question. The question needs to be open-ended, without the possibility of there being only one correct answer. The question needs to be about a topic that the student will have sufficient resources to find. With the availability of textbooks, the school library, and the internet, students today have become very savvy about getting information, but not always reliable information.
Most history questions that are debatable occur around aspects of historical thinking. According to Carl Gustavson in his book, A Preface to History, aspects of historical thinking include social forces, causation, change and continuity, the institutional factor, revolution, bases of loyalty, the individual in history, inventors and inventions, the role of ideas, the use and misuse of history, power, and international
organizations. For the teacher who likes history but doesn’t have much time, A Preface to History is an outstanding and simple book to read and it explains these aspects of historical reasoning in a way that is easy to grasp.
Typically, there exist seven types of questions for free-response
essays in high school, college entrance exams, and college. They are:
1. Cause and Effect
2. Change over Time
3. Compare and Contrast
4. Define and Identify
5. Statement/Reaction
6. Evaluation
7. Analyzing Viewpoints
For specific examples of these questions you can use with students in grades
6-12, please see the curriculum published by Classical Historian.
Change Over Time
Change over time refers to how there is constant, if gradual, change in society over time. When we are living in it, change is often difficult to perceive. Even so, adults in 2009 can well recall how as teenagers, most if not all telephones were dial. There were no cell phones and no internet for Generation X growing up. The rapid technological change of the twenty-first century is an excellent example of how society changes over time. But, for the adolescent historian, it is better to change this aspect of history into an interpretive question. Why was there great change in communication technology in twenty-first America? How did technological change in America affect society? Did the technological change in communication make life simpler or more complicated?
The Individual in History
In A Preface to History, Carl Gustavson writes that there are two extremes in judging the role of the individual in history. The first extreme is known as “The Great Man Theory,” the second extreme is held by the “determinists.”
The Great Man Theory is the seemingly natural inclination for students of history to believe that it is only through the genius of individuals that change occurs in society. Who caused World War II? Hitler did. This response is typical of what you might here from a very young history student. This simplistic view throws out all other forces and reduces all of mankind to the masses of ignorant and following hordes. In this light, the individual small-fry in society loses his free-will, his choice, and is reduced to a mere subject. It seems the younger or more inexperienced the history student, the more likely he will assume the “Great Man Theory” is the reason for all twists and turns of the past.
The "determinists" hold the opposite view. They view that the world turns on a preordained set of principles and societal evolution, and that the individual leader is created by the movement. The Marxist view of history, where society evolves from a capitalistic to a communist society, holds that it is not the Great Man, but the evolution of social and economic development that determines history. Both extremes tend to be false, but present students strategies with which to analyze history.
For the young mind, the Great Man Theory is the one that is easiest to hold onto. “Hitler caused World War II,” or, “Einstein created the nuclear bomb,” or “Lincoln freed the slaves,” or even “Martin Luther King freed the slaves” are typically heard among students in k-12 education. The appropriate question, then, is to challenge this assertion of the Great Man Theory and to ask students if this person, or that person, was solely responsible for a certain event.
Causation
One challenge young people face when studying history is of placing oneself in history, at the time of the event, and imagining the variety of outcomes. It is too easy for us to imagine that what happened
in history had to happen. And, the further back we go, the easier it is to do this. Washington as victorious Commander-in-Chief? Of course! Lincoln leading the North into a struggle to save the Union? Who else
could there have been? When we get closer to our time, it becomes much more challenging to do this.
In cause and effect essays, students attempt to see historical events in their true light, in context. Events are not encapsulated moments, separated from what came before and after. They are instead a part of the whole story. Understanding a particular era means to realize what came before, what came after, and to decide the most influential of these. This is not always easy to do, and, provides for excellent opportunities for debate.
It is easier to imagine a debate about the causes of events when we focus on current events. For instance, the cause of the Iraq war that removed Saddam Hussein from power in the early 2000s is a topic that could cause fierce debate. Who caused it: the failure of intelligence from Russia, the United States of America, the European Union countries, or Hussein’s inability to cooperate and come clean? This topic, because it is
so close to many historian’s lives, would be easy to generate debate and discussion, although it might be nearly impossible to have a dispassionate discourse on it.
Events that occurred long ago, however, are more difficult to see the various causes. Perhaps because of this difficulty, cause and effect essay questions are excellent to train the mind of the young person. Instead of being told what the causes to an event are, the young person is given the freedom to think on their own and make their own decisions.Cause and effect essay assignments are therefore excellent for the young person to grapple with.
The Role of Ideas
This scenario or one similar is practiced on nearly every high school campus across America: It is a school election where all students get to choose class representatives. Each first-period class will send their
representative to a meeting of the Associated Student Body, where they will decide the theme of the Senior Prom. Imagine the student response if they were told that instead the most unpopular teacher would get to
decide the theme and the music to be played. If there wouldn’t be a violent protest, then perhaps it would be the least attended Senior Prom in school history!
The role of ideas may sound like the most challenging of the aspects of historical reasoning in this book, but surprisingly for young minds it is perhaps the easiest to grasp. Because ideas appear to transcend time, it is simple to get youth to relate to with this aspect. Teaching representative democracy versus tyranny is perhaps the easiest, because almost every school practices representative government when deciding school functions like dances.
While the term “role of ideas” may sound dull, it actually may bring about the most excitable response from students. Which ideas are better for society: socialism, capitalism, communism? A young person’s
mind seems naturally inclined to analyze and discuss these ideas.
The Interpretive Question
A common complaint among adolescent history students who do poorly is, “History is boring.” This remark, uttered over the ages, is not based on the actual content itself, but on the teaching method implemented in the classroom or the type of history books students have tried to read. When history is taught as a set of items to memorize, it is cold, scientific, without life, and for the adolescent, it is boring. Professor Michael Allen states, “History is not boring, but often history teachers are boring!” Memorization is necessary to learn and understand history, however, the idealistic adolescent mind yearns for more, and the study of history calls for more.
History is a subject of disagreement, argumentation, and debate. Adolescents love to disagree, argue, and debate. The subject and the student are perfect matches for each other. This is a match made in heaven! Kids love to argue. Just listen to some of their conversations to find out. What is the best movie of all time? Which music is the best to listen to? Who makes the best hamburger? What is the toughest sport toplay? Which game system is the best? These are topics adolescents will spend countless hours debating. “Kids think they know it all.” How many times have you heard an adult say this phrase? Therefore, if kids like to argue, and they think they know it all, then let’s give them an academic subject to slug it out over.
Any parent with a teenager knows that very often, the kid thinks he knows it all and will tell you so. My physics teacher in high school would tell us, “When you’re a teenager, your parents are some of the most
stupid beings on the planet. But, as you get older, it seems like they get more intelligent, too. The older you get, the smarter your parents get.”
History is the best subject to debate. It is not the facts that are the focus of the argument, but the meaning of history. Contrast your school’s textbook with a book by Communist historian Howard Zinn. The meaning of historical events will be greatly different, depending on the historian. Listen to news stations MSNBC and Fox News report on presidential candidates, and you will hear two different stories. Read a local liberal paper and contrast it with a local conservative paper. You will find that each interprets the day’s events with often opposing interpretations. Read a Protestant Christian’s interpretation of the Reformation and contrast it with a Roman Catholic’s view, and you will get two varying sides.
Because the meaning of history lends itself to interpretation, and because the adolescent wants to argue, the two have to be brought together. Starting at least in the sixth grade classroom, the student should be challenged to interpret the meaning of historical events and people. The more a student progresses in his abilities as a historian and a reader, the more challenging tasks he can take on, including reading more
primary sources.
A key ingredient to the historical debate is to begin with the correct type of question. The question needs to be open-ended, without the possibility of there being only one correct answer. The question needs to be about a topic that the student will have sufficient resources to find. With the availability of textbooks, the school library, and the internet, students today have become very savvy about getting information, but not always reliable information.
Most history questions that are debatable occur around aspects of historical thinking. According to Carl Gustavson in his book, A Preface to History, aspects of historical thinking include social forces, causation, change and continuity, the institutional factor, revolution, bases of loyalty, the individual in history, inventors and inventions, the role of ideas, the use and misuse of history, power, and international
organizations. For the teacher who likes history but doesn’t have much time, A Preface to History is an outstanding and simple book to read and it explains these aspects of historical reasoning in a way that is easy to grasp.
Typically, there exist seven types of questions for free-response
essays in high school, college entrance exams, and college. They are:
1. Cause and Effect
2. Change over Time
3. Compare and Contrast
4. Define and Identify
5. Statement/Reaction
6. Evaluation
7. Analyzing Viewpoints
For specific examples of these questions you can use with students in grades
6-12, please see the curriculum published by Classical Historian.
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