Historical Thinking 10/08/2007 16:41:00

This class will also count as EUH credit

Sam Wineburg, “Historical Thinking and Other Unnatural Acts,” Phi Delta
Kappan 80, 7 (Mar. 1999)
• educational psychology department
o seemed more interested in how historians think
o had three case studies, a student, history professor, and a
high school principal
• what is the central issue for analysis
o why study history at all?
• Reasons for studying history
o Learn from cultures that are foreign to us
o The familiar past
 we relate from our previous assumptions
 our place in a stream of time
o unfamiliar past
 not generally for public consumption
 the past that seems inaccessible
 we should embrace history that is boring to us because
it is the only way to learn something new

Talking about the three case studies

Thinking Historically
• appreciated the familiar and unfamiliar past
• talking about context, and to get in the mind-set of what we are
reading
• Change over time, whether the long run, or decade to decade. We
are also attuned to the issue of continuity (what hasn’t changed)
• obsessive about asking questions (in a good way)
 • interpretation and analysis
• the impact of the past on the present

James Grant to the Lords Commissioners for Trade and Plantations, 1764
• Interrogating Primary Sources
o who’s the author?
o what is the audience?
o When was it written?
 Written after the 7 years wars
o The tone of the article
 If pragmatic, or cut and dry, straight-forward
o The purpose
 The movement of people
 economic return of the colony
 its a report of somebody asked his opinion that was
commissioned
o the kind of document
 official report
• James Grant
o We get a sense that he is an administrator of sorts
o has some experience
o first governor of east Florida
o governed from 1764 – 1771
• Special interest in paragraph five
o They want to pay French Protestants to move to east Florida
o French protestants do not like the current French ruling,
because of the lack of religious freedom
o they wanted people that would want to work, not people that
are needy and would live off the government
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