Item – Theses Canada

​
OCLC number
1006916891
Link(s) to full text
LAC copy
LAC copy
Author
Saenger, Karen Anne.
Title
Selected problems in teaching for historical understanding.
Degree
M.A. -- Simon Fraser University, 1999
Publisher
Ottawa : National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, [2001]
Description
2 microfiches
Notes
Includes bibliographical references.
Abstract
Historians understand the uncertain nature of historical explanations; their work is validated or criticized by a community of peers and they accept that historical judgment may shift in subsequent generations. Students can develop a more complex understanding of history by studying historians' investigations of their specific subject. This thesis examines several historical works as well as scholarly analyses of the discipline of history. From this body of literature, four issues relating to teaching for historical understanding are identified: selection of facts, construction of facts, use of "grand narratives" and identification of bias. This paper examines the impact of selection and construction of facts against four factors. The first factor is historians' determination of what facts are used on the basis of what they consider significant. The second factor is the specific purpose that historians have for their studies. The third is the sense of outcome and "presentism" that historians, living in the present but writing about the past, bring to their work. The fourth factor is the development of the awareness of bias. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)
ISBN
0612514641
9780612514645