Defining Big Ideas that will Underpin Inquiry1- What is history?

Planning notes for myself, not directions for students.

 - There is a difference between 'past events' and 'accounts of past events'. Explore this.

-If we assert that history is simply the study of past events, we miss much of the complexity, nuance associated with studying the past. What is some of this complexity? Nuance?

-We all have a past. So do objects.

-The past is not dead. But it does not exist in the same way it once existed, when the past was the present. The past never comes to use in “pure” form.

-What is an historical fact? Explore filtering process.

 -Facts do not speak for themselves. What do I mean by this?

-Facts need to be pulled from sources. They are not self evident. Need to explore the process of looking at a source. Need to explore what a source is. Need to discuss the process  of gleaning evidence from a source. 

 -Historians attempt to recreate the past in their minds, using the evidence they find.

-Some interpretations, accounts, of the past are more valid than others. Why do I say this? Need to explore this.

 -Historians select which facts to use. An account of the past does not include all facts. And no two accounts will connect facts in same ways to support same thesis. (By the way, Ss carefully present a narrative of their life on Facebook. In many ways this process of selection resembles what historians do.)