Why is it important for historians to corroborate information found in a source?

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Mr. Christopher Tsichlis

Room: Conference Room (next to Main Office)

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4. Reading Like An Historian

Thinking Like an Historian

Citizens are not born capable of ruling. They must be educated to rule wisely and fairly. They must be drawn out of the egotism of childhood and the privacy of their homes into the public world of democratic reasoning, deliberation and consensus. This requires not only civility, but knowledge and skill.

-Thomas Jefferson

Why should anyone care about Alexander the Great? Or learn about the fall of the Roman Empire? What does the Aztec Empire have to do with my life? Students today are often fed a steady diet of textbook history--here are the facts, memorize and move on--but this has not always been the case. Since ancient times history has been used as a tool to teach students how to think better, how to read more closely, and how to analyze the complex world around them. I often hear from students that we learn history so as not to repeat the mistakes of the past, but the present is never exactly the same as the past. At best, it gives us indications of what is possible, at worst, it blinds us to what is really going on. In truth, the importance of history is not so that we do not repeat the past, but that we learn the skills needed to maneuver through a complex world filled with political conflicts, competing world views, and controversial ideas. At its heart, the history classroom is not just a window into places long gone or far away, but a laboratory to test ideas, to analyze past experiences, and learn how to engage in the present. 

For us who live in democratic societies, history is a tool for creating capable citizens who can negotiate a complicated world. The thinking skills historians have been using for centuries are even more valuable today then when Julius Caesar ruled the Roman Empire or Qin Shi Huang united China. For this reason, history students at Westchester Charter school will not just spend their time memorizing facts, but also learning critical thinking skills with the help of the Stanford Reading Like A Historian website. 

Overview: Historical Thinking Chart

Step 1: Sourcing

Sourcing is the process of evaluating the author or source of a document and establishing its reliability. Who wrote document A? Why? What biases might be present? What may limit its trustworthiness? 

Sourcing

Step 2: Contextualization

Contextualization is the process of putting a document in its historical context. This is by far the most difficult thing for students to do. It requires students to make connections, have well developed background knowledge from outside the text, and use critical thinking to put everything together. Students must ask questions like, "how is the document informed by its circumstances?" and "what cultural, social, or economic issues from the time period may influence what the document says or how it was understood in the past".

Contextualization

Contextualization

Step 3: Corroboration

Corroboration is the act of comparing pieces of evidence and seeing where they agree and disagree. When you have multiple pieces of evidence that say the same thing, your argument is stronger. When you only have one perspective on an event, you risk that it might be incomplete or maybe even wrong. Because the goal of corroboration is to build a strong argument, it also involves sourcing. You want to source for two reasons: (1) you want each piece of evidence to be reliable; and (2) you want to see if people with different perspectives agree about what happened. It’s always more convincing when two people who usually disagree happen to agree. Ultimately, corroborating is fundamental to understanding and evaluating the competing narratives of history.  

Step 4: Close Reading

Once a student has sourced, contextualized, and corroborated the materials, the final step is assessing claims, evidence, language, and the finer points of a document. While students often want to go straight to a document's claims, the claims are valuable only if the source is properly vetted--sourced, contextualized, and corroborated. 

Step 5: Answering the Question

Whether the question is, why did Rome fall or why did the US go into Iraq, students will be responsible for creating their own answer to the question using all available evidence. Unlike a multiple choice examination, where student must select the correct answer, in the process of analyzing the messiness of historical narratives, students will come to their own conclusions about a topic. Often, there is not one correct answer, but only reasonable and evidence based answers.

Not A Multiple Choice World

Addendum: Opening Up the Textbook

Textbooks tend to present history as static and uncontested. The many voices and narratives which complicated any time or place are simplified or omitted to help the student "comprehend" the time period. Without a doubt, textbooks are a great blueprint and source of history. Nonetheless, the ability to contest, expand, complicate, and vivify the textbook narrative is an important part of being able to recognizing the limitations and advantages of a source, whether it be a newspaper, a textbook, or an article from the Internet. 

Ways to Use a Textbook