Introduction

Where does history begin? Every time we build a narrative about the past, we start at a different point, a point that makes sense to that particular narrative. In this course, we are going to start with you, the student. You, the historian. And then we’ll ask you, the historian, to look at different narratives, at different scales. While it might seem easier to stick to one single, simple story for everything, the activities, videos, and readings in this lesson challenge you to embrace multiple narratives. You will see how, even with a single historical event, there are as many stories as there are perspectives. Historians work hard to find evidence that supports claims, and you’d be surprised how useful skills like that are, even when solving problems that have nothing to do with school.

Learning Objectives

  1. Understand how historians create narratives to explain historical events and processes.
  2. Examine how historians frame history by creating narratives of different scales of time and space.

Problem: Why Do We Study World History?

Why study history at all? Studying things that happened in the past is of course important, but to learn how and why they happened, we must recognize historical narratives for what they are: stories told by people, backed by evidence. We need their stories, and we also need to question them with claim testing, sourcing, and a variety of other skills. More importantly, we need to figure out how they are “usable” for solving problems in our own lives. This narrative helps to explain why historical events such as the Black Death are important to our lives today. It also outlines how historians gather evidence and claim test sources to understand historical events.

Learning Objectives

  1. Understand how studying history informs our present and future.
  2. Learn about the historical thinking practice of causation, and how to apply these concepts in historical thinking and analysis.
  3. Understand why claim testing is an important tool when evaluating history and historical sources.

Coursework 

From Lecture: What is World History?

  • Questions to consider:
    • Why does World History seem anti-Western to some? Is this a rift that can be healed? (Think about how Western Civilization is taught.)
    • One World Historian once proclaimed that the field depended on a key principle: dare to omit. But what criteria can world historians use to decide what to omit? Are some parts of the world less important than others? Are some periods of time less vital than others? Can the three basic approaches to World History help deal with the decisions on what to omit?
    • Post your responses on Blackboard “What is World History?”

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Watch: The Danger of a Single Story 

NARRATIVES OVERVIEW

When broken down to its most basic definition, history is a narrative of events about the past. But is history one story or many? In this course, we will begin by providing you with a big, global, overgeneralized starter picture of historical events and processes. These narratives provide a brief story arc to help you contextualize, connect, and evaluate the history you encounter at smaller scales throughout the course. It is important to highlight that narratives may change depending on the perspective of the person writing the history; therefore, I want you to feel comfortable learning to question this starter narrative to discover the many narratives that make up our shared human history.

TED: DANGER OF A SINGLE STORY

From young children to world leaders, stories shape our lives. In this video, Chimamanda Adichie examines how our understanding of the world comes from the stories we hear and tell. This is why it’s so important that we consider more than just one story. A single story gives us an incomplete picture of different communities. These incomplete pictures lead to harmful stereotypes. Powerful people and groups have more control over which stories get told and how they are told. Because of this, it’s important to use stories to empower people, as stories have a huge personal, social, and political impact.

Answer the following questions and post your responses on Blackboard:

Key Ideas – Understanding Content

  1. 2:28 What kinds of characters did Adichie write about as a young girl, and what did these characters do? Why is it significant that Adichie chose to write about those characters and their lives?
  2. 4:04 Why did it matter that Fide’s brother had made a beautiful patterned basket? How did that affect Adichie’s understanding of the story of Fide’s family?
  3. 6:26 What expectations did Adichie’s roommate have about Nigeria and Africa more broadly? According to Adichie, what gave her roommate these expectations? How does it relate to Adichie’s previous point about the story of Fide’s family?
  4. 8:12 Why did Adichie’s professor think her novel lacked authenticity?
  5. 9:29 What did Adichie witness during her trip to Guadalajara that surprised her? Why was it surprising to her? What did this make her realize?
  6. 10:46 Why would starting a story with “secondly” affect different communities? What are examples that Adichie gives?
  7. 11:47 Why did Adichie tell the student that it was a shame that young Americans were serial murderers? What was different about Adichie’s understanding of America versus the student’s understanding of Nigeria?
  8. 14:24 Adichie describes negative experiences she and her family and friends have experienced in Nigeria, including poor healthcare and education, limited water, repressive governments, and poverty. She also mentions war crimes and unemployment. How, according to Adichie, do these stories fit into the stereotype of Africa as a “continent full of catastrophes.” What, according to Adichie, is the problem with stereotypes?
  9. 17:05 What are some examples Adichie gives of stories that challenge stereotypes?

Evaluating and Corroborating

  1. Adichie claims that power affects which stories are told, how they are told, and which stories become “definitive” accepted stories that people believe. Using evidence from the video and anything else you have learned in this unit, give an example of a story which has been accepted because a powerful group had told it in a certain way.
  2. Adichie argues that beginning a story with “secondly” can completely change the story. How does order and context affect stories? Using evidence from this unit or other historical contexts, give an example of a story which can become a completely different story if you change the context or order.

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Read  Overview – History Stories

Key Ideas – Understanding Content

  1. Why did the fourteenth-century Black Death become “usable” history to more people in 2020?
  2. Some historians have argued that students should learn facts or information. Others have argued that they should learn a set of skills. Which approach (facts or skills?) is used in this course?
  3. The author of this overview gives an example of a historian of the future working with social media about a fight you had with a friend. Why might a historian care about this fight?
  4. Why is it important that historians have several history stories to work with?
  5. What is claim testing?

Evaluating and Corroborating

  • Write a brief history story that makes a claim. It can be about anything! Then write down a kind of evidence you might look for to test that claim. Now tells me why this history story might be usable for understanding or acting in the present.

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Review some of the methods/tools that we will use this semester, so that you are prepared to learn how to apply them next week’s coursework: