Thread by @samwineburg

“If it’s in the book it must be right."

An exercise on historical thinking for middle school students (also works for high school too).

[Episode 5, I think, of "Doing worthwhile things with your students during a tough time"] 1/16

This is an exercise about Mrs. Rosa Parks’s heroic decision to hold her ground when she boarded a bus on a fateful day in December, 1955, in Montgomery Alabama.

A simple factual question: where on the bus did Mrs. Parks sit? 2/16

On the surface seems like a pretty narrow question. But it’s a question about establishing fact. And facts these days are, well . . . at risk. So let’s look at what some textbooks say. 3/

Here’s one for high school students, the lead author was the esteemed historian Winthrop D. Jordan (from the book, “The Americans: History of a People”) 4/

Answer: in the front section, in the 10 seats reserved for Whites.

Or this, from the wonderful Oxford University Press series, a HISTORY OF US, by the national treasure @jhakim_edugeek.

Answer: in the back of the bus, in the section reserved for Blacks.

Front? Back? Somewhere else? 5/

We can consult a primary source, the police report from that day. (Ask students if they think it was written at the scene. Why? Why not?) 6/ archives.gov/education/less…

And we can compare the typewritten report to the handwritten one written one, probably filled out at the scene. (How do they differ?) 7/ archives.gov/education/less…

Or we can consult what Mrs. Parks actually said (this, from the book “I am Rosa Parks," written with Jim Haskins) 8/

Why does this matter? It matters because facts matter. If we cannot establish basic issues of fact, such as where someone sat in one of the most iconic episodes of American history, we’ll never get to more thorny issues of interpretation. 9/

It matters because many kids think history is a finished story. In science or math, you “figure things out.” But not in history. It’s stuff. You read it. You remember it. You get tested on it. 10/

It matters because this is a concrete example that kids can understand and that adults (even famous textbook writers ) can sometimes get wrong. And, unlike many historical issues, there's a right answer. Where Mrs. Parks sat is established fact. 11/

For a set of fascinating reasons (a story for another day), Mrs. Parks’s arrest made it to the Alabama Supreme Court (if you’re interested, we discuss it in Reading Like a Historian).

Both the defense and prosecution agreed to a statement of facts, and in this diagram (found at the National Archives, link above), they indicate that she sat in seat #14, in the middle section beyond the “sacred ten” reserved for Whites.

Using the above documents, kids will have to puzzle over what they think and will come to different conclusions based on how they read the evidence. (Here's a blank diagram you can give them)

Most important, they will have to use their minds to reconcile contradictions and weigh different sources of evidence. They will have to think and justify their conclusions.

And in the process, the textbook, rather than being the final word, will be one more source to evaluate . . . which is how it should be!