Teaching American History

Paper Summary:

Critics continually ask whether or not students should continue to receive a traditional, content-based version of American history that may only serve to perpetuate certain myths and ideals they have about themselves. This research project addresses this question, and by so doing, offers an alternative version of the Grade 9 U.S. history curriculum. The writers, herein discussed, mutually agree on the need for the curriculum to encourage critical reflection in the students so that they may become more sensitive to, and even more outraged in the face of historical, social and political injustice.

From the Paper:

"The high school history classroom is not immune to the cultural wars that have swept through education, and through all society. The voices of the disenfranchised have demanded that history better reflect the lives of those who have been left out of cursory overviews in textbooks and survey courses. But what is the best solution? To start, history teachers will need to revise the way that history is written and spoken about. The curriculum will also need to give a fuller historical exposition of, for example, women, Native groups, Afro-Americans, and the role that certain minorities may have played in the building of America. As well, the curriculum will need to be more responsive to the so-called "common man," that is, those whose lives may have been important in the evolution of America but who have yet to reach the heroic status typically afforded to presidents and public figures. In addition, these changes should not be left to university seminars but should be widely integrated through all education, including the early high school years. Certainly, this sort of work has begun, to greater or lesser extent, but this project proposes yet another approach to the revision of the history curriculum, arguing for a shift in how students are going to be asked to read and engage with US history."

More papers on Teaching American History:

• Term Paper # 94978 : "How to Teach History"
• Essay # 22774 : "American High School Education"
• Term Paper # 99754 : "Racial Bias in Civil War History"

APA Citation:

MLA Citation: