Page 132 - Powerful Social Studies for Elementary Students 4th Edition

104 Powerful Social Studies for Elementary Students
Barton (1992) described an emphasis on children’s historical fiction in a case study of a fifth-grade unit on the American Revolution. He observed a heavy reliance on narrative structures, by both the teacher and the students, in representing knowledge about this historical period in speech and writing. The teacher and students used five overlapping structures to place their study of the Revolution into a narrative framework:
1. The unit as a whole was treated as a sequence of causally related events that together formed the “story” of the Revolution.
2. Each event was itself treated as a story with characters, problem, and a resolution.
3. These stories emphasized the feelings and actions of these individuals.
4. Fictional conversations (e.g., between King George and his advisors) were spontane-
ously created in order to convey information.
5. Nations were endowed with human characteristics (e.g., motives, goals, plans, and
other features common to central figures in stories).
In subsequent research, Barton (1996) noted that although narrative structures help students remember connected details related to the main storyline of a narrative, they also can lead to oversimplification of historical trends and events. The fourth and fifth graders he studied often collapsed lengthy and complicated historical processes into short time frames and simple narratives, such as crediting famous people for singlehandedly bringing about monumental changes in a short period of time. For example, many spoke as if African-Americans began to be treated differently immediately after Martin Luther King, Jr. “gave a speech” and suddenly changed people’s minds. Brophy and VanSledright (1997) found similar patterns in their interviews of fourth and fifth graders: Students described European explorers as though they were a small band of associates in close contact with one another and thought that they returned to their home countries and personally led groups of settlers to the New World. They also conceived of English colonies in North America as though they were all small villages similar to Plymouth Plantation.
Much of the students’ knowledge was represented in the form of story-like narratives that featured a setting, a plot focused on the motives and goals of one or more focal individuals or groups, and a resolution that carried implications for the future of these people and others included in the story. The stories featured themes such as monarchs competing for power and glory through land claims and territorial wars, colonists unit- ing to proclaim and fight for their freedom from British rule, and pioneers struggling against adversity to establish new communities.
Less sophisticated versions often were vague or inaccurate about the temporal and geographic specifics of the settings, and many of them featured stories personalized around hero figures. More sophisticated versions were more specific and accurate about time and place, were formulated more as cause-and-effect explanations than as conven- tional stories, and described larger historical trends involving sizable populations or geo- graphic areas rather than only recounting what happened to a particular individual or small group during the course of a particular event. There were few comments on the nature or quality of evidence, characterizations of the points of view of various stake- holder groups, references to alternative interpretations, or other indications of the kinds of historical reasoning brought to bear by disciplinary specialists.
The fifth graders were able to overcome tendencies toward “presentism” and other biases in order to identify and empathize with some of the people they studied, especially if these people were portrayed as heroic figures or as victims of oppression. To the extent that they were encouraged and helped to do so, they also showed an ability to see both sides of an issue, such as the contrast between King George’s views and the American rebels’ views of the events that led to the American Revolution. However, they did
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