Critical Thinking in Social Studies: King Arthur
By
Dayna Hart, M.Ed, B.A.
Chapter Two: Literature Review
Chapter Four: Instuctional Unit
Chapter Five: Overview, Evaluation and Future Considerations
Chapter One: Introduction
Introduction
Unlike its academic counterparts, mathematics and the languages, which date from antiquity, Social Studies is a relatively young content area, appearing in Canada only at the beginning of the 20th century (Sears, 1997, p. 19). Despite its youth, Social Studies have the potential to be a powerful influence in people’s lives and a meaningful course of study. The nature of social studies are controversial, but it appears to a broad collection of the social sciences focused on citizenship and the historical, geographic, societal, economic, cultural and political under-pinning of citizenship. History is a dominant influence in social studies education in Canada.
Traditionally, history has been taught from the perspective of the outsider. Students are given an overview of a time period from an impersonal third person perspective. Rarely are the lives of individuals reported or the voices of those who experienced the time period in question included. For example, Patterns of Civilization describes the Black Death, a plague that devastated Europe, in the following manner:
In 1348, the bubonic plague, a disease carried by fleas on rats, struck Western Europe. The plague, which broke out first in Asia, spread rapidly along the trade routes. It inflicted enormous casualties because no one knew how to treat it. Panic and fear drove some people to desperate measures (1984, p. 87).
The text continues on, talking about the effect of such a large population loss. There are no firsthand accounts or examples of what ordinary individuals endured. What comes across to the reader is that history is simply a series of recorded events.
Teaching students merely about historical events and influential political figures, however, lends itself to making history absolute, certain and objective, thus detaching students from their personal connection to history. Such teaching has promoted an inaccurate traditional, absolutist view of history much like the rejected view of science from the early 1900s. This project addresses the crisis in the teaching and learning of history as an absolutist epistemology: students’ inability to actively engage in the learning and challenge the current dogma. Students rarely question the narrative of the historian, nor do they have the opportunity to explore a topic in depth and from multiple perspectives. Rather, they are taught from the textbook an overview approach of history that ignores focussing on the individual in favor of providing a panoramic view of events. Yet, in attempting to present students with the most expansive view possible, educators leave out experiences of the individual, which provide relevance and establish interest to subject material and likely improve the depth of understanding.
All students need to be able to identify with what they are learning; in literature this is accomplished through the main characters and storylines. In order for history to be more engaging, it must look to narrative and adopt some of the conventions used to make narrative powerful. Narratives can present multiple interpretations of history and will require students to challenge and evaluate these alternative interpretations. Incorporating historical fiction and promoting critical thinking will remedy students’ lack of interest in Social Studies and present a more authentic view of history. Historical fiction provides students with a more personal approach to history that allows them to more readily make connections with the history.
Students already engage in many textual sources outside the traditional realm of text; many are avid moviegoers and computer gamers. Part of the appeal of both movies and games is the story that is embedded within them. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone intrigued students with both the vividness of the characters and the unusual plot. When movies have strong characters and interesting storylines, viewers often have little trouble putting themselves within the story described. McCarson (2000) explained: “When we just suspend our disbelief of the supernatural enough to enjoy the story and allow the child in us to experience the adventure vicariously, we may be touching on a bit of truth - the journey to Self” (¶ 7).
Extending the experience of another world a step further can be seen in the evolution of computer games. Living vicariously is even more probable with computer games because the gamers get to make crucial decisions for their character. A popular computer game amongst middle school students is DiabloII®, a game where the player creates an identity for his character and, in his fight against the evil Diablo, acquires better armor and weapons. Through interacting with different games to such a depth, players can become very absorbed with the lives they live through the game characters. Various reports on game-influenced behavior indicate some players take the games so seriously that they believe they are living in the world of the game (Suler 1999, 1998).
If the stories in movies and games can elicit such a drastic response from people, it is foolish not to use these popular media as instruments of teaching. Schools must compete with or incorporate the features of their students’ lives outside of school. Incorporating more textual forms into the curriculum can only benefit the learning environment; the material will be more interesting to students, who will then be more enthusiastic about learning. The more enthusiastic students are, the more attentive they are. The increased interest shown by students will enable Social Studies educators to cover the required material with greater ease and in further depth.
Social Studies teachers are constantly struggling with the breadth-depth issue by balancing content and quality, especially with common final examinations in place and the concern about covering the curriculum. Sufficient time must be spent on a topic; as Whitehead (1929) said, “What you teach, teach thoroughly” (p. 14). Educators, as a result, are constantly looking for instructional strategies and approaches that will enhance the teaching process without sacrificing the students’ learning. Maximizing teaching and learning effectiveness is quite difficult with a content-laden curriculum, and in Canada, the Social Studies curriculum is overwhelming. In B.C., for example, the history content of the Grade Eight Social Studies Curriculum is broken down into four areas, each of which is demarcated with the line: “Civilizations from 500 to 1600” (BC Ministry of Education [BCMOE], 1997, p. 7; see chart in Appendix A). Obviously, the BCMOE expects educators to teach their students about 1100 years of world civilizations during a 20-week semester or at best a 10-month academic term. This seems daunting at first glance and overwhelming when understood; the expectation entails both European history and Eastern history.
The massive curriculum expectations do not encourage students and educators to explore the depths of cultures. For the historian, this surface level approach to history hardly does justice to the discipline; for the educator, it is a constant struggle not to become buried in a Trivial Pursuit™ version of history. As the curriculum is taught now, history often has a way of appearing piecemeal to students because they are inundated with people and dates with little attention to cause and effect relations, multiple perspectives and various interpretations.
How did Social Studies become a study of facts and personalities? The earliest definition of what Social Studies entails comes from the United States. The Committee on the Social Studies in 1916 outlined the general principles of Social Studies as “social studies should cultivate a sense of membership in the world community” (US Bureau of Education, 1916, as cited in Martorella, 1991, p. 8). Its recommendations influenced not only American, but also, Canadian schools. The 1916 report laid down one of the basic concepts of Social Studies – citizenship. Unfortunately, the initial proclamation of Social Studies as learning about one’s place in the world community was altered by countries that wished history to reflect a more ethnocentric view, and thus, make its citizens more patriotic to their homeland. Since the idea of patriotism is complex and changes over time, this is another issue that needs to be taken into context when studying history.
The most striking example of a country’s desire to create patriotic citizens comes from the United States. The National Council for the Social Studies’ (1994) Curriculum Standards stated:
Social studies programs have as a major purpose the promotion of civic competence-which is the knowledge, skills, and attitudes required of students to be able to assume ‘the office of citizen’ (as Thomas Jefferson called it) in our democratic republic (p.1).
The B.C. Government’s ministry mandated Instructional Resources Package states: “the overarching goal of social studies is to develop thoughtful, responsible, active citizens” (BCMOE, 1997, p. 1). Yet, while the citizenship strand endures, another related strand has equal weight in the ministry documents: critical thinking. The “curriculum provides students with opportunities as future citizens to critically reflect” (BCMOE, 1997, p.1).
The area of critical thinking has caused much excitement amongst Social Studies educators as it validates the importance of the history discipline. In fact, the Social Studies Integrated Resource Package opens with the comment: “learning outcomes are designed…to lead students to think critically and make reasoned judgements” (BCMOE, 1997, p.1). Suddenly, people outside the Social Studies field can see that Social Studies is not solely about teaching history so that society does not repeat the mistakes of the past. Instead, Social Studies is providing students with critical thinking skills that they can use not only in other classes but also in everyday life. The learning outcomes of the B.C. curricula are inundated with critical thinking laden verbs such as “identify,” “clarify,” “interpret,” “evaluate” and “assess” (BCMOE, 1997, p. A-2). However, there is little in the way of critical thinking teaching resources available to educators that would provide concrete examples of the implicit framework for critical thinking.
Purpose of Study
This project involves the creation of a unit where students study the evolution of the King Arthur legend. The purposes of the study are to design principles and provide sample resources for educators that illustrate a more authentic view of history, promote critical thinking and provide a model for approaching other topics in Social Studies. Students come to class with the misconception that history is an unquestionable account of events. In order to challenge students’ conceptions, educators must first determine their students’ prior knowledge. Next, through the use of critical thinking, students should explore multiple historical sources. Finally, the use of discussion, debate and writing will help individual students consolidate and elaborate their conceptions of history and historical events and to reflect on their understandings. This series of activities should induce a conceptual change; students will see that there is more than one perspective to an historical account. This project’s proposed unit outlines how students will be taught to question the narrative of the historian, through the use of the King Arthur legends. Ideally, students will analyze why historians write as they do. Questioning the narratives will also make students think about how historians report history and in what tone historians present their work. When these purposes are achieved, students will be able to critically analyze the historian’s narrative and realize the interpretative nature of history. This is not an easy task for the students or the teacher and this unit may not fully achieve these goals, but it will illustrate the potential of the approach and its extended application across other social studies topics.
Rationale for the Study
History is an unusual subject, in that it is not a clearly defined discipline; as H. White (1995) commented, “history is rather a craftlike discipline” as it is categorized as both a science and an art (p. 243). People often place history with the social sciences, while others try to have the subject included under the science or humanities umbrella. In the mid 1800s, historians tried to align themselves with the popular science field, seeing historical information as data to be collected. Over time, history writing has tended to place itself increasingly more in the scientific camp, whereby historical events are not questioned. This makes political sense in a post-industrial revolution society, where the sciences and technology were favored. This, however, denies the importance of history’s roots in narrative and it has tied history to several myths about traditional science as a realist ontology and absolutist epistemology questioned by many philosophers of science.
History itself was once passed from generation to generation via storytelling alone. Before the widespread use of writing the majority of historical knowledge was passed on from generation to generation through oral traditions. People chose story as the vehicle for memory and it remains a popular way to relay historical information today. Indeed, Hollywood exists due to the popularity of stories, and the bulk of books published in a year are fiction based.
So natural is the impulse to narrate, so inevitable is the form of narrative for any report on the way things really happened, that narrativity could appear problematical only in a culture in which it was absent – or, … programmatically refused” (H. White, 1990, as cited in Denning, in press, p. 1).
Thus, stories are not only natural, but also powerful because they can educate, inspire and illuminate.
Narrative has slowly been de-emphasized in the teaching of history and the study of narratives has been placed solely in literature studies. Today, historians are still grappling with how best to approach the reporting of history and how to incorporate narrative into their writing. Historians must learn how to include many points of view without undermining the credibility of their own perspectives. This is a difficult balance to achieve because the incorporation of narrative could make historians appear indecisive in their own views or lacking the expertise to discuss the topic at hand. “Historians have never been as aware of what they are attempting as they have become over the past two decades,” (Bentley, 1997, p. 495). It is important for story to return to history, because the two are intertwined. This blurring of fact and fiction is articulated in the opening of The Fellowship of the Ring: “history became legend, legend became myth” (2001).
Textbooks, however, are rarely designed to incorporate the traditional oral narrative; rather they are often comprised of the conventional narrative – the omniscient historian presenting the data. It is this conventional narrative that produces an impersonal, almost scientific account of history. In addition, textbooks are seldom created to promote critical thinking. Questions included within the textbook encourage the ‘Where’s Waldo’ approach to learning; that is, students merely hunt in the text to find the answer and fail to read the text as a whole work. Seixas (1997) pointed out: “students are most typically taught the history and left to make sense of it themselves” (p. 29).
The purpose of teaching students Social Studies is two-pronged. First, teaching students about civilizations past and present should connect students on an individual level to the world around them. If students are unable to make connections between themselves and what they are studying, students will not be interested in a topic. Secondly, Social Studies should equip students with a range of cognitive skills, strategies and emotional dispositions that they can transfer and use in a variety of situations.
The overarching skill that educators aim to teach is that of critical thinking. The Social Studies Eight Curriculum states: “it is expected that students will: identify and clarify a problem, an issue, or an inquiry” (BCMOE, 1997, p. A-2). Students may be debating historical issues in their Social Studies classes; however, they are not questioning the underlying evidence for the claims and the information source -- the textbooks. When historical knowledge is presented as a dogma consisting of a single claim, it is unnecessary to question the claim or challenge its certainty. Indeed, the historians’ narratives, alternative interpretations and counter claims are neither being explored nor even mentioned; students perceive the textbook version as being the Truth. The historian’s narrative needs to be addressed and critical thinking used in order to stop this crisis in teaching and learning in Social Studies to continue.
Yet, narrative, it is believed, can fill the void of unexplained material left by textbooks. Narrative can connect the students on a personal level, and by doing so, help engage them in critical thinking. Narrative is a powerful genre that is used frequently. McAdams (1993) reflected: “we are all tellers of tales. We each seek to provide our scattered and often confusing experiences with a sense of coherence by arranging the episodes of our lives into stories” (cited in Denning, in press, p. 1).
Stories are alluring and abundant. A good story can captivate its audience. Yet, the study of narrative is undefined; “narrative does not fit neatly within the boundaries of any single scholarly field” (Kohler Riessman, 1993, p.1). Indeed, it has only been recently acknowledged as a viable research method. In order to best utilize narrative, historians should step into the present and look to the future for new ways to improve their field of study. The inclusion of narrative is a necessity to increase students’ interest in history and for the continuance of Social Studies as recognized core course.
Significance of the Study
Whitehead (1929) wrote that in teaching “we must beware of what [he] will call ‘inert ideas’ – that is to say, ideas that are merely received into the mind without being utilised, or tested, or thrown into fresh combinations” (p. 13). Passive reception and role memorization of isolated info-bits have lead to low retention of fragmented facts, dates and people in social studies. It is believed that active learning focused on the construction of causal relations and patterns of events will lead to meaningful learning and integrated conceptual networks. This project rises to Whitehead’s challenge and outlines how to engage students in the critical evaluation of information sources, evidence and claims. It provides a practical framework for teaching critical thinking through narrative for the Grade Eight Social Studies Curriculum.
Incorporating works of fiction into the Social Studies curriculum is an area where little research and development have been done. In fact, there is very little in the way of resources for the Social Studies educator, especially regarding non-Canadian history. Thus, although this project has not been tested in the classroom, it will provide much needed Social Studies curriculum development. Through the integration of history with the magical world of King Arthur, educators will have a unique educational resource with which to actively engage students in critical thinking. Students, on the other hand, will have not only undergone a conceptual change about King Arthur as a historical figure and history as an absolutist epistemology, but also acquired critical thinking skills that they can transfer to other sources of information outside Social Studies. Thus, the outcomes are beneficial for the educators and the students; the educator creates a classroom of interested students while the students learn skills that assist them both in and out of the classroom.
This project not only makes students aware of the importance of stories but also gives them the critical thinking skills necessary for analyzing stories. This unit will interest students because they have the opportunity to use Hollywood films as a primary source. Also, when studying history, students often have no prior knowledge of the subject; consequently, they are attempting to understand both content and context. However, in studying King Arthur, a mythology that has been retold for more than a millenium, students will more than likely have some frame of reference even if it is based on a movie or a computer game. King Arthur is part of Western civilization’s common culture. Additionally, it is hoped that as the King Arthur legend is a part of the knowledge of all, that learning about this legend will be family inclusive and a potential focus of meaningful school-home activities. In other words, King Arthur is a topic that students and parents can easily converse about.
Although the project is focussed on the Grade Eight Social Studies Curriculum in B.C., this project’s proposed lesson plans can be used in any class wishing to explore myth, the King Arthur legend, the multiplist nature of history, or critical thinking and the design principle can be applied to developing units for other topics. As in teaching any course, it is essential to pique the students’ interest, here through both the topic and the means of presenting the information, and then engage them in learning. Studying King Arthur interests and engages students in an important historical topic. King Arthur, and the stories surrounding his life, have survived over 1500 years and play an important role in our society’s film and literature.
The Arthurian myth is a fundamental story that is constantly being retold and accepted by some people as historically based. The King Arthur project encourages students to analyze political and narrative history critically. In addition, the unit’s incorporation of film allows it to be used in a class with students of wide-ranging abilities. The multi-range classroom is a reality that must be taken into consideration when creating and implementing instructional strategies and resources.
Design of the Study
The King Arthur project is designed as a series of practical lesson plans that a teacher can implement into the Middle Ages’ unit of the Social Studies Eight Curriculum. Its purpose is to address the crisis in the teaching and learning of history. That is, in teaching history, such a wide variety of topics are addressed that little time is left for students to delve into a topic and to develop critical thinking. Also, the textbooks themselves do not promote critical thinking; in fact, students often perceive the embedded claims as truth. This project will encourage students to take a closer look at history and ponder questions such as: who tells history, and why was that piece of information included?
The aim of the Social Studies curriculum is for students to be more aware of the world around them. Indeed the world that they exist in. This project is based on literature from three distinctly different areas: Metaphysics, King Arthur and educational post-modernism. It is the first, Metaphysics or the study of the historian’s narrative, however that is emphasized in this project.
The historian’s narrative is one of many filters that the story of history goes through unchallenged. This is especially important to explore since “history texts’ traditionally narrative style obscures the work of the author and other historians in constructing historical knowledge” (Hynd, 1999, p.428). While examining the historian’s story is one area of literature, the second involves the story of King Arthur itself. Needless to say, because the story of King Arthur is over 1500 years old, a tremendous amount of literature has been written on both Arthur himself and the legends surrounding him. This vast expanse of literature makes this project possible since alternative sources of information are required by the instructional approach.
The third body of literature that influences this project comes from the realm of education and post-modernist curriculum theorizing. The work of Whitehead (1929), in particular, is significant because he explained the importance of engaging students in their own learning. He clearly articulated how educators must allow students to explore topics and create meaning on their own. The post-modernists theorists are interested in the nature of knowledge as well as social issues such as injustice, equality and power, have created an array of texts. These texts discuss moving towards a more student centered approach in order to engage students in their own learning, while being cognizant of the aforementioned social issues. In addition, although a limited amount of research has been done in the areas of incorporating historical narrative into the Social Studies, that body of research, along with critical thinking literature, is a core part of the King Arthur lessons.
Setting
The lesson plans are designed for teachers to integrate into the Social Studies Eight Curriculum. The lessons are intended primarily for a middle school setting, where the grades are divided into teams, because the teamed teachers could work together to make King Arthur a theme in their curricula. For example, English teachers could incorporate Arthurian based works, such as T.H. White’s novel A Sword in the Stone, into their curriculum. The drama teachers, on the other hand, could explore at plays, such as Twain’s The Prince and the Pauper, to help establish the mood of the time period.
But, the lessons in the appendix are not restricted to use in Social Studies eight. Any teacher interested in mythology, critical thinking, or King Arthur could utilize the lessons. In fact, the Arthurian resource package could also be used in a film studies course.
Evaluation of Resource Package
The Arthurian resource package has not been piloted in a classroom as part of this project, but an action research approach has influenced the substantiation and development of the instructional strategy and curriculum resources. Thus, the lessons are based on literature research from three areas: historiography, English literature and teaching through historical narrative. Although the unit plan will not be tested in a classroom, the lessons reflect the author’s collective experience with grade eight students and their prior knowledge about similar topics and the lessons will be the central focus of the reflections between the author and project supervisor. Furthermore, my experience as a classroom teacher has made me aware of how intrigued students are by stories and the importance of including stories in teaching.
History provides incredibly interesting stories that capture the imagination of students. Students are fascinated with the story of Henry VIII and his six wives as they are of da Vinci’s failure to finish his equestrian statue because of the onset of war. Bringing story back into Social Studies is essential in captivating students and providing them with an alternate method for understanding. Levstik (1990, 1995, 1997) has shown the power story has in engaging students in historical text.
Myth and Legend in History
There are a variety of different genres merging in this project to create lesson plans that will encourage students’ critical thinking skills. As a result, there are a few terms that require definitions in order to minimize confusion.
Beckson and Ganz (1960) describe myth as “an anonymous tale, ostensibly historical, the origins of which are unknown. A mythology, which is a collection of such tales, may contain the story of…the feats of gods or heroes” (p. 169). They provide a straightforward definition that, in this project, is combined with a less traditional definition from Campbell (1988), who states, mythology is “the song of the universe” and it is the human element that underlies the use of the term myth in this project (p. xvi). Myths are very powerful stories that touch individuals on a personal level and resonate in our daily cultural existence. There is some element within myths that we identify with ourselves. As Campbell explains: “mythology teaches you what’s behind literature and the arts, it teaches you about your own life. It’s a great, exciting, life-nourishing subject” (p. 11).
The term legend is often used in association with myth. Once again Beckson and Ganz (1960) offer a definition, saying that legend is “a story, sometimes of a national or folk hero, which has a basis in fact but which also includes imaginative material” (p. 141).
For the purpose of this study, the words myth and legend are used interchangeably throughout this text to refer to a very old story, whose central character is an historical hero (see definition chart in Appendix B). The King Arthur stories can be considered legends because Arthur may have in fact existed for historical documentation has survived, although very minimal and questionable. However, the King Arthur stories are often considered myths. Yet, stories that are continually retold hold within them a grain of truth. Granted, details or even characters may change over time, but that element of truth in the text remains. Thus, Arthur is a historical hero in both mythology and legends.
Future Considerations
The King Arthur lesson plans are based on literature research and have not been tested in the classroom. Obviously, the next step would be for an individual to not only use the lessons but also document their effectiveness. Any findings would then lead to any necessary alterations of this study.
There are two outcomes of most interest from these future inquiries. Primary interest would be to discover how effectively the students engage in critical thinking, specifically, to what extent they question the narrative of the historian. Additionally, to what degree the narrative itself, in this case King Arthur’s legends, captivates students’ interest while participating in such a challenging task. Ideally, this King Arthur unit will engage students in the study of history. By the end of the lessons students will be able to analyze the narrative in history texts. Analyzing text, however, is not bound to Social Studies alone; indeed, it is a skill that students can apply to a multitude of areas in every day life.