Article Review- Slaying dragons and sorcerers in Year 12: The Search for Historical Argument.

Dragons, sorcerers and straw men oh my. Who would have thought a paper about Historical Argument could be so interesting. Concerned about the lack of student interaction with historical texts, Michael Fordham decided to integrate historiography into his social studies classrooms. While structure is important for any sense to be made from text, it is not the end-all-be-all, instead it is more important that History students learn to interact with the historical texts that they use; to question the motives behind the writing; to argue for or against an interpretation of history; to not always produce a chronological retelling of past events; to inspire critical thinking.

In order to introduce historiography effectively in his grade twelve History class, Fordham decided to incorporate practical investigation through a fantastical medieval quest where his students, acting as the brave hero, had to battle against three progressively difficult opponents: the straw man, the fiery dragon and the terrible sorcerer, each of whom attempted to persuade the hero towards their argument. The mission of the student was to reach the “Holy Grail of History,” which was obtained by pointing out the flaws in each of their opponents’ arguments. At each level, the student had to identify the focus of the historical argument, analyse the evidence used to support the historical argument, and evaluate the historical argument itself; as well as, demonstrate argumentative essay writing by way of a set criteria at each level. Since the concept was new, the degree of analysis had to be gradual; students first had to be able to identify argument before they could fully analyze it; therefore at each level the degree of argumentative writing increased from a 100 word abstract highlighting the arguments main points, to writing a complete analysis essay in response to the terrible sorcerer’s argument.

Writing, for many, is incredibly difficult. Providing a fun and low stress approach to teaching how to write for "History" is a great way to get students turned on. Once they realize that the task is not so daunting, and that picking apart some one's argument can be a lot of fun, I believe students will be a lot more apt to write, as well as, think critically about the information being provided to them.