Review Counterfactual History

Article Review: Roberts, Scott L. (2011). Using counterfactual history to enhance students' historical understanding, The Social Studies, 102:3, 117-123.

by Steven Mills

In this article Roberts, a grade 8 Social Studies teacher from Georgia, challenges his students to ask historical “what if?” questions and to portray creatively the new histories resulting from these changes. Roberts first makes a distinction between alternative history, which usually involves science fiction and relies on time travellers or aliens, and counterfactual history, which is generally based on historical fact and the point of divergence is caused by realistic circumstances (p. 117). I believe this distinction is important because by using counterfactual history in the classroom, students are encouraged to think creatively but within a framework where they must analyze their historical knowledge in order to predict possible outcomes. Roberts also provides an overview of the use of counterfactual history in education, a rationale for using it in the classroom, some of its strengths and weaknesses, a unit plan he has implemented in his class and his reflections on how the process enhanced his students' historical understanding.

Roberts gives examples both where the use of counterfactual history as a form of historical inquiry has been criticized and also where, today, it is receiving more respect with many researchers now supporting its use in college classrooms to gain a better understanding of the past (p. 118). Unfortunately there have been few studies examining its use or effectiveness in middle and secondary social studies. I believe that further study in its use would be useful both to indicate if it is an effective teaching method and to look at ways in which it can be used to advantage. Roberts then examined the counterfactual historical materials available for the classroom. Though he found some of the work intriguing and that it had some strengths, he also found important weaknesses: the reading comprehension levels and historical understanding expected of the students were too high, the history often does not correlate with the curriculum requirements, the material was often cumbersome, there were too many low level discussion questions and the history was presented in a non-critical manner. The major weakness found in all of the material is that it does not allow students to create their own “what if” questions and scenarios, but rather complete reading comprehension exercises where students repeat the opinions of the authors (p. 119). These weaknesses, especially the lack of student involvement in the creation process, call out for the development of a student-centred method to incorporate counterfactual history.

Roberts argues that using counterfactual history in the social studies classroom enables students to become active participants in the study of history in a hands-on way, what many researchers describe as “doing history”. He points out that this active way has been suggested by many researchers as being more effective than the traditional passive way of reading and answering questions in textbooks or listening to teacher centred lectures (p. 119). This approach is not the only way for students to be active learners but I believe that many students would find it engaging and relevant. As Roberts points out, many students would be familiar with counterfactual history and would be able to connect to it through movies, novels, video games and graphic novels. Also the “What if?” aspect challenges the students to think critically and provides an avenue for creativity especially if they create and answer their own questions. According to Roberts, this aspect of choice in student learning is a key element in differentiating his approach from other predetermined counterfactual history materials. I would argue that this aspect of choice, not only in the questions asked and the answers generated, but also in how these answers are presented, would be more likely to engage students, instill ownership in the material and allow for multiple literacies in representing the alternative histories. Roberts' students have not only come up with legitimate questions (such as: “What if Andrew Jackson would have followed the Supreme Court's order to protect the Cherokee in Georgia?”) (p. 120) but have also presented their histories in a variety of creative ways through: short stories, writing and illustrating school textbooks from the alternative world, graphic novels, screenplays, videos, newspaper articles, songs, raps, poetry, websites and PowerPoint presentations (p. 120-121). These are the kinds of thoughtful questions and the kind of interesting work I would like students in my class to generate. Generating and answering these kinds of questions effectively would not only require creativity but an in depth understanding, analysis and evaluation of the historical events the student is studying. Students would need to connect to their existing knowledge and add to it in order to complete their new histories.

In Roberts' unit plan, he integrates counterfactual history with research based strategies concerning best practices of teaching social studies (p. 119). These activities include: creating the counterfactual questions, using KWL charts to examine them further, creating a map of the alternative world, creating a Venn diagram to display where their history diverges and coincides with established history and presenting their project in a variety of ways as mentioned above. This approach requires the active participation of the students, allows for student choice, supports different ways of representing, accesses creativity and other higher thinking processes, relates to students interests, links back to what students know and integrates history with geography, English language arts and technology.

Integrating counterfactual history into the social studies classroom presents many challenges: lack of appropriate materials, lack of empirical evidence of its effectiveness, the large amount of classroom time needed to implement it and the required knowledge in the genre. Despite these challenges, I believe that integrating counterfactual history would prove beneficial in the classroom. It provides us with a student-centred approach in which students must become “experts” in an area of history in order to create their own version. It also allows for student choice in investigating historical events and in how they present their work. In the context of the BC curriculum, it would be interesting to explore counterfactual Canadian history where many issues and points of view could be explored including English/French relationships, First Nations issues, immigration issues, the role of Canada internationally and many others which could help to challenge the attitudes and beliefs of students. They could consider how their version of history might have affected both their country, world, the lives of individuals and their own lives in the past, present and future.

Reference:

Roberts, Scott L. (2011). Using counterfactual history to enhance students' historical understanding, The Social Studies, 102:3, 117-123.