Teaching for historical literacy: building knowledge in the history classroom (2016)


Mahew T. Downey and Kelly A. Long. Cost: £26.30 Publisher: Routledge, New York and Abingdon, Oxon. Pages: 192 ISBN: 978-­‐1-­‐138-­‐85958-­‐6


Reviewed by Liz Parkin Liz Parkin is a rered Adult Literacy Tutor (inc. ESOL) and Family Literacy Coordinator, with an interest in acve cizenship and intercultural maers


Ireland, where I live, is in what has been named as ‘a decade of centenaries’ with 2016 having significant commemoraons of the Easter Rising and the WW1 Bale of the Somme in which thousands of soldiers from Ireland died. As well as events around the country, newspapers have been producing special supplements; there has been extensive TV coverage of commemoraons; there are television dramasaons and lots of books, some of which have been chosen as One City, One Book or One Book, One Community choices for this year. So, a book about historical literacy has the potenal to be very relevant.


In an appreciaon for a 'veteran polical correspondent' who had recently died, Dr. Diarmaid Ferriter, one of Ireland's foremost contemporary historians, wrote ‘...acve cizenship needs to be about lively inquiry into how we have got to where we are, not through fashioning a project of denigraon or forgeng, but by making an honest effort to disnguish between memory, myth and reality’ (Irish Times, 23-­‐4-­‐2016).


Cizenship, hopefully acve cizenship, is one of the goals of adult educaon and, by extension, of adult literacy development, so that resonated when I read it. The final sentence of Downey and Long's Teaching for Historical Literacy reads: “We seek to be literate about history so that we use it in informed and thoughul ways to address the challenges and opportunies of the present.” The content of the book held much that is of relevance to literacy tutors as we try to address this aspect of the work.


This is an American publicaon, so many of the topics used as examples would not be ones we might address but the methods to address them are transferable across the Atlanc and many are relevant to our work despite the asseron at the beginning of the book of the disncve nature of historical literacy skills (6). The book is intended for school teachers at both elementary and high schools (primary and second-­‐level) but is based within the insights of Howard Gardner's (1985) Cognive Revoluon (5), so uses many of the premises familiar to adult literacy tutors, such as recognising prior knowledge. However, they use the term ‘acvate prior learning’ (my italics), (75) which makes the process more dynamic and they recognise that learning comes from sources such as family, TV, films etc. as well as schooling. One of the outcomes I worked towards with some family literacy students was the demysficaon of school subject terminology, including history, especially when children were making the transion to second-­‐level. Many did not value their own knowledge because it was not school learning so this recognion of informal sources is posive.


Ideas such as understanding the vocabulary of a discipline maybe pose more of a challenge. Quong Readance et al (2000, 46) they write ‘students who lack the vocabulary of a discipline or subject-­‐maer remain “outsiders” to its way of thinking’ (100). In recent years the 1901 and 1911 Irish census returns have been made available online, for free. Many students have loved searching through them, but I don't think I ever thought of referring to them as ‘primary sources’. If we agree with the statement should we be more diligent about equipping adult literacy learners with the vocabulary of grammar?


The book is brimming with ideas that adult literacy tutors could use. Chronological understanding through the use of melines could be built using family and local history (which I always found to be very popular topics) as foundaons for naonal and internaonal links. Once ‘estd.’ was understood, many students sought it enthusiascally around the city. If '“doing history” means “wring history”' (p8) this could be a way for students to engage. It might also be a way for students, including ESOL students, to relate to the noon of culture changing across me as well as space. Several ESOL learners in some of the ESOL/literacy groups I worked with at levels 1 and 2 seemed to think that Irish culture now was how Irish culture had always been.


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