Teaching History Through Creative Writing.

My S3 class recently undertook a diary task based around what they thought life would be like in the cotton mills of the 19th century. I've done this sort of creative writing task a few times with different classes over the past 2 years without giving it a much in-depth thought. I just reckoned that it was a bit more interesting for the kids to write than the usual essays.

However, after marking this particular classes work I put a little more thought into what they were actually doing. Over the summer I spoke to quite a few people who quizzed me on why I teach history. I've had this question put to me countless times since beginning my career. More often than not the reply is based around the thought that History teachers are best placed to try and help future generations learn from the mistakes of the past. Creative writing is possibly the strongest foundation from which such a goal could ever be achieved.

Increasingly, I have found my basic teaching rationale based around the idea of young people putting themselves into historical situations. This is based on my own historiographical view that History is moved by cultures and groups of people rather than the actions of particular 'great' individuals. By trying to get young people to imagine the mindset of people at different points in History a more articulate emotional understanding can be created. From this emotional understanding young people then have the grounding to contextualise the facts they have learnt.

Often older people I speak to complain that History in their school days was just 'remembering dates'. History is so much more than that. By putting themselves into the shoes of others, young people can learn empathy, compassion and gain a fuller understanding of historical significance. That's so much better than regurgitating dates and facts!