Examples of Historical Thinking - Frederick Douglass - Reading the Document
Channel: teachinghistoryorg
Date: 2011-08-01

Historian Jerome Bowers analyzes excerpts from Frederick Douglass's fourth autobiography, My Bondage and My Freedom to explore the complicated realities of slavery and the survival of African cultural traditions. Bowers focuses on a story in which Douglass meets Sandy, a conjurer and a slave. Bowers models several historical thinking skills, including:

    close reading to examine the telling of the story;
    drawing on prior knowledge of the transatlantic slave trade, slave life and culture, and Douglass' life;
    corroboration and the meaning of memory by comparing this telling with a version of the story from Douglass's first autobiography and with an example from another slave narrative; and
    placing the story within a larger context of the African customs, the daily life of slaves, and slave agency.

http://teachinghistory.org/best-practices/examples-of-historical-thinking/23495