Examples of Historical Thinking - Across the Continent
Channel: teachinghistoryorg
Date: 01/08/2011

Historian David Jaffee analyzes three 19th-century objects (a Hitchcock chair, a family portrait, and a lithograph of the West), discussing how they were made, how they were used, and what they can tell us about the past. Jaffee models several historical thinking skills, including:

    close reading of the portrait and the lithograph, paying attention to symbols, objects, and other visual clues to understand the images;
    attention to key source information, such as the date and artist of the lithograph to highlight the significance of its portrayal of the west through the eyes of easterners;
    contrasting the Hitchcock chair as a manufactured object with its use in the portrait as a carefully selected symbol of the family's wealth and possessions;
    examining the larger context of all three objects to connect them with economic, cultural, and social change.

http://teachinghistory.org/best-practices/examples-of-historical-thinking/23423