Another instructional challenge to teaching any kind of social or cultural history is that the teacher is often dealing with abstractions. I sometimes feel like the Wizard of Oz, pulling every lever of the teaching trade to recreate the grandeur and drama of a bygone time and place when I have only text and fact at my disposal. Artifact study is a direct link to the past, and in that sense can convey information that even the best text cannot. The artifact directly represents the point of view of its creator, and the reactions to it of people who lived in that era make history real and human. An artifact calls on students to engage in historic and social research as opposed to reading in a textbook the results of someone else's studies.
Artifact study helps students transfer knowledge.
Indeed, the entire sequence of concepts in each program of this series is designed to help students see the links between historic, present, and future controversies. All of the films in Culture Shock lead students to the next stage of artifact study by providing secondary sources of information. Not only do the programs explore the historic facts that sparked public controversy in each case, but each program links the issues raised at the time to their modern counterparts. This series gives art the historical context crucial to understanding it. In the case of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, understanding that historical context makes the difference between the harm and good this novel has the potential to foster.