Article
Evoking Students’ Curiosity and Complicating Their Historical Thinking through Manageable, Engaging Confusion
The History Teacher
(2015)
Abstract
STATE AND NATIONAL educational initiatives have increased
expectations for students’ historical thinking and civic involvement. 1
Guidance for relevant, purposeful classroom experiences with age
appropriate, rigorous content has never been clearer, 2 yet teachers
still feel unprepared.3 Towards these ends, we direct attention to the
antecedent of discovery: confusion. Confusion sparks the motivation
to explore and solve mysteries. Manageable, engaging mysteries
provide students the space and incentive to explore for answers they
know are discoverable. Teachers can position students to identify
the enigma as they scrutinize the documents; educators should
recognize, and ease, students’ emergent frustration with clues. Using
Lev Vygotsky’s zone o f proximal development as a guide,4 educators
should provide students suitable levels of challenge and support.
Disciplines
Publication Date
November, 2015
Citation Information
John H. Bickford and Molly Sigler Bickford. "Evoking Students’ Curiosity and Complicating Their Historical Thinking through Manageable, Engaging Confusion" The History Teacher Vol. 49 Iss. 1 (2015) Available at: http://works.bepress.com/john_bickford/23/
Creative Commons license
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