It’s no secret that us Social Studies teachers have felt like we’re walking on eggshells for the last few years: calls to ban books, raging debates around the teaching of Critical Race Theory, and the numerous “divisive concepts” laws that have had the unintended outcome of making us targets. Whether you’re in a liberal, conservative, or “purple” area (like me), there will likely be parents and community members who don’t trust your teaching of history. Yet it is our job as Social Studies educators to involve our students in discussions about significant events, past and present, and we would be remiss to omit the teaching of January 6th, despite potential blowback. This is a topic especially personal for me, since I was sent to Washington, D.C. with my National Guard unit in the weeks following the insurrection.
Before you begin, make sure you have a thorough understanding of any “divisive concepts” that may be in effect for your state. Parents may try to use these laws against you, but most of the time they have no understanding of what the laws say or allow/disallow you to teach. For example, the law in my state is largely for show, allowing everything short of teaching Johnny that he is automatically, inherently and biologically racist by virtue of being born white. Ironically, this doesn’t even preclude the teaching of Critical Race Theory, which the conservatives placated by such a law would’ve hoped.
So how do you discuss something so decisive and polarizing? If you’re not worried about parent pushback, you can directly instruct the students on what happened and who’s responsible, maybe throwing in a video to elicit discussion. In any case, citing high quality, reliable sources is imperative; the phrase “according to” is your best friend here. This way, you are not telling students what to believe or ramming an agenda down their throats (as you may be accused of doing), but rather telling them what the evidence says. After all, history is a discipline that weighs evidence about the past to determine what happened, and there exists an undeniable preponderance that the 2020 election was not stolen, making it a historical fact. When assigning blame, a teacher can cite the findings in the January 6th Report – which points the finger solely at former president Donald Trump – and even mention some of the criticism against it for the sake of balance. Again, the teacher in this scenario is not directly expressing their opinion, but instead shedding light on the evidence surrounding the event.
A safer – and in my opinion, more effective – approach is to provide the students with a series of sources (mainly primary), and allow them to gather evidence and piece together a narrative of what happened, why, and who’s to blame. Thus, the lesson develops historical thinking skills and allows the students to come to their own conclusions, leaving little room for parent criticism. This is an approach I use in my classroom throughout the year, and it is rooted in the research of Sam Wineburg,1 Peter Seixas, Bruce VanSledright, and others. Citing this research in response to concerns should absolve you of criticism.
Paramount to this approach is the selection of high quality, reliable sources. I use an Associated Press news article from the day after, excerpts from Trump’s speech to the crowd, a series of pictures (mostly taken by AP photographers) of the insurrection, the Articles of Impeachment brought against Trump, and now excerpts from the January 6th report. Students are given a series of questions to answer about the day that will require gathering and citing evidence from all sources to formulate conclusions, including whether they agree or disagree with the January 6th Committee’s conclusions. At the end of the activity, students look at the definition of “insurrection” and decide whether that term fairly describes the events of that day. Potential criticism may come your way around selection of sources, but allowing students to present outside sources can alleviate this and present an opportunity to practice lateral reading – opening another tab in the web browser and doing research on the source, author, and media outlet to determine reliability.
A third approach for those who are comfortable with a little spontaneity and unpredictability in the classroom (I’m typically not) is to have each student come to class with a source – preferably a news article – related to the events of January 6th. This could be an article about the events of January 6th, the impeachment, the trials/convictions of participants, or the January 6th Committee and its findings. Students can share their articles in groups and do lateral reading on the sources to determine credibility and reliability. Therefore, the lesson focuses on practicing digital and media literacy skills with the events of January 6th and its aftermath as a backdrop, again mitigating potential criticism.
I have found that using Ad Fontes Media’s Bias Chart is a great visual way for students to see whether a source is reliable or not, and will further shield you from parent criticism. A student may try to provide an outside source claiming the election was stolen, and using the Media Bias Chart will quickly reveal that the source is questionable. You may have the students themselves find the source on the Media Bias Chart (I do this often throughout my course), but make sure they are using the version contemporary to when the articles in question were published and not the most up-to-date one.2 Of course, the Media Bias Chart is not the end all be all; it is one tool among many others to facilitate the sourcing process, and extra lateral reading should be done to corroborate.
The common thread to the three aforementioned approaches is that the teacher’s own opinions, assessments, and evaluations of January 6th are removed from the lesson. In the first approach, the teacher cites evidence about the events of January 6th from high quality, reliable sources; thus, it is the sources “talking” and not the teacher. On the other hand, the teacher in the second approach only curates the sources and asks the questions, allowing the students to put together the pieces themselves. For both of these scenarios, choosing news articles from outlets such as AP, Reuters, and BBC, while avoiding CNN and Fox, is crucial. The third approach puts the onus on the students to come up with sources, so there will likely be some questionable sources. But the students can sort that out with lateral reading.
Moreover, approaches two and three have the added benefit of developing and practicing skills – historical thinking skills in two and digital literacy skills in three – using research-based pedagogical techniques. However, if you have not already taught these skills to your students yet, it may be challenging. In this case, using approach three would be better, since it is quicker to teach the process of lateral reading than the skills required to gather evidence and formulate arguments. A teacher can use one or two class periods when they come back from break to teach lateral reading, and Stanford History Education Group’s Civic Online Reasoning curriculum has a litany of ready-made lessons for this purpose, along with a 10-part series courtesy of Crash Course.
Regardless of how you choose to broach the subject, don’t be afraid. It is imperative that the next generation understands what happened that day and its implications to the future of our Democracy. It is our job as Social Studies teachers to make them aware.
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Featured image source: USA Today
Footnotes:
- Sam Wineburg is the founder and director of Stanford History Education Group, whose research focuses on teaching students to think like historians. The website has ready-made historical thinking skills lessons for many topics throughout history, and I highly recommend reading Wineburg’s book Historical Thinking and Other Unnatural Acts.
- A Google search for “Ad Fontes Media Chart <month and year>” will quickly get the student what they’re looking for. For example, if they have an article published in December 2020 claiming the election was stolen, they can search for “Ad Fontes Media Chart December 2020.” This is important because if they are using a current version of the chart, the media outlet may have moved up the chart, giving a false impression that the source was more credible than it was at the time.
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