Significant Events: Suggested Inquiry Activity
Students take on the role of historians to determine the 10 most significant historical events, people, or /developments in the history of Hartney & Area. In small groups, students examine a series of annotated images (e.g., photographs, documents) representing a variety of historical events, try to reach a consensus on the 10 most important, and justify their selections.
Suggested Strategies
Teachers prepare sets of 25 to 30 annotated images (e.g., photographs, documents) representing a range of historical events, people, or developments throughout the history of the local area. Each image should have a short caption to provide contextual information about the image.
In small groups, students examine the set of 25 to 30 images. They discuss the collection and reach a consensus about the 10 most historically significant events. Students explain the reasons for their selection.
Groups reconsider their selection based on the guiding questions provided below, and confirm or revise their list of the 10 most significant events.
Groups report to the class and explain their selection of the 10 most significant events. Comparisons are made.
Individual students choose one of the 10 most significant historical events selected by their group for detailed analysis using the guiding questions provided below.
Guiding Questions: Establish Historical significance
Is this event, person, or development historically significant? If so, why?
Who considers the event, person, or development significant, and why?
What do historians say about the significance of this person, event, or development? Do they agree or disagree (cite sources)?
What factors determine the historical significance of an event, person, or development?
What is the role of the media in establishing the historical significance of an event?
Does an event need to be dramatic in order to be significant? Explain your response.
Did this event have long-term consequences? Are the effects of this event still evident in some ways today?
Does this event uncover or reveal something surprising or unique about the past?
Has this event, person, or development been officially recognized by groups, organizations, or government as being significant?
Describe various forms of recognition of the historical importance of an event, person, or development (e.g., statues, street names, plaques, special days, museums, etc.).
Do you think these forms of recognition are valuable? Explain your response.
Do you think that this person, event, or development should be officially recognized as having historical significance? Why or why not? How should this event, person, or development be recognized?
It has been said that history is written by winners, and that all other voices are silenced (e.g., indigenous people, women, ethnocultural minorities, and gay/lesbian/transgendered people). Find examples of this way of determining significance. Find examples of how historians have succeeded in changing this approach.
To what extent does the identification of events, persons, or developments as historically significant depend upon the story one is trying to relate?
What story, and whose story, is this historian, account, or group seeking to tell?
To what extent does the identification of events, persons, or developments as historically significant depend upon the story one is trying to relate?
Resouces:
Pivotal Events in Hartney and Cameron provides a comprehensive outline of the events that shaped the community.
http://www.hartneyheritage.ca/events/index.html
Supplementary Information in the form of Photos, Maps, Documents, and Newspaper Articles catalogued at:
http://www.hartneyheritage.ca/education/index.html