Teaching critical thinking and voice in history essays: A spiderweb tool

Abstract

Background: The history essay, and historical writing, are crucial forms of assessment in History throughout primary and high school education. This article draws from an autoethnography of teachings in a pre-service history teachers’ school classroom. This article discusses obstacles students experience in conceptualising and writing the history essay. A tool is introduced to overcome these obstacles. Aim: This article presents a possible intervention in the form of a classroom tool. Setting: This classroom tool is presented in a pre-service history teachers classroom (tertiary). It is presented as a method to teach history in classrooms of senior phase (SP), intermediate phase (IP), and further education and training (FET) phase. Methods: This article uses a qualitative methodology that draws on autoethnography and reflective teaching methodology, allowing me to understand and analyse the processes taking place in my own classroom. This was authorised with an ethics protocol number (H18/10/10). Results: The observations from the case study class showed that the tool provided possibilities for understanding the mediation of knowledge used in an essay, in a way that facilitates critical thinking and voice. Conclusion: This tool provides a possible class intervention that can range from primary to high school. It allows teachers to understand what levels their students’ thought need to operate on to teach essay and paragraph writing. Contribution: This spiderweb tool can be used directly in class to demonstrate how the different points of knowledge relate to each other in making an argument. This supports critical thinking and the development of voice.