| About the NHP Newberry Library Programs for Teachers Dr. Wm. M. Scholl Center for Family & Community History |
The Historian's Chair
This "Historian's Chair" was adapted from the National Writing Project’s "Writer’s Chair." As in the writing project, the Historians Chair places each participant in front of the group to present a coherent piece of work—lesson plan, interpretation, or primary source analysis. Participants described this experience as both difficult but ultimately very rewarding.Using Quicktime, you can watch Richard Mertz take his turn in the historian's chair. In the first clip (1.4 megs) he discusses the problems he had with his first project. In the second clip (2 megs), Mertz describes how he transitioned from his first to his second project.
“These sessions were so valuable because they brought to the fore issues with which many of us struggle. The expectation of a public presentation of our work kept everyone on point and forced us to articulate a structured approach to a discrete historical question. As teachers, it had been a while since many of us had to answer questions 'in the hot seat,' making a defense of ourselves as history practitioners, accepting the constructive criticisms of our peers. A good experience, no doubt. It also forced us to ask again what constitutes good history, what is history’s value and how do we communicate that.”
“While in the historian’s chair, we received valuable feedback about further questions to ask and resources to use in our research. Furthermore, by explaining our work to the class – the majority of whom had not read our actual paper – we also learned whether our thesis was clear and coherent. Throughout the process of the Historian’s Chair, the class acquired a rich variety of primary source material.”