Passive Receivers or Constructive Readers? Pupils' Experiences of an Encounter with Academic History

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Bibliographic Details
Title: Passive Receivers or Constructive Readers? Pupils' Experiences of an Encounter with Academic History
Language: English
Authors: Foster, Rachel
Source: Teaching History. Mar 2011 (142):4-13.
Availability: Historical Association. 59a Kennington Park Road, London, SE11 4JH, UK. Tel: +44-300-100-0223; Fax: +44-20-7582-4989; e-mail: enquiries@history.org.uk; Website: http://www.history.org.uk
Peer Reviewed: Y
Physical Description: PDF
Page Count: 10
Publication Date: 2011
Document Type: Journal Articles
Reports - Research
Descriptors: History Instruction, Academic Discourse, Student Attitudes, Reader Text Relationship, Concept Formation, Persuasive Discourse, Teaching Methods, Death, Jews, Scaffolding (Teaching Technique)
ISSN: 0040-0610
Abstract: Rachel Foster reports here on research that she conducted into how students engage with academic texts. Unhappy with the usual range of texts that students encounter, often truncated and "simplified" in the name of accessibility, she designed a scheme of work which sought to find out how her students responded to academic texts, and how these responses might best be characterised. Existing attempts to explain the difficulties that students face in understanding academic texts have, Foster found, tended to focus either on students' literacy or their conceptual understanding. Foster decided instead that students' understandings of the discipline of history directly affected how they approached the text, as well as the text affecting their understanding of disciplinary history. This symbiotic relationship, Foster argues, may ask history teachers to rethink the way in which historical argument is approached in the classroom. (Contains 5 figures.)
Abstractor: As Provided
Number of References: 25
Entry Date: 2011
Access URL: https://www.history.org.uk/resources/secondary_resource_4635_12.html
Accession Number: EJ944233
Database: ERIC
Description
Abstract:Rachel Foster reports here on research that she conducted into how students engage with academic texts. Unhappy with the usual range of texts that students encounter, often truncated and "simplified" in the name of accessibility, she designed a scheme of work which sought to find out how her students responded to academic texts, and how these responses might best be characterised. Existing attempts to explain the difficulties that students face in understanding academic texts have, Foster found, tended to focus either on students' literacy or their conceptual understanding. Foster decided instead that students' understandings of the discipline of history directly affected how they approached the text, as well as the text affecting their understanding of disciplinary history. This symbiotic relationship, Foster argues, may ask history teachers to rethink the way in which historical argument is approached in the classroom. (Contains 5 figures.)
ISSN:0040-0610