Teaching historical literacies to digital learners via popular culture

Abstract

We argue that students can understand an historical period by building on the foundations of their existing knowledge. Specifically, popular media can be used to develop students’ historical literacies – that is their ability to engage with past societies vastly different from their own. Our methodology takes inspiration from the ancient Romans’ own partial literacies and utilises pedagogy drawn from Classical Reception Studies, which examines how the ancient world has been subsequently reinvented in everything from poetry to cinema. While traditional methods of teaching Classics potentially alienate learners and entrench the discipline’s elitism, we advocate learning about the past from a point of familiarity. Harnessing familiar texts and platforms to teach history can engage non-traditional learners and develop their historical literacies by leveraging pre-existing digital literacies. Furthermore, digital pedagogy fosters in students a sense that they can valuably contribute to disciplinary knowledge by recontextualising ancient sources.

Developing democracy and citizenship with literary texts about the First World War

“…Using the texts allowed the learners to be curious about past lives, an example being the questions the learners wanted to ask the characters. However, while the findings are in line with what Evans and Midford (2021) suggest, that working with texts about history may promote curiosity about the past, it is evident that the learners' limited knowledge of the First World War restricted their in-depth development of historical literacy. Nevertheless, the texts opened up for learning about history, and an example is Ruth who referred to Gallipoli.…”

“…They taught the war as a topic in German and found that reading literary texts about it shifted "the level of discourse beyond functional oral language use (typical of most communicative classrooms) to classroom discussions that cultivate competence in critical framing, interpretation, collaboration, problem solving, and reflection" (Redmann & Sederberg, 2017, p. 50). Another study, by Evans and Midford (2021), found that literary texts about history are more accessible to learners than factual historical texts and they argue that literary texts engage learners in the historical backdrop the texts are placed in.…”

La enseñanza de las ciencias sociales para una ciudadanía digital. Estudio interdisciplinar sobre alfabetización mediática en los currículos de Educación Secundaria

“…Algunos estudios valoran el contenido digital histórico como representación de una cultura popular que se puede utilizar para desarrollar la alfabetización histórica de los estudiantes. Es decir, su capacidad para relacionarse con sociedades pasadas muy diferentes a la propia da buenos resultados cuando se utilizan aspectos de la cultura popular (Evans y Midford, 2021). Fuentes y Ambròs (2020) revelan como los estudios de cine e historia son un instrumento para promover el análisis crítico y empático de la competencia ciudadana, y abogan por la inclusión de la educación mediática y la alfabetización cinematográfica dentro de la educación formal histórica.…”