Historical Literacies: Toward a More Expansive, Hybrid, and Critical View of Disciplinary Literacy in History

• In Event: Fairmont Roundtable Session Twelve
  In Roundtable Session: Historical Inquiry Through Literacy Practices (Table 18)

Abstract

Sam Wineburg’s (1991) historical thinking heuristics have become the dominant disciplinary literacy paradigm for history teaching, research, and reform in the North American context for the past three decades. Wineburg’s theorization of disciplinary literacy rests largely upon the notion of history as a scientific, objective, and academic inquiry into “what happened in the past”; a static and normative perspective that neglects the ontological and cultural functions of history. This has contributed to a constricted empirical focus and subsequently narrowed teaching practices. This paper incorporates alternative theorizations of historical practice (Rusen, 1993; Seixas, 2017), combined with insights gleaned from sociocultural theories of literacy, to propose a new theorization of disciplinary practice that makes room for multiple, hybrid, and fluid historical literacies.

Author

• Alina Lewis, University at Albany - SUNY
  Presenting Author