Assessment and Imagination: How Do We Grade What Might Have Been?
A theme I’ve returned to in these blog posts is the imperative that students studying history should not only be thinking about what happened, but also grappling constructively with what did not happen. Learning about the American Revolution doesn’t just mean Lexington and Concord; it means coming to grips with how much did not change for many residents of the new Republic. Studying the Industrial Revolution is a practice that demands reading and learning about how life changed dramatically for workers and capitalists in the burgeoning cities, but it also requires sparking inquiry about how many fundamental power structures were reinforced, not upended.
Reconstruction is, in my view, a particularly important area of study when it comes to practicing this kind of critical inquiry. There is a natural tendency in American history instruction to tend towards a sort of broadly “Whiggish” view of history, the view that America’s story is a story of progress inexorably moving towards a greater good. A frank and honest examination of Reconstruction calls that narrative into question, and good lesson planning and assessment planning needs to evaluate whether or not students are meaningfully engaging with that critique. In other words, assessments and activities about this time period should be ones that foster critical thinking on the part of students as a means of assessing their proficiencies. Keeping in mind the principles of critical inquiry, here are a few assessment approaches which I believe encourage deeper thinking about this time period and the events that shaped it.
Reading and Writing For Inquiry:
Primary source analysis is a popular activity in almost every history classroom, and for good reason. It helps build reading and annotation skills with valuable cross-disciplinary applications and familiarizes students with the subject matter in an intimate way. But structuring valuable assessments around these activities in a way that fosters inquiry means taking some additional steps beyond the usual “guiding questions” approach. For example, students engaging with the words of Thaddeus Stevens (excerpt above) could read and annotate using fairly standard practices (i.e. highlight something that surprised you, underline something you’d like to learn more about, etc.). But a creative and evocative assessment might include the following activity: have the students write three to four sentences summarizing Stevens’ thoughts on Reconstruction and outlining some reasons why they think he might support the policies presented in the reading. Then, give the students some additional information about Stevens’ close relationship with his widowed housekeeper, a black woman named Lydia Hamilton Smith. Ask the students to write a few more sentences in light of this new information. How would this relationship color Stevens’ views? Is this relationship more of an explanation for his policies, or is it part of a broader philosophy of equality? If students raise some objections or concerns about the relationship, that’s all to the good; thinking about the past along multiple axes of power and privilege is a sign of real thinking and healthy discussion.
Opportunity for Moral Inquiry and Discussion
The image above comes from a PowerPoint slide which I used for a lesson on the Bleeding Kansas period, decades before Reconstruction. But I would reintroduce it as part of a quick formative assessment partway through a Reconstruction unit, with the purpose of asking students to reevaluate earlier thoughts on morality and legality. In light of the legal snares which served to cripple Reconstruction, do they see the zeal of men like John Brown in a different light? Or, on the contrary, was it the willingness to force a cause which the broader population was not ready to embrace which led the advocates of radical reconstruction astray? Some teachers hesitate to approach moral questions, afraid of backlash from parents or worried that they may inadvertently be indoctrinating their students. But I think that allowing students space to form their own opinions on moral topics pertaining to the material is very important. Firstly, because it gives students a chance to exercise agency and stake a claim on the material — it exercises their faculties for making arguments and considering counterarguments. Secondly, because it helps bring to light the emotional immediacy of history, doing something to rescue it from the dry, boring sequence of names and dates that students find tedious.
Resolving Contradictions
As part of an end-of-unit assessment, I would have students use Chromebooks to watch the video above (and provide a transcript) of a conversation between Abraham Lincoln and Thaddeus Stevens. The written assessment would consist of four questions. What is Stevens’ vision of Reconstruction as shown in this clip? What are some of Lincoln’s concerns? How did actual, historical Reconstruction mirror the views of both of these men? And should Reconstruction have taken a different approach than it did in history; could it have been more successful if it had been closer to the ideals of Stevens or of Lincoln (or should it have been more balanced)? Students would be encouraged to use their notes and outlines to help them with the assessment, the goal of which is to get students to meaningfully struggle with the tension between idealism and pragmatism — a fundamental problem of political history.
