Best Practices 101

How Many Ways Can You Use a Textbook?

1. as an excuse, OR

2. as a weight to build up flabby arm muscles OR

3. a doorstop, OR

4. to illustrate bad writing OR

5. as one of many sources of historical information for your students.

A strategy called OUT [Opening Up the Textbook], developed at Stanford University, helps students use the textbook as one source rather than the only source of information. This technique focuses on using small passages from the text juxtaposed with other texts so students can compare them. The combination of multiple texts with differing perspectives allows students to gain a better understanding of the process of historiography. Rather than accept the account of history as filtered through the lens of textbook writers and their committees, these differing accounts can open student eyes to the variety of interpretations available about past events.

One way to use this technique is to find a primary source that is the subject of a small portion of the textbook. Examining the primary source and then evaluating the text's treatment of the event will give students the opportunity to judge for themselves the validity of the textbook's interpretation of the event.

Another method is to compare multiple textbook accounts of the same event. Textbooks can be old and new, or published for classes of different levels, or even texts for different classes in the same discipline, i.e. world history and American history. How do these books tell the story of the same event? What parts are emphasized, and which are passed over lightly? What biases do the different authors have about the event?

A third method is to look at who is left out of the textbook narrative. Using the textbook and alternate sources, students can evaluate who or what is left out of the text narrative. Which voices are not being heard? Which participants in the story are included only in a sidebar? How did the authors decide who or what was important enough to include? How can the story be made more complete?

For more information about this technique, see the January 2010 issue of our newsletter.