Helping post-16 students to make judgements about an historian’s construction of argument

Frustrated that her A-level students were being overly dismissive when asked to judge the convincingness of academic historians’ arguments, Paula Worth drew on previous history-teacher research and theories of history for inspiration. After noting that her students would unjustly reject esteemed historians’ accounts for lack of comprehensiveness, Worth explains here how she helped her students overcome their cynicism by making clear to them the necessary choices historians must make when selecting evidence to construct their historical interpretations. She details how in furnishing them with the language of tentativeness derived from authentic historical discourse she was able to help her students move from blanket judgements to reach more nuanced critiques of the particular claims that historians make.