In search of historical argument

Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.

Reflecting on his GCSE and post-16 students' essays, Michael Fordham began to wonder if there were something missing in the way he taught students to write. Work on structure that was designed to strengthen argument could just as easily do the opposite. All too often students were still not really engaging with the historical issues. Fordham decided that they needed to argue against something, to appraise or challenge other interpretations. Without this, they could not even enter into the essence of historical discourse. With this in mind, Fordham developed a ‘quest' in which Year 12 students had to take on and expose the weaknesses of increasingly crafty opponents-the straw man, the fiery dragon and the terrible sorcerer. Students relished the chance to demolish not only their own teacher's arguments but also those of real historians. Some of their writing took on a subtle change-it acknowledged and dealt with the existence of other historical arguments. In so doing, students showed that it was possible for their writing to acquire intrinsic purpose and dynamism.