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Exploring
Historical Interpretations
 n
my article Historical Knowledge and Interpretations
I proposed an approach to teaching for an understanding of historical
interpretations that can be summarised as follows:
- Interpretations
are generalised statements or judgements about the past.
- Pupils
can construct interpretations using evidence about the past from historical
sources.
- Because
evidence about the past is at best incomplete and often fragmentary,
it follows that:
- interpretations
formed in this way can only be provisional
- more
than one interpretation of a past event or state of affairs is
possible
- This
in turn enables pupils to explain how and why interpretations differ.
- How
good is the hypothesis? Pupils can test or evaluate the hypothesis
they have created but not - obviously - by using the sources they
have used to construct it. They have to test using a wider range
of sources.
These are
all contained in the following exercise dealing with the impact of the
Wars of the Roses. It could be used either as the final part of the
Year 7 programme of study (Wales and Britain in the Medieval World 1000-1500
AD) or as part of a thematic study of 'War and Society'. Alternatively,
the approach could be adapted and applied to any historical controversy.
 The
Sources
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