In Defense of Socialized Procedures

Teachers of history (like all teachers) have a tool kit that holds all their methods and techniques and that allows them to construct a proper history lesson. This article proposes putting a tool into this kit that is generally missing from its contents. This tool supposedly belongs to the tool kit of a different subject teacher: the teacher of literature. It proposes that history teachers adopt theories and practices from the realm of literature studies and add them to their toolboxes. These will help them to tell interesting history stories in the classroom if they so choose. The article offers two stories, one written by a historian, and the second, told by a historian in class. The two historical stories are analyzed to reveal a range of literary techniques that were enlisted by their authors to create interest among their readers or listeners.