“History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again.” -Maya Angelou

“Anybody can make history. Only a great man can write it.” -Oscar Wilde

“One faces the future with one’s past.” -Pearl S. Buck

“A lawyer without history is a mechanic, a mere working mason; if he possesses some knowledge of these, he may venture to call himself an architect.”
- Sir Walter Scott

“History is a guide to navigation in perilous times. History is who we are and why we are the way we are.” -David C. McCullough

“All history becomes subjective; in other words there is properly no history, just biography.” -Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Read no history: nothing but biography, for that is life without theory.”
-Benjamin Disraeli

When I first saw the focus for this issue I thought, “This will be an easy topic to write about. History and language arts go together like peanut butter and jelly, like movies and popcorn, or like an English teacher planning to teach a certain piece of text.” You can’t teach Miller’s “The Crucible” without paralleling it to McCarthyism as a catalyst for students’ comprehension. You can’t teach Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird” without discussing the policy of segregation with students, can you? Of course, you can—but will your students really understand why Tom Robinson is found guilty or why Atticus Finch demonstrates heroism if you don’t? Collaborating with a history teacher who has the same students or grade level can make it easier, but this isn’t always possible. Therefore, many English teachers study and incorporate history to enrich and expand students’ comprehension of the text. Thus, history and language arts go hand-in-hand; however, an English teacher’s definition of history includes many nuances, and the quotes above reflect a myriad of definitions.

Biographical information as a kind of history enhances comprehension. Authors write what they know, and purposely inform, persuade, entertain, compare and contrast, provide examples, define, narrate, provide process analysis, describe, classify and demonstrate cause and effect to elicit insight and understanding from the reader. To fully comprehend an author’s style and/or the meaning of a specific text, for example, it helps the reader to know something about the author as a point of departure.

Readers and writers use history or prior knowledge as a strategy for making connections in their reading and to provide fluency in their writing. Teachers build upon students’ prior knowledge by an articulation of the standards and texts in prior grades and by surveying their students on a regular basis. Understanding and making meaning in text is enriched by using these methods. For example, when reading The Known World, by Edward P. Jones, my understanding is enriched because I have also read such texts as The Narrative of Frederick Douglass, The Souls of Black Folks, Beloved, Roots, and Kindred. As teachers, we need to continue to provide this same kind of opportunity for our students to promote comprehension and fluency. We need to endow their history with depth and breadth. We don’t need to invent the wheel, just figure out ways to make it roll better.

As teachers, we create our own history and build upon year after year. However, based upon our experiences, our professional “history,” we must continue to revise our pedagogy. This revision and reflection is healthy and necessary if we are to keep abreast of what is working for our students and what isn’t. One way we can continue to revise is to continuously educate ourselves. CATE has a history of staying contemporary, eliciting conversations and providing quality professional development.

Another way that we can continue to learn is to articulate with our peers within the English curriculum and outside of the English curriculum. Time is always an issue, but I learn so much from observing and talking to my peers. Articulating with other curricular areas and making group decisions to incorporate similar reading, writing and thinking strategies can only help our students be more successful. Action research is also a very productive way to learn what is working and what isn’t in our classrooms, and reflect and revise accordingly. Learn from your students today and apply it to what you will do tomorrow or next month or next year. Biographical narratives by teachers in the classroom are very engaging, and provide another resource as we continue to create our own professional history. Finally, learn from teachers new to the profession. Learn to listen instead of instruct; learn to collaborate rather than pontificate. They, too, must create their own history, and your role will make all the difference for them and for you.

Yes, there is a myriad of definitions of history within our classrooms and within our own lives. When I sat down to plan this perspective I soon realized that this topic is not as easy to write about as I originally thought—process never is. History does have a foundation in English and vice versa, but understanding “who we are and why we are the way we are” as readers, writers and thinkers is much more difficult.