ABSTRACT
Fascination with history can depend on what history the students read and how it is written. Different depictions of the same event have different impacts on the reader. Differences can be in style, in emphasis on significance, in emotional impact, or in factual accuracy. An effective and enlightening exercise for students is to study a relatively minor event in history by reading accounts in several sources. They then analyze the accounts, choose the one they prefer, and explain to a classmate why they prefer it. Once this exercise has been repeated at least once, they write their own accounts of an event after reading several depictions and share their writing with other students cooperatively. The criterion for critique becomes the degree to which the writing interests others in learning more about the event. Style, significance, and emotional content are the key factors in arousing interest, and the “facts” are emphasized as subjects for corroboration through inquiry.
