Historical Thinking Concepts

Historical Significance:

• Historians study historical significance to understand why current people even care about certain events, trends, and issues in history.
• People, items, and events have historical significance if they shed light on time period in which they exist.

Cause and Consequence:

• This historical thinking concept examines how or why certain conditions and actions led to others.
• It is important to understand that change occurs as a result of multiple causes, which can often have multiple consequence.

Continuity and change:

• Looking at continuity and change means describing what has changed and what has remained the same over time throughout history.
• Continuity and change are not mutually exclusive, meaning they can coexist.
• Both progress and decline are examples of change over time.

Historical Perspective:

• Understanding the past from many different historical perspectives is very important because it often gives you a very different "take" on an historical event or situation.
• Taking on different lenses such as social, cultural, intellectual, and emotional contexts helps you better understand how people act and react to situations.