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Review
| Past Present & Personal: Teaching Writing in U. S. History by William C. Kashatus. Portsmouth , NH: Heinemann, 2002. 144 pages. $17.00
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| On a recent trip to the Republic of Croatia, I shared William Kashatus's book Past Present & Personal; Teaching Writing in U. S. History with Helena Strugar, a recently graduated history teacher from Zagreb University. Looking at the table of contents, she said, "This is a good book. This is exactly what I was taught in my college courses. I was specifically trained in the writing of position papers." Helena proved to be correct. This is a good book. In the forward, Gary Nash laments that he "didn't like history much in high school, but I did like writing." Nash praises the author for his effort because Past, Present & Personal offers a precise blueprint on how to teach writing in United States history classes and does so "with spirit, self-criticism, imagination, and good humor." |
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William C. Kashatus labored for fifteen years in Philadelphia schools as a history teacher before moving on to become a professor at West Chester University. There, he perfected his craft by teaching writing in his American history classes. Although his book is aimed at high school audiences, it provides much of use for undergraduate courses. He divides this work into three sections: past, present, and personal, and focuses on a particular genre of writing for each subtitle. For the past, Kashatus has students analyze primary sources—treatises, declarations, speeches, broadsides, letters, photographs, and cartoons. He takes the wonderful work developed over the years by the National Archives staff in their "primarily teaching documents" programs and teaching kits one-step further. He not only trains students in the use of guide sheets to analyze documents, but also how to use the documents to perfect outlining and express their thoughts on paper. These activities, designed by Kashatus, become Document-Based Question exercises which Advance Placement students could follow. Early in the school year, students become familiar with the notion of writing about history as a learned skill which will take time to develop. |
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In the section on "present" history, students are taught how to formulate an argument for, and to write, develop, revise, and assess a position paper using local history themes and topics. Those practitioners of Clio who teach Advanced Placement courses or have students who are planning to enter History Day competitions will particularly enjoy this section because Kashatus shows the reader what he does, and how he does it in his course. This section, undoubtedly influenced by the recent "standards movement," becomes a manual for conducting local history research, developing a thesis statement, selecting a topic, taking notes, and formalizing a research paper. As in the other sections of the book, Kashatus utilizes examples of students' work to illustrate his main themes about writing. His assessments and evaluation of students' work utilize terms such as, chronological thinking, comprehension, interpretation, issues analysis, and decision-making. The section ends with the evaluation of two research papers, minutely examined and assessed one portion at a time. The author use of actual students' examples is commendable because he shows how he evaluates and assesses each piece. He not only illustrates excellent work students have produced but also work which is not as good in order to show that the maturing process of writing and expressing oneself takes place over time. In addition, the concept of peer evaluation, long understood in the language arts curriculum, is detailed in this section. |
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The personal history section completes the student's introduction to the writing process. Living history, oral history, simulations, journal writing, portfolios, and even service learning activities are detailed as further examples of how to use writing in the history classroom. At first, this last section almost seems out-of-place until the reader is given examples of how these teaching methods can be used in historical writing. The author's use of service learning as a genre is most creative and innovative. Projects are tied to some specific forms of writing that each requires a need for thoughtful reflection. |
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David McCullough once remarked, "You don't really know [history] until you write it...to write well is to think clearly...you have an idea, you have an insight...that you never would have if it hadn't been required of you to write." This is what William Kashatus probably had in mind when he wrote Past, Present, & Personal: Teaching Writing in U. S. History. More than any other skill, writing can help students achieve their educational objectives. As Helena said, "this is a good book" and teacher-historians will find some excellent ideas in Past, Present & Personal. |
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| Maryland Center for the Study of History |
James F. Adomanis |
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