Several historians and history educators have also identified another challenge for grade school students as they encounter historical narratives, particularly biographies and autobiographies, in their history classrooms (Barton & Levstik, 2004; Brophy & VanSledright, 1997; McDiarmid, 1994). When historical narrative of individual motivation and achievement is presented as the primary window into the past, students have shown the tendency to see the actions of the one or two people being studied as single-handedly changing the lives of massive numbers of others. As a result, students do not see as clearly the collective actions and the role of societal institutions in the shaping of history.
What would be an indicator to you that your students were not seeing the extraordinary individuals they were studying in a broader context of history? What might you do to assure they were seeing the whole picture and not biased by the influence of this one person?