This document discusses identifying the historical importance and significance of texts. It provides criteria that historians use to establish the significance of events, such as relevance to people at the time, durability of impact, and profundity of impact. The document also discusses using inquiry-led approaches to teaching historical significance and provides examples of criteria students can use to examine the memory significance of past events, including symbolic significance and lessons drawn for the present.

1. Identification of the
Historical Importance of
the Text
Lesson 3
READING IN PHILIPPINE HISTORY

2. Historical text informs the reader about key
events and important people from the past
Historical text gives the reader an
understanding of what led up to the
important events in history
Examples of historical text are: nonfiction
history books, autobiographies, biographies,
historical research websites, diaries, social
studies/history textbooks, past newspapers,
encyclopedia

3. There are a number of criteria that historians’ use that can
be applied to establish the significance of events.
Relevance to people living at the time
Resonance to people’s experience, beliefs or situations at
the time
Relevance to an increased understanding of the present-
day
Remarked on by people at the time and since
Remembered within the collective memory of a group
Revealing of some other aspect of the past
Results that have consequences for the future
Durability – for how long people’s lives were affected
Quantity – how many lives were affected
Profundity – how deeply people’s lives were affected

4. Some examples of teaching
significance Use enquiry led
approaches in the teaching of
historical significance. The
opportunity to investigate more
fully during an enquiry helps
students achieve a better
understanding of the historical
context of an event as well as its
subsequent significance.

5. An enquiry focused on memory significance where
events and individuals from the past have become
part of the collective memory of a group or groups in
society. Students would explore how the memory of
past events can be reconstructed and used for
present day purposes.
The students will use the following criteria to
attribute significance to the remembrance of the
past event or individual. Teacher discusses each of
the criteria with the students and asks questions to
clarify their ideas.

6. •The criteria in this exercise have been
adopted from Teaching History Volume 129
Events which are of personal
interest; Which groups of people would
see the event as significant today?How are
the students connected to the event, for
example through family or religious,
cultural, or ancestral connections?
Students could examine personal stories
about the event to identify contemporary
significance for them and their
communities.

7. Symbolic significance; use of particular events for
present-day national or Patriotic justification for
example exploring ideas about;
What national holidays mean to some groups in
society and what makes them significant?
Does the use of symbols, uniforms or flags to
remember an event or the presence of politicians
and religious leaders mean that an event is
worthy of significance?
Contemporary lessons; Use of historical events to
draw simplistic analogies to events in the present and
to justify and guide actions today

8. Exposing students to the way in which events
have been portrayed in images, videos, music and
song and documents and the influence these can
have on people’s memories of the events today.
To realise why events have significance
attributed to them at the time and subsequently.
It is only when a student matures that they realise
that assigning significance involves explanation
as well as value judgement.
There is no need with younger students to use all
the criteria. In fact using a small number to drive
an enquiry can be just as effective in developing
student’s historical understanding.

9. A Level
Due to time constraints it may be a good idea
to match the strategies to the type of
examination questions which require the
students to make judgments require them to
examine significance
Students could use sources on a topic to
discover whether contemporary views had
the same view of significance as later
historians. The students could apply the
following criteria to help them to make their
judgments

10. Remarkable :The event was remarked on by
people at the time or since
Remembered: The event/development was
important at some stage within the collective
memory of a group or groups
Resonant: People like to make analogies with
it; it is possible to connect with experiences,
beliefs or attitudes across time and place
Resulting in Change: It had consequences
for the future
Revealing: of some other aspects of the
past.

11. Assessing the historical value and
significance of sources
In judging the significance of a source in
informing what happened in the past,
students often fail to take appropriate
account of the influence of context,
contemporary insights and hindsight in
evaluating the interpretation which the
source offers.

12. This lesson aims to help students to
critically evaluate a range of sources
in terms of their significance (i.e. their
value and usefulness to historians). In
the activity students are asked to use
contextual knowledge to reach
substantiated judgements about the
significance of each source in
illuminating the question, bearing in
mind

13. the date authorship, audience,
perspective and motives of each
source; that sources may be significant
at the time or have significance
attributed to them subsequently by
historians that the degree of
significance is a matter of
interpretation, often related to the
value systems of the period in which
the interpretation was produced.

14. Students examine the sources and
discuss
What types of sources are these?
What is being commemorated?
What is the contextual background?
What are the key messages from the
sources?
In what ways may these messages/
purposes relate to contemporary
events?