Storytelling can be an engaging component of history education and historical thinking. Telling a compelling story and using film or digital projects allows learners to interact with history differently reading based learning. Making history entertaining does not diminish it but can offer an opportunity to approach a subject differently. In a learning environment, film and digital storytelling can be the launching point for working on historical thinking and analysis.
When I taught leadership to ensigns a lifetime ago, we usually ended the course with a movie about leadership and crisis, from The Caine Mutiny to 12 O’clock High. These work well to lead into a capstone type discussion for while they entertained – Bogart and strawberries is funny on the surface – they opened further discussion points on crisis leadership, relationships, and followership. A tool for learning history and historical thinking, films can do the same thing. I reviewed Hacksaw Ridge for an assignment, and it would be an intriguing one for a class. Were I teaching it, I would tee up assignments relating to conscientious observers, reading first-hand accounts of the Pacific campaign, discussion of attitudes toward the Japanese, and the toll of the war on the home front. Another potential topic is what is left out. The movies tight focus on Private Doss and his company did not afford a look at another part of the tragedy at Okinawa, the mass suicide of civilians afraid of what the American troops may do to them.
Part of the assignment would be learning about Bedford, Virginia, home to a memorial to the “Bedford Boys” who died on D-Day and the National D-Day Memorial. Bedford is a typical small town, but in June of 1944 suffered the highest per capita loss on the beaches of Normandy.
Film and digital history projects can bring a different perspective and, hopefully, develop empathy. It is a very human reaction to identify with the characters in a story, so that can be channeled into a wider view of the world being portrayed as well as the challenges faced by the people living in it. Creating digital history projects also allow students to engage with material differently, thinking about not only the sourced information, but thinking about the audio and visual representation of the subject.
Dismissing film and digital projects as space fillers in a learning environment misses out on an opportunity to take history off the pages and encourage interest in further learning.
