History courses have a lot of pertinent information to cover across their curriculum. There are a plethora of names, places, ideas, religions, etc. That a historical educator can cover. This is simply known as “coverage.” Teaching a history class where the only focus is on how much material you can, or have to cover, is actually hurting students from being able to truly get a grasp on what history is all about. This is where the idea of “uncoverage” comes into play. Uncoverage is the act of piecing together history by analyzing related, but incomplete, information about the past, and attempting to rationalize it. This practice allows students to be able to critically think about history, and practice how actual historians deal with evidence. Asking the students to figure out the “why” behind a historical event happened, and how it was important, allows students to discover information on their own, and come to their own conclusions. I believe that this is one of the best ways to cover history because instead of teaching a narrative, you are now asking students to develop their own. This not only would get students to want to engage with history more, as now they are actually involved in it; but also allows for more creativity in teaching history. As mentioned earlier this method of “uncoverage” allows students to practice being a historian, it also teaches why history is important. It allows a teacher to help students learn how historical narratives have changed over time, and why/how it is still evolving. It instills within the students that they are now a part of history, and included in this ever-changing story of history. I also believe that this assists teachers when planning their lessons. Uncoverage demands that a teacher thinks about the overarching concepts, and end goals, of a unit or lesson. It works very well with the idea of “backward design.” Once a teacher knows the end goals, they can begin to think of questions and topics that will help their students reach those goals. Once this is done the teacher can begin to implement effective activities, such as exit tickets. With exit tickets, students can be asked to recall/address the main themes that were covered that day. If the teacher efficiently reviews the data these tickets provide, the teacher can quickly see if a certain theme was grasped by which students, and provide useful feedback if needed.
The fact that history courses contain an abundance of possible information for an educator to cover is stand out. Yes, it is important to cover as much of history as one can but making sure that the students fully grasp what you are teaching is more important. Students must be actively engaged and practice what they are learning. This is what learning is all about, after all. By not placing such a burden of “coverage” on teachers it definitely can benefit them in being more effective. A teacher must know their goals first to implement them as well! Making sure that the students are following along is vital to a beneficial classroom environment.
Something I really like about the uncoverage method is how it allows students to learn things on their own. When students effectively learn the themes and attitudes from some times throughout history they begin to understand trends throughout history. This means that they understand the important themes of history without having to know every single detail.
While history may include an extreme amount of data, I think that finding the “most important” content should be based around relevance to students today. As you mentioned, having students engage with the information critically can help them reach the conclusions that are relevant to their lives.