History Detectives
By John Fuchs

The mystery that still surrounds the destruction of The Maine proved to be a perfect situation to help students hone their detective skills.

What social studies teacher hasn't heard the refrain, "Who cares what happened 100 years ago?" Unfortunately, teachers often play into that mistaken notion by lecturing their students about the importance of the past rather than allowing students to discover for themselves the significance of past events.

I speak from experience – for most of my teaching life, I utilized a lecturing format in my American Studies classes. I prided myself on raising questions about who did what and why they might have done it, but the fact was that it was I, not the students, who was exercising critical thinking skills. Occasionally, I used lesson plans that called upon students to analyze information and it was like pulling teeth to get responses. If this "logical inquiry" approach was to work, I realized I had to come up with a strategy to get the students interested and involved. I then had to zero in on skills that average eighth graders could master.

Remember The Maine. The "detective" strategy I decided upon stemmed from observing my eighth graders heatedly debating the O.J. Simpson murder trial during their lunch hour. I was surprised to hear so many students who rarely offered an opinion in class, suggesting possible suspects and motives for the crime. More encouraging still was the give and take of the students challenging the various hypotheses put forth. It seemed plausible that I could use the same approach to motivate students to explore the whys and hows of historical events. Since we were about to cover the Spanish-American War, I decided to try out the detective approach with the mystery surrounding the destruction of the battleship, The Maine.

Good gumshoes. I began by listing the time, date, place and circumstances of the explosion that rocked The Maine. I asked the students to consider all the possibilities that could have resulted in the sinking of the ship. At first, they reacted sluggishly, saying only that it could have been the Spanish. Then someone suggested that it may have been an accident, like the plane that had recently exploded over Long Island, NY. Someone said, "I don't think that was an accident, it could've been terrorists." "But," I asked, "terrorists from which country and what could have been the motive?" "Cuba," a student responded. "Their motive was maybe to get people to blame Spain for the attack and then maybe they'd get help from the United States."

Now the class was into it. "You mean," asked another student incredulously, "that they would kill innocent people, just to get people angry at Spain?" "It worked, didn't it?" asked the first student.

Before long we had identified five possibilities. Like a good detective, I wrote them on the blackboard in the order the students presented them: the Spanish, an accident, Cuban revolutionaries, American adventurers, European rivals of Spain. Next to each possibility I wrote the word "WHY." The student who suggested the hypothesis was asked to present a reason why that country – or faction therein – might have committed the act. Often the student who presented the possibility was helped by other students who suggested additional reasons for the sabotage. My primary function during this time was to raise the question of whether the student responses were logical. Thus, when a student suggested that the explosion could've been the work of an American who owned land in Cuba, I asked him to explain how the explosion would benefit the landowner.

Presenting the evidence. As the class progressed, more and more students began challenging the theories put forth by their classmates. Satisfied that the students understood the importance of questioning each hypothesis, I moved onto the next phase of the lesson plan. For homework, each student was to select one of the possibilities on the board (or one of his or her own) and use additional research and their reasoning powers to write an essay defending their choice.

The following day was devoted to group analysis. I started by presenting each possibility to the class and gathering the supporters of that possibility into a group at the front of the room. If anyone in the group had come up with additional evidence to support his or her case, he or she presented it to the class. Having done that, I instructed the class to first check the correctness of the facts they had heard and then to determine if the facts, properly arranged, lead to the conclusion that the aforementioned group or country could have performed the act.

What's your theory? I was careful to note that what we were attempting to do was not to prove absolutely that one group or country did the deed but whether, after studying a particular theory, it still remained a possibility. This was the most difficult aspect of the lesson plan. Only two of the five possibilities were judged to be unreasonable by the class. The other three had survived the test of logic. Now the students wanted me to determine which was the correct choice. It occurred to me that perhaps the analyzing skills were beyond eighth graders. But we'd come so far and the kids were so into the lesson, to have stopped then would have disheartened and disappointed them. Rather than scrapping it, I compromised. I decided not to expect or demand thorough analyses – that was clearly beyond their abilities. But the kids were capable of doing some analysis, such as determining that a country had little or no motive to act or that there was very little evidence to link a country with the deed, and I picked up on their ability to do this.

The role of the historian. I concluded the lesson plan by explaining that sometimes the causes of an event are never fully known. The role of the historian and of history students is to examine the evidence carefully, continually search for new evidence and weigh it over and over. I passed around a magazine article that suggested that evidence uncovered in the 1900s supports the likelihood that the explosion was the work of Cuban guerrillas. However, this remains uncertain as there is still not enough hard evidence.

The give and take over who blew up The Maine carried over to the larger question – why did the United States declare war on Spain? I was surprised when the students responded by immediately asking me to write down their possible reasons on the blackboard. I was pleased when the list reached seven possibilities and delighted when the kids began to poke holes in each other's guesses. Sherlock Holmes would've been proud!

John Fuchs, now retired, taught social studies and language arts for many years in New York and Vermont.

October 2006, Vol.37, No.2