Building Citizen Historians: Teaching Historical Analysis of Statues on Public Lands

As Americans contend with the question of which statues and markers belong (or don't) on public land, government leaders, civic groups, and citizens must be prepared to engage these conversations and answer a range of related questions. In this article, the authors view arguments over public statues--statues of persons that reside on public lands--as opportunities to develop students' historical thinking and civic capacity. The authors extend relevant ideas from previously published articles but with an emphasis on the historical reasoning skills and classroom practices required to engage in meaningful discourse about public statues. The authors distinguish history from heritage and outline a method for classroom-based inquiry. They provide example resources and a graphic organizer to help teachers envision similar historical inquiries that align with the C3 Framework's Dimensions 2 and 3. While the focus is exclusively on public statues of historical people, many of the considerations also apply to monuments of events (e.g., battles) or ideas (e.g., religious symbolism).