Exploring Nature and Elements of Historical Literacy as Practical Historical Consciousness

This study aims to elucidate the nature and elements of ‘historical literacy as practical historical consciousness’. The practicality discernible in historical texts can be divided into the practicality of historical agents, text authors, and learners. ‘Reading the practicality of the historical agent’ is to explore the purpose he/she wanted to achieve through the recognition of the historical situation and the analysis of his actions. ‘Reading the text author’s practicality’ focuses on inferring why the author selected the contents in the text and construct the text in such way. ‘Reading the learner’s practicality’ is reading the text in light of the social problem he/she is trying to solve. These aspects of practicality and the interaction between knowledge, inquiry and historical consciousness must be considered and the critical perspective should be involved in extracting the elements that constitute historical literacy. This study’s attempt to concretize the meaning of historical literacy around practicality may offer meaningful insights for reconstructing the teaching and learning of historical literacy around activities connected to students’ lives.