Historiography is often overlooked as a fascinating subject by most contemporary students, whether in the secondary history classroom or undergraduate course. Some sense of the changing historical interpretation of a topic such as Reconstruction may be provided through contrasting passages from a modern history text with earlier editions of books…

Describes a year-long elective film course in modern U.S. history for twelfth grade students. Explains course methodology and objectives. Analyzes selected films to illustrate how the course elucidates the consensus-conflict theme in U.S. history since the 1930s and enhances student understanding of Hollywood's perspective on gender, race, and…