What Children See: How Text and Images Shape Historical Understanding
By Florence Dadzoe
Content
Most people can recall their earliest history lessons when the past was presented in bright colors, simple stories, and engaging activities. These lessons were designed to be accessible and fun, offering children a clear and easy-to-follow version of history. For some students, this approach sparked excitement—the thrill of discovering new places, famous figures, and dramatic events. For others it made the subject forgettable. Whether exciting or dull, these early encounters quietly shape how many of us first learn to think about the past.
For Gretchen Hohmeyer, a PhD candidate in the Department of Teacher Education and Curriculum Studies, those lessons never sparked an interest in American history. Despite her fascination with world history—from a childhood dream of becoming an Egyptologist to explorations of Japanese history and Chinese dynasties—the American stories felt disconnected from real life. They seemed more like lessons about historical figures than living narratives.
Her disinterest was not unusual: Many children disengage from history when it is broken into pieces, simplified, or presented without narrative connections that help them understand how events, people, and ideas fit together. Yet for Gretchen, this changed years later—not because of a classroom experience, but because of what was happening around her.
In 2016, keeping up with the presidential election, listening to Hamilton, and reading Ron Chernow's biography prompted Gretchen to explore a deeper and more nuanced version of American history. Her interest was not in the simplified narrative she was once introduced to, but rather in everything that made America what it is today, including its past leaders and what America meant to them. Through this lens American history became more alive, relevant, and intriguing to investigate. Motivated by this curiosity, Gretchen set herself an ambitious personal challenge: to read the biography of every past American President.
To date she has read approximately 240 books, including biographies and historical books. It wasn’t long into the challenge before she discovered just how dense and complex these books could be, often 800 pages each. This realization raised a profound question for her: If this is already so complicated for adults, how overwhelming must it be for children, and how can it be translated in a way that does not lose its essential details? With her background in children’s literature and library science, Gretchen decided to investigate how historical narratives can be presented in children's books. Her previous research experience had already equipped her with an understanding of how learning shapes a child's understanding in significant ways. She began paying close attention to how text and images interact in children’s books, especially in image-heavy publications. She noticed a troubling disconnect in some books: “If the text says Christopher Columbus was a terrible person, but the images show him in a position of power and strength, that is the image children will take away from [the book], regardless of its text”.
Driven by this curiosity, she took a class in the first year of her PhD studies on social issues surrounding children and young adults with her advisor, Professor Maria José Botelho. Her final semester project focused on informational text biographies (more complex picture books, using features such as graphs, charts, timelines, and diagrams to present information in a structured way) of George Washington, and this work became her first publication. Her passion for understanding nationalism and what American history means to people transformed into a broader commitment to how we teach history to children. Gretchen believes that elementary school children can handle complicated historical stories, if they are taught well. As she says, "We are a collection of everything that has come before." That is why telling the past in a fuller and more accurate way shapes the future.
Gretchen’s passion for informational text grows out of its complexity and the recognition that students can easily lose interest when these texts aren’t explained or taught in a detailed, meaningful way. According to her, research has shown that children are not properly taught to use these books or to understand elements such as timelines and glossaries. Without these foundational skills, adding the extra complexity of American history can easily overwhelm them. Glossaries in informational-text biographies play a crucial role, as they introduce and explain words children often encounter for the first time, including terms such as “enslavement” and “plantation.” When glossaries fail to accurately explain such terms, it affects children's understanding of important historical concepts.
Driven by this interest, she has created a practice piece in Social Studies for Young Learners that involves examining glossaries and turning that into an inquiry project to see how different books define key words. She has published works on informational texts and George Washington, specifically those addressing his engagement with enslavement and its representation in children's books. She also has a current piece under review on George Washington and Native American law.
Currently, Gretchen's dissertation examines teaching world history in a third-grade classroom, specifically a unit on the ancient African empire, the Mali Empire, and how to integrate English language arts and social studies. This research addresses a significant challenge in American schools: social studies time has become nearly nonexistent due to emphasis on literacy and math. Teachers committed to social studies are trying to integrate it into their English language arts instruction. The question becomes; how do we integrate effectively? Some integration focuses solely on language arts skills while reading about social studies topics. But truly effective integration teaches both historical thinking and literacy skills such as, how to read primary sources while also building reading and writing abilities. A part of her research examines how teachers have implemented this through language arts standards and whether it meets the criteria for healthy integration. She also evaluates where the approach succeeds or falls short, and how it might be improved for wider adoption.
According to Gretchen, this study has been an informative and deeply educational experience. Through this research journey, she has attended conferences (such as the American Educational Research Association’s annual conference in 2025), shared her findings with educators, and interacted with third graders during data collection.
These moments have given her firsthand insight into how children make sense of historical storiesand how teachers navigate the complexities of integrating social studies. Since her earlier focus was on American history, she has come to understand how teaching American history can be entirely different from teaching world history. All of this continues to shape her commitment to improving how American history and world history can be taught to children in meaningful, accurate, and engaging ways.