Traditionally, texts take the form of primary and secondary sources that are analyzed through historical thinking skills. Taking a look at the Digital Inquiry Group’s (formerly known as Stanford History Education Group) website, historical texts include photographs, historical written documents, textbook pages, laws, decrees, that are hand chosen by a teacher for an inquiry.
The intention of these inquiries is to get students to “think like a historian” and learn the discipline of history by doing the discipline of history.
If a teacher (like myself) places heavy emphasis on historical thinking skills, this can contribute to the existing “scriptural economy”1 by placing value on particular texts that mimic the form and function of those produced by the ruling class. In Texting Identities, Paris proposes breaking with these hegemonic texts through examining the “counter scriptural economy” of youth space through “identity texts.”2