As a history educator most concerned with Black diasporic histories, I find that One Night in Miami and Judas and the Black Messiah are the first films that come to mind for teaching students about historical inquiry. One Night in Miami is a fantastic subject for historical inquiry because it is a fictionalized account of a meeting between Malcolm X, Muhammad Ali, Jim Brown, and Sam Cooke. This film is an excellent resource for students to practice analyzing directorial choices in portraying historical figures and to compare primary sources related to these figures and their views on social justice movements of that era. Judas and the Black Messiah, on the other hand, would be better suited for a lesson interrogating what students have learned about Fred Hampton prior to the lesson.
As a former student in Kelly Schrum’s Digital Storytelling course, I learned that this mode of teaching is an excellent tool for history education. It challenges the storyteller to consider the audience and the subject matter in a less conventional way of teaching. Furthermore, it allows teachers to use technology to integrate primary resources and examine them with students in new ways. Learners would benefit greatly by creating scholarly digital stories. This medium would enable them to look at content they’re familiar with (think pieces and video essays on YouTube) and create something of their own. Moreover, it would challenge students to adapt scholarly content to this new medium.
