For the Student:

Welcome to the General Education Readings in Philippine History Module

This module was designed to provide you with meaningful opportunities for guided and
independent learning at your own pace and time. You will be enabled to process the
contents of the learning resource while being an active learner.

This module has the following parts and corresponding icons:

What I Need To Know This will give you an idea of the skills or
competencies you are expected to learn in the module

What I know In this part includes an activity that aims to check what you
already know about the lesson to take

What is the Lesson About? This section provides a brief discussion of the
lesson. This aims to help you discover and understand new concepts and skills.

What I Have Learned? This section provides the summary of the lesson

What I can do? This section provides activities which will help you transfer
your new knowledge and skills into real life situations or concern.
 Assessment This is a task which aims to evaluate your level of mastery in
achieving the learning competency

Answer Key this contains answers to all the activities.

The following are some reminders in using this module:

1. Read the instruction carefully before doing each task.

2. Don’t forget to answer What I Know before moving on to the other activities
included in the module.
3. Observe honesty and integrity in doing the tasks and checking your answers.
4. Finish the task at hand before proceeding to the next.
5. If you encounter any difficulty in answering the tasks in this module, do not
hesitate to consult your teacher or facilitator. Always bear in mind that you are
not alone.
6. We hope that through this material, you will experience meaningful learning and
gain deep understanding of the relevant competencies. You can do it!
Module 1 Understanding History, Relevance, Sources and
Methodology

What I Need To Know

History is the analysis and interpretation of the human past enabling us to study
continuity and changes that are taking place over time. It is an act of both investigation
and inquiry that seeks to explain how people have changed over time. Historians use all
forms of evidence to examine, interpret, revisit, and reinterpret the past. These include
not just written documents, but also oral traditions, testimonies and objects such as
buildings, artifacts, photographs, and paintings. Historians are trained in the methods of
discovering and evaluating these sources and the challenging task of making historical
sense out of them. History provides us with a sense of identity. By understanding where
we have come from, we can better understand who we are. History provides a sense of
context for our lives and our existence. It helps us understand the way things are and
how we might approach the future.

With that, this module was designed and written to help you understand the
meaning and relevance of history as a discipline and as a narrative. It presents how
history has been defined differently by different scholar. Hence, they are often
contradictory and conflicting. This means history is subject to constant revision and
reinterpretation. Each generation looks at the past through its own eyes. It applies
different standards, priorities and values and reaches different conclusions about the
past. The differences between primary and secondary sources are also tackled in
connection to the historical event being analyzed and the historical methodology used
by the historian in reconstructing the past.

After going through this module, you are expected to demonstrate on following
competencies:
1. To understand the meaning of history as an academic discipline and to be familiar
With the underlying philosophy and methodology of the discipline,
2. Evaluate primary sources for their credibility authenticity and provenance.
3. To examine and assess critically the value of historical evidences and sources
4. To appreciate the importance of history in the life of the Filipino people.
Lesson 1: Meaning of History, Relevance, and Sources
In this lesson, you will earn about the meaning and relevance of history. You will
be introduced also to the concept of primary vs. Sscondary sources. You will be given
the chance to identify primary and secondary sources and finally to practice research to
find primary and secondary sources.

What I Know

Using the diagram below, show the similarities and differences

between primary source and secondary source. Write your answer in a
separate sheet of paper.

What is the Lesson About?

What is History?

Definition of History

➢ derived from the Greek noun ἱστορία ἱστορία (historia) = learning; inquiry

➢ “the past of mankind”

➢ Geschichte = the German word for history

Geschehen = to happen

Source: - Louis Gottschalk, Understanding Histo

➢ History - chronological record of significant events, the study of past events.

Source - Webster’s Vest Pocket Dictionary(Springfield: Merriam Webster, Inc.,

Publishers),
KASAYSAYAN IN THE LANGUAGE AND PERSPECTIVE OF FILIPINO

KASAYSAYAN

• saysay (narrative or salaysay)

• saysay (relevance, importance)

• If relevant, for whom?

Source: - Zeus Salazar definition: Salaysay na may saysay para sa sinasalaysayan

ng grupo ng tao (Relevant stories/narrative of the people).

History as Reconstruction

➢ the historian is many times removed from the events under investigation
➢ historians rely on surviving records

History Defined by E.H. Carr

➢ the inquiry conducted by the historian and the series of past events into which he
inquires
➢ is the continuous process of interaction between the historian and his facts, an
unending dialogue between the present and the past
➢ History means interpretation
➢ History is what the historian makes

Definition of History from other scholars

➢ History is the re-enactment in the historian's mind of the thought whose history
he is studying.-Collingwood
➢ History is the historian's experience. Oakeshott
➢ History is “a selective system” not only of cognitive, but of causal, orientations to
reality -Parsons
 “Only a part of what was observed in the past was remembered by those who
observed it; only a part of what was remembered was recorded; only a part of
what was recorded has survived; only a part of what has survived has come to
the historian’s attention; only a part of what has come to their attention is
credible; only a part of what is credible has been grasped, and only a part of what
has been grasped can be expounded or narrated by the historian.”

Source- Louis Gottschalk, Understanding History

Historical Sources

➢Materials used for the writing of history.

They are classified into two:

1. Primary Sources

2. Secondary Sources

➢ Another type of classification are:

1. Written and non-written,

2. Published or unpublished,

3. Textual, oral or visual sources

Written Sources

1. Published materials

➢Books, magazines, journals,

➢ Travelogue

➢ transcription of speech
 2. Manuscript [any handwritten or typed record that has not been printed]

➢ Archival materials

➢ Memoirs

Non- written Sources

➢Oral history

➢Artifact

➢Ruins

➢Fossils

➢Art works

➢Video recordings

➢Audio recordings

What are Primary Sources?

➢Testimony of an eyewitness

➢A primary source must have been produced by a contemporary of the event

it narrates

➢materials produced by people or groups directly involved in the event or

topic being studied.

➢they are either participants or witnesses.

➢these sources range from eyewitness accounts, diaries, letters, legal

documents, and official documents (government or private) and even
photographs

Source -Louis Gottschalk, Understanding History

Four Main Categories of Primary Sources

1. Written sources

2. Images

3. Artifacts
 4. Oral Testimony

What are Secondary Sources?

➢A secondary source interprets and analyzes primary sources. These

sources are one or more steps removed from the event.

➢Secondary sources may have pictures, quotes or graphics of primary

sources in them.

-
http://www.princeton.edu/~refdesk/primary2.html

Examples of Secondary sources:

➢History textbook

➢Printed materials (serials, periodicals which interprets previous research)

Kinds of Primary Source

Human Fossil Artifact

Royal Decrees and Laws Official Records

Kinds of Primary Source

Chronicles Friar Accounts

Maps

Memoirs Personal Accounts

Kinds of Primary Source

Newspaapers Magazines

Legislative Journals Court Records

Speeches Personal Letters

Kinds of Primary Source

Online Data Bases Blogs

Recorded Interview
 What I Have Learned?
➢ Historians used evidences about the past to be able to
understand the past
➢ :These evidences are of two kinds: primary sources and
secondary sources
➢ Primary Source is an eyewitness account or a testimony by a
person directly involved in the event; or it must have been
produced by a contemporary of the event it narrates or
information that was created at the same as an event.
➢ Secondary Source is information from somewhere else or by a
person not directly involved in the event; it interprets and
analyzes primary sources.
➢ One must know how to analyze a primary source.

What I CanDo?
Now it is time to put what you have learned into practice. Look for at least
five recent FAKE news stories and its corresponding REAL news in the internet and fill
out the matrix below. Submit your answer using Google classroom.

Fake News VS Real News

Fake News Real News Ways to Determine the

Reliability
 Assessment
Comparing Primary Sources

Direction: choose an historical event that would like to know more about. Then,
research to find 1 source about this event. identify if this source is a primary or
secondary and explain why.
Submit your answer using Google classroom

References

Louis Gottschalk, Understanding History, (pp. 41-61; 117-170).

Lesson 2: Historical Methodology
Lesson 2 tackles about Historical Methodology. We will learn how history is
constructed based on evidences and how various interpretations are formulated.

What I Know

Explain the relationship of History to the four disciplines. Write your answer
on a separate sheet of paper. Submit your answer using Google classroom

Wheel of Relationship

Archiology

Anthropology
History Paleontology

Geography
 What is the Lesson About?

What is Historical Methodology?

=History is more complex than many people realize. No, It is so much more
than memorizing names, dates, and places. History is very much 'scientific.' It involves
critical thinking. It involves formulating hypotheses based on evidence and testing them.
That is what this lesson is about.

Historical methodology is the process by which historians gather evidence and

formulate ideas about the past. It is the framework through which an account of the past
is constructed.
Historians have to verify sources, to date them, locate their place of origin and identify
their intended functions. The process of critically examining and analyzing the records
and survivals of the past is called Historical Method

Source -Louis Gottschalk, Understanding History

What is Historical Criticism?

Historical criticism (also known as historicism or higher criticism) refers to the

study of literary texts, particularly ancient texts. Historical criticism is not criticism in the
sense of disapproval or the examination of faults and mistakes, but instead is an
analysis of the text in the hope of better understanding it..

In order for a source to be used as evidence in history, basic matters about its
form and content must be settled

1. External Criticism
2. Internal Criticism

What is External Criticism?

➢ The problem of authenticity

➢ To spot fabricated, forged, faked documents
➢ To distinguish a hoax or misrepresentation

Tests of Authenticity

1. Determine the date of the document to see whether they are anachronistic
e.g. pencils did not exist before the 16th Century
2. Determine the author
e.g. handwriting, signature, seal

3. Anachronistic style
e.g. idiom, orthography, punctuation

4. Anachronistic reference to events

e.g. too early, too late, too remote

5. Provenance or custody
- determines its genuineness

6.Semantics – determining the meaning of a text or word

7.Hermeneutics – determining ambiguities

What is Internal Criticism

➢ The Problem of Credibility

➢ Relevant particulars in the document – is it credible?
➢ Verisimilar – as close as what really happened from a critical examination of best
available sources

Tests of Credibility

1. Identification of the author

e.g. to determine his reliability; mental processes, personal attitudes

2. Determination of the approximate date

3. Ability to tell the truth

- nearness to the event, competence of witness degree of attention

4. Willingness to tell the truth

- to determine if the author consciously or unconsciously tells falsehoods

. 5/ Corroboration

i.e. historical facts – particulars which rest upon the independent testimony of two
or more reliable witnesses
 What I Have Learned?
➢ The process of critically examining and analyzing the records and
survivals of the past is called Historical Method
➢ External criticism refers to the evaluation of a. document in order
to test its authenticity: Is the information concerning the author, the
place, and the time it was written correct? Internal
criticism concerns the contents of the document;
➢

What I CanDo?
Analyze the Map using the given information below.

Meet the map. What is the title? Is there a scale and compass? What is in the legend?

Type (check all that apply): ❑ Political ❑ Topographic/Physical ❑ Aerial/Satellite ❑

Relief (Shaded or Raised) ❑ Exploration ❑ Survey ❑ Natural Resource ❑ Planning ❑
Land Use ❑ Transportation ❑ Military ❑ Population/Settlement ❑ Census ❑ Other
Observe Its Parts

What place or places are shown?

What is labeled?

If there are symbols or colors, what do they stand for?

Who made it? When is it from?

Try to make sense of it.

What was happening at the time in history this map was made?

Why was it created? List evidence from the map or your knowledge about the
mapmaker that led you to your conclusion.

Write one sentence summarizing this map

How does it compare to a current map of the same place?

Use it as historical evidence

What did you find out from this map that you might not learn anywhere else?

What other documents or historical evidence are you going to use to help you
understand this event or topic?

Assessment
To Follow

References

 Ma. Florina Orillos-Juan, Ph.D. Department of History, De la Salle University

Manila
 Gottschalk, L.(1969). Understanding History: A Primer of Historical Method. New
York: A.A. Knopf.

 Howell, M. & Walter, P.(2001).From Reliable Sources:An Introduction to

Historical Methods.Ithaca, New York:Cornell University Press.