OUR HISTORY

The Spanish Civil War (1936-39) is one of the historic events of the

last century. The recovery of historical memory and the reparation of the victims of the violence deployed by the victors of the Civil War continues to provoke controversy. For this reason, there is a need to address this issue in

history lessons both in Secondary and Baccalaureate. The aim is for

young people to understand the events that divided Spanish society during this period.

CARTOON S AS A TOOL TO LEARN ABOUT OUR HI STORY

As several scholars have argued, the teaching of history in

schools contributes to ensuring peaceful and democratic coexistence.

Here, the graphic novel (in this case, newspaper cartoons)

becomes a very useful didactic resource for working on critical

awareness and empathy towards the victims of traumatic events such as the Civil War.

[...] Some academics have insisted on the need for secondary school history students to develop critical awareness and analytical skills in order to understand historical reality.

[...] Secondary school students must acquire the skills necessary to read and think like historians.

Among the skills of the historian ' s work, the following abilities stand out: identifying, contextualising and corroborating. Firstly, when reading a text, the historian identies the type of

source. Secondly, the historian insists on the need to place the

text in its corresponding time and space. And thirdly, the

historian considers it necessary to corroborate the information

in the text with other sources.

[...] Before implementing the use of comics (the cartoon in this

case) in the history lesson, it is essential to work on the conceptual contents that students should know.

Finally, another important element to be considered is also the

type of lesson to be drawn from the comics. Broadly speaking,

these can be basically of two types. On the one hand, the graphic novel (a cartoon in this case) can be used to approach a specic historical reality that constitutes the plot of the

novel. On the other hand, the comic (the cartoon in this case),

as a representation of the past or a cultural product that is

inscribed in a given historical context, can serve as a source of

information about the moment in which it was created.

[...] Therefore, the teacher must ensure that during this

educational practice the graphic novel is properly

implemented in the classroom in order to contribute to the

students ' achievement of the proposed pedagogical

objectives.

Iker Saitua:

“Tristísima ceniza: una propuesta de intervención para enseñar la Guerra Civil en el País Vasco con la novela gráca ” (Sad ashes: a proposal for an intervention to teach the Civil War in the Basque Country through graphic novels), CLIO. History and History Teaching (2018), 44, pag. 183-193