This project explores the use of historical perspective as a key historical thinking concept within the Grade 10 CHC2D Canadian History Since World War I curriculum. Focusing on Canada’s response to Jewish refugees during the Second World War, specifically the MS St. Louis incident, the project demonstrates how primary sources and guided inquiry can help students critically examine historical events through the social, political, and cultural contexts of the time. By analyzing images and survivor testimony, students are encouraged to move beyond memorization of facts and instead investigate the motivations, ideologies, and perspectives that shaped Canadian government decisions. The lesson design promotes critical thinking through observation, questioning, inference, and reflection before and after receiving additional historical context. Drawing on the historical thinking framework of Seixas and Morton, as well as research on primary source pedagogy, the project emphasizes the importance of helping students avoid presentism while developing a deeper understanding of citizenship, identity, exclusion, and continuity and change in Canadian history.
