Presenting the findings of the 1986 National Assessment of History and Literature in the United States, this study assessed a sample of 8,000 eleventh grade students across various regions (i.e. northwest, central, west, and southeast United States) and throughout different sizes and types of communities. With the help of the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP), a federally funding project that has tested American students in the areas of mathematics, literacy, science and reading since 1969, students in the eleventh grade (17-year-olds) were chosen to assess their knowledge of history and literature as they neared the completion of their high school studies. The national average of the national assessment’s history portion was 55 percent. The assessment concludes that American 17-year-olds are ignorant of things they should know and raises important questions about skills developed through the study of history and literature. Can these 17-year-olds make sense of what they see and hear? Do they have the perspective to separate the important from the trivial? Can they discern patterns in trends and events?

The assessment generated a series of recommendations for improving the teaching and learning of history, including: teaching history in context so that events and people are placed in relation to important trends and developments; devote more time to the learning and teaching of history; institute mandatory two years of world history; incorporate the study of geography into the study of history; integrate the use of narratives, journals, stories, biographies and autobiographies; stress the human dimension – the struggles, accomplishments, and failures of men and women – to engage and interest students. Discussions include topics such as cultural literacy, or the ability to understand what is presented in newspapers, books, magazines and conversation.

The intent of this national assessment was to provide the first systematic effort to evaluate basic historical knowledge in American schoolchildren. In a climate of educational reform across the United States, and when most states were in the process of revising and reconsidering school curriculums, this national assessment evaluated current student understandings of history and literature and supported the importance of history and literature in developing declining basic skills such as reading, writing, speaking and listening.