Abstract
This paper uses Wertsch's notion of narrative as a cultural tool in historical representation, as a framework, to examine students' learning from feature film. Students' reflective journals and responses in focus group interviews during a semester-long university course, 'Hollywood and History', are used to construct the data. Analysis focuses on students' "consumption" of the accounts of history (ie what they take away from the films), and in particular their "mastery" of the content and "appropriation" (commitment or resistance) to the historical representation. Findings are discussed in the context of multiple and competing narratives of history, and the wider implications of learning from visual media.