This research seeks to answer how the elementary school history textbook should be organized in terms of what kinds of stories in the past Korean 4th and 5th graders who were never officially exposed to history chronologically organized are interested in and how they tell the story. For this research, thirty six 4th and 5th graders in the Incheon Metropolitan City and the Gyeong gi province area were interviewed and their answers were analyzed and categorized into four categories: the past story of conflicts between peoples, groups and individuals structured in a narrative form, the past story of historical individuals who represent greatness of human being, the past story that offers students an opportunity to associate themselves as members of a nation or a social group, the past story that appeals to what regarded as fundamental feelings of human beings and the past culture with which they are unfamiliar because it is different from that of the present.
4th and 5th graders tend to interpret history too exclusively in terms of individual motivation and achievement. It can deflect attention from the larger structural conditions that provide the context within which human action takes place. Therefore this research suggests that the elementary history textbook be developed to not only acquaint students with human agency but help them better understand the context within which such agency operates. This research also suggests that elementary history textbook should include the past culture very different from that of the present so that it can give students an opportunity to expand their conception of humanity.