Slate (writing) Slate (writing) A slate is a thin piece of hard flat material, such as the rock also called slate, that is used as a medium for writing. The rock is “a metamorphic rock created by the recrystallization of the minerals in shale from clay to parallel-aligned, flat, flake-like minerals such as mica”. The writing slate consisted of a piece of slate, typically either 4x6 inches or 7x10 inches, encased in a wooden frame. A precise date range for writing slates of this type has not been established. Usually, a piece of cloth or slate sponge was used to clean it
What Is History? form of elitism—the product of elite social groups whose security and whose privileges have been most conspicuously eroded by the crisis, and of elite countries whose once undisputed domination over the rest of the world has been shattered". Carr's opinions about the nature of historical work in "What Is History?" were controversial. In his 1967 book "The Practice of History", Sir Geoffrey Elton criticized Carr for his "whimsical" distinction between the "historical facts" and the "facts of the past", saying that it reflected "an extraordinarily arrogant attitude both to the past and to the place of the historian studying it".