Welcome
Hello history student! The following website has resources and links that you can use to learn more about a subject of your choice. All information is gathered from the resources I have acquired over the years. The goal is to provide you with a virtual library that you can use to further your education. This website is to be used as a research tool. Assignments will be given through Google Classroom, but you may need to access documents from this website to complete tasks. May the history be with you!
Contact Information
If there is a need to reach me, the easiest is by email: [email protected]
Important Websites for Class
Google Classroom Link: Click here to access your Google Classroom for assignments, assessments, and other fun stuff.
Newsela- We will use this site for keeping up on headlines as well as emergency lesson plans. If I have to miss a day or or two of school you will access this website. Download the adobe document below (Newsela Accounts) to access your Newsela classroom.
Newsela- We will use this site for keeping up on headlines as well as emergency lesson plans. If I have to miss a day or or two of school you will access this website. Download the adobe document below (Newsela Accounts) to access your Newsela classroom.
How Do I Interpret Historical Sources?
1. When and Why was it written, painted, recorded, etc?
-Locate the intended audience in the social structure. Consider what the speaker was trying to accomplish with them. Historians call this historiography: studying the writing of history.
2. Whose viewpoint is presented?
Other questions to build upon: Where is the speaker, writer, etc., located in the social structure? What interests, material or ideological, does the statement serve? Whose viewpoints are omitted? This will help you learn that history can be partial.
3. Is the account believable?
Other questions to build upon: Does each acting group behave reasonably—as we might, given the same situation and socialization? This approach also requires examining the work for internal contradictions. Does it cohere? Do some of its assertions contradict others? If textbooks emphasize the United States as a generally helpful presence in Latin America, for example, how do they explain anti-[American] sentiment in the region?
4. Is the account backed up by other sources?
Other questions to build upon: Do other authors contradict the account? This question sends us to the secondary historical and social science literature.
5. How is one supposed to feel about the topic that has been presented?
This analysis also includes examining the authors’ choice of words and images. “Most of the words we use in history and everyday speech are like mental depth charges.” James Axtell has written. “As they descend [through our consciousness] and detonate, their resonant power is unleashed, showering our understanding with fragments of accumulated meaning and association.”
Note: These tips were taken from Lies My Teacher Told Me, by James W. Loewen, pages 360-361. It is his desire as well as my own to give you the critical thinking tools needed for success in reading news and history.
-Locate the intended audience in the social structure. Consider what the speaker was trying to accomplish with them. Historians call this historiography: studying the writing of history.
2. Whose viewpoint is presented?
Other questions to build upon: Where is the speaker, writer, etc., located in the social structure? What interests, material or ideological, does the statement serve? Whose viewpoints are omitted? This will help you learn that history can be partial.
3. Is the account believable?
Other questions to build upon: Does each acting group behave reasonably—as we might, given the same situation and socialization? This approach also requires examining the work for internal contradictions. Does it cohere? Do some of its assertions contradict others? If textbooks emphasize the United States as a generally helpful presence in Latin America, for example, how do they explain anti-[American] sentiment in the region?
4. Is the account backed up by other sources?
Other questions to build upon: Do other authors contradict the account? This question sends us to the secondary historical and social science literature.
5. How is one supposed to feel about the topic that has been presented?
This analysis also includes examining the authors’ choice of words and images. “Most of the words we use in history and everyday speech are like mental depth charges.” James Axtell has written. “As they descend [through our consciousness] and detonate, their resonant power is unleashed, showering our understanding with fragments of accumulated meaning and association.”
Note: These tips were taken from Lies My Teacher Told Me, by James W. Loewen, pages 360-361. It is his desire as well as my own to give you the critical thinking tools needed for success in reading news and history.