Summary Of The Naked Source By Linda Simon

High school history textbooks are seen, by students, as presenting the last word on American History. Rarely, if ever, do they question what their text tells them about our collective past. According to James W. Loewen's Lies My Teacher Told Me, they should be. Loewen has spent considerable time and effort reviewing history texts that were written for high school students. In Lies, he has reviewed twenty texts and has compared them to the actual history. Sadly, not one text measures up to the author's expectation of teaching students to think. What is worse, though, is that students come away from their classes without "having developed the ability to think coherently about social

I do find Stearns argument convincing. In, what skills does a student of history develop?, Stearns talked about three main abilities history students develop. The first is the ability to assess evidence, which builds experience dealing with and assess seen various kinds of evidence. The second is the ability to assess conflicting interpretations. This is gaining the skill to sort through diverse, often conflicting interpretations. The last is the experience in assessing past examples of change.it's an essential skill in understanding change in today's society. In history is useful in the world of work, he tells of how the knowledge of history can open doors in the working

The study of history and the teaching of history has come under intense public debate in the United States in the last few decades. The “culture-wars” began with the call to add more works by non-Caucasians and women and has bled into the study of history. Not only in the study of history or literature, this debate has spread into American culture like wildfire.

Majority of students who enroll in history classes partake in analyzing and gaining knowledge from secondary sources. Secondary sources are second hand accounts after an event has occurred. In particular, there are two secondary sources that students utilize and they are lectures and Wikipedia. Despite being secondary sources, there should be careful consideration when analyzing them. Any material that is taught, displayed, or portrayed in lecture are far more reliable than what is presented in Wikipedia. In an academic setting, it is better to always reference and use information from what was taught in lecture than from Wikipedia. It is not a bad resource to use. In fact, Wikipedia is a type of source that provides information for a variety of things that is accessible via the Internet. However, cautionary actions should take place since Wikipedia is a database that can is written or changed practically by anyone. Since this is the case, there can be instances

Krauthammer’s appeal to logos, gives the audience a logical reason to support his side of the argument. Krauthammer builds support on his argument through statistics such as “ the total cost of ‘the two wars’ is $1.3 trillion. That’s less than 1/11th of the national debt, less than one year of Obama deficit spending.” This statistic is informing the opposers of America’s reaction to the terrorist attacks of 9/11 that financially, the country’s reaction is not hindering the lives of the American citizens and those who live in the United States of America. For the most part, Krauthammer utilizes logos efficiently, but there are times where he states without further elaboration.

A historian’s job is to shine a spotlight on the past in a manner that presents a whole and proper picture that includes all facets. The accurate narratives will not appeal to everyone all the time, which is an issue that will not be overcome. History is frequently a messy ordeal, not often a heroic tale of patriotism. It is the responsibility of a historian to tell the tale as it actually happened, be it the ruthlessness of Columbus, the horrors of colonialism, or the atrocities committed during the world wars. One outcome of a historian’s presentation is leaving it up to the audience to draw their own conclusion from the information

Mcneill asks the question Why Study History? The answer, he finds, is the same reasons we love books so much.We look to our past to see how we will accomplish things in the future just as we look to novels to find valuable life lessons that we will enjoy. Mcneill shares the idea of Collective memory, how it is the “best available guide” for our future. History, as much as stories, change us. “Since that is the way the world is, it follows that study of history is essential for every young person.” He explains that we need to use history as a tool to learn how to thrive in the future. History is just a big true story spread out over millions of years. We need to research and learn about stories just as much as history because stories share a history of their

Reading, writing and arithmetic, these three subjects are the basic outline for American schools. In those subjects, where does history fit in? Some believe that teachers avoid history because of how corrupt America has been. James W. Loewen, author of Lies My Teacher Told Me, says, "Parents may feel undermined when children get tools of information not available to adults and use them in ways that seem to threaten adult-held values." (Loewen 296.) The adults had to learn the same false history children are being taught today. By teaching children the truth about history, are adults risking the authority they hold along with adult-held values?

Although history is taught at home and at school, it is taught through the passion of those who take it more than a distant, past series of events, but more of something that effects every individual today.

Chapter 33, Evaluating Sources, attempted to teach about how to find and evaluate whether a source would be effective and appropriate in an essay as well as how to determine if it is authentic and reliable. Primary information from a first hand account individual is ideal, while a secondary source, which is when someone else reviews and restates information from a primary source, is sometimes easier to find and thus more likely to be used; however, it encouraged both types of sources to be implemented when writing. This chapter taught us what to do about how to figure out who the author of a source is and if that person is credible. It shared how one needs to make sure that the source is current as information from older sources may no

Something that continues to astound me is the amount of history that is omitted from teachings growing up. Modern debate talks a lot about of representation and it’s readings such as these that

Historians can feel pressured to be creative in their interpretation of data in order to present negative information in a positive light. This is not a situation that is specific to higher education historians, as it plagues many researchers, journalists, business leaders, and politicians. Eisenmann reports that researchers should take a strong stance regarding their findings. Ultimately, the historian’s responsibility is to report accurately, not to be someone in the public relations arena. However, early historians may have been under greater pressure, and when re-investigating their findings it is important to put the findings in a historical context and also understand the politics of that

Should history be written in the form of a lesson? What lessons might such historical accounts teach us? Is history meant to teach racism, sexism, or morality? If a source is predisposed to sexism, racism, or religion, does it lose all value to historians? A man named Guillaume Le Sueur, author of Admirable History of a False and Supposed Husband, instructs that, “God in his judgments, which are unknown to us, discovers all inequity, although we have long concealed it” (Sueur 10). Le Sueur’s document is a prime example of an historical document that shapes histories towards the author’s own ideas rather than an impartial account of history. Despite the inaccuracies of primary sources it does not mean that it loses all value. History is not without its partiality, however, that does not mean that it loses all value. Even if the source is predisposed to a certain aspect of the writer, the insight that can be taken from the writer’s perspective can be applied to help historians answer questions about the society.

Sources are essential when investigating events of the past. However, narrative texts are forces to be reckoned with, in constructing our own memories pertaining to history. We can be trained to analyze every last drop of a source if we are so driven, but the moment it starts to pull at our heartstrings, we may not be so bold. Instead, we often treat narrative texts as binoculars into the past, guiding our educational journey. Doubts of credibility or accuracy are given backseat status, as these sources tap into our empathetic human nature. We automatically put ourselves directly into the story, in the perspective of the protagonist as determined by the source, and consequently any future opinion of this event will be affected

Contrary to a popular belief—one especially among historians and theorists—the lack of objectivity in history books and school textbooks is not hugely problematic. The reason for the previous claim is that, simply, when it comes to historical occurrences, bias and inclinations of perspectives—though can hypothetically be eliminated—are totally inevitable.