Comments on: Another Free US History Resource to Put Textbooks to Shame: PBS’ “The Presidents” http://beyond-school.org/2008/11/12/american-experience-the-presidents/ More learning. Less schooliness. Fri, 12 Mar 2010 06:28:18 -0800 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: The Jose Vilson — Short Notes: You Can’t Deny It, I’m a F*ckin’ Writer … http://beyond-school.org/2008/11/12/american-experience-the-presidents/comment-page-1/#comment-6644 The Jose Vilson — Short Notes: You Can’t Deny It, I’m a F*ckin’ Writer … Mon, 24 Nov 2008 01:04:05 +0000 http://beyond-school.org/?p=1703#comment-6644 [...] says, “Forget the textbooks; try using PBS’s “The Presidents” [...] [...] says, “Forget the textbooks; try using PBS’s “The Presidents” [...]

]]> By: Sheryl A. McCoyn http://beyond-school.org/2008/11/12/american-experience-the-presidents/comment-page-1/#comment-6539 Sheryl A. McCoyn Mon, 17 Nov 2008 15:34:57 +0000 http://beyond-school.org/?p=1703#comment-6539 Clay, I love this series. All the president's portraits are so humanizing. I got a little teary when I watched the one on LBJ, the man who really got the civil rights agenda through, yet failed to keep us out of a tragic war. Clay, I love this series. All the president’s portraits are so humanizing. I got a little teary when I watched the one on LBJ, the man who really got the civil rights agenda through, yet failed to keep us out of a tragic war.

]]> By: Clay Burell http://beyond-school.org/2008/11/12/american-experience-the-presidents/comment-page-1/#comment-6478 Clay Burell Thu, 13 Nov 2008 14:27:49 +0000 http://beyond-school.org/?p=1703#comment-6478 I was unclear about "Great Conversation." I meant it in the sense that the UChicago "Great Books" series editors (I forgot those old dons' names, and don't care) meant it, if I recall correctly: the evolution of ideas from earliest literature to today, books themselves being the conversationalists. So: Gilgamesh - The Hebrew Bible - Homer - Socrates/Plato - Aristotle - Lucretius - the Christian NT - maybe Virgil or Cicero - Augustine - Dante - Petrarch - Shakespeare - Swift - Voltaire - Blake and Keats - Nietzsche - Wilde - Beckett.... That's a weird list, and incomplete (eek, all dead white males), but it's a line of evolution about questions of life/death/god/morality/heroism/pleasure and more that speaks, as Nietzsche put it, "from mountain peak to mountain peak" across the centuries, in an unbroken conversation. Battery about to die. Bye! I was unclear about “Great Conversation.” I meant it in the sense that the UChicago “Great Books” series editors (I forgot those old dons’ names, and don’t care) meant it, if I recall correctly: the evolution of ideas from earliest literature to today, books themselves being the conversationalists.

So: Gilgamesh – The Hebrew Bible – Homer – Socrates/Plato – Aristotle – Lucretius – the Christian NT – maybe Virgil or Cicero – Augustine – Dante – Petrarch – Shakespeare – Swift – Voltaire – Blake and Keats – Nietzsche – Wilde – Beckett….

That’s a weird list, and incomplete (eek, all dead white males), but it’s a line of evolution about questions of life/death/god/morality/heroism/pleasure and more that speaks, as Nietzsche put it, “from mountain peak to mountain peak” across the centuries, in an unbroken conversation.

Battery about to die. Bye!

]]> By: Kate Tabor http://beyond-school.org/2008/11/12/american-experience-the-presidents/comment-page-1/#comment-6476 Kate Tabor Thu, 13 Nov 2008 14:03:25 +0000 http://beyond-school.org/?p=1703#comment-6476 I need to read Loewen's book, clearly. I also like a chronological approach to the study of literature- and I try to find novels that are written in/near the time that they are set, but because of the Community Connections work that we do, connecting US History and American Lit with contemporary social issues, we also have some shared texts that we all work with (Scarlet Letter, Grapes of Wrath, On the Duty of Civil Disobedience, The Port Huron Statement). Who is part of your "Great Conversation"? Who have you found is a character that (most) everyone wants to engage in a conversation with? I love Daisy Miller, but some years the room doesn't like her. They see her as a pretty flirt, and she bugs them. They usually love Gatsby and dislike that other Daisy. Richard Hunter (the boot black Ragged Dick in the Horatio Alger books) is a hands down favorite character. I'm imagining a dinner party with all of these characters, and I just wonder, what would they all say to each other in their great conversation? Students arrive in 10 minutes - must get ready! Thanks I need to read Loewen’s book, clearly. I also like a chronological approach to the study of literature- and I try to find novels that are written in/near the time that they are set, but because of the Community Connections work that we do, connecting US History and American Lit with contemporary social issues, we also have some shared texts that we all work with (Scarlet Letter, Grapes of Wrath, On the Duty of Civil Disobedience, The Port Huron Statement).

Who is part of your “Great Conversation”? Who have you found is a character that (most) everyone wants to engage in a conversation with? I love Daisy Miller, but some years the room doesn’t like her. They see her as a pretty flirt, and she bugs them. They usually love Gatsby and dislike that other Daisy. Richard Hunter (the boot black Ragged Dick in the Horatio Alger books) is a hands down favorite character. I’m imagining a dinner party with all of these characters, and I just wonder, what would they all say to each other in their great conversation?

Students arrive in 10 minutes – must get ready! Thanks

]]> By: Clay Burell http://beyond-school.org/2008/11/12/american-experience-the-presidents/comment-page-1/#comment-6470 Clay Burell Thu, 13 Nov 2008 08:38:10 +0000 http://beyond-school.org/?p=1703#comment-6470 Kate, did you see the post I linked to in this one about "emotional objectivity"? (Loewen's term.) I've always been partial to chronological instead of thematic course design, but using Obama's candidacy as a year-long reference-point in a chronological syllabus seems a good hybrid way to add contemporary relevance to the chrono approach. I always tried to do the same with literature, by having themes arching over the chronological surveys I designed, hoping they'd serve as an "evolution of ideas" relevance hook to the individual texts. Goodness knows it's never going to satisfy everybody, but I think it worked pretty well, by the end of the year. Lots of students caught on toward the end that the "Great Conversation" intertextual approach was mind-blowing, a forest-and-trees experience they weren't used to. Damn it, this is making me miss the classroom ;-) Kate, did you see the post I linked to in this one about “emotional objectivity”? (Loewen’s term.)

I’ve always been partial to chronological instead of thematic course design, but using Obama’s candidacy as a year-long reference-point in a chronological syllabus seems a good hybrid way to add contemporary relevance to the chrono approach.

I always tried to do the same with literature, by having themes arching over the chronological surveys I designed, hoping they’d serve as an “evolution of ideas” relevance hook to the individual texts.

Goodness knows it’s never going to satisfy everybody, but I think it worked pretty well, by the end of the year. Lots of students caught on toward the end that the “Great Conversation” intertextual approach was mind-blowing, a forest-and-trees experience they weren’t used to.

Damn it, this is making me miss the classroom ;-)

]]> By: Kate Tabor http://beyond-school.org/2008/11/12/american-experience-the-presidents/comment-page-1/#comment-6460 Kate Tabor Thu, 13 Nov 2008 02:53:52 +0000 http://beyond-school.org/?p=1703#comment-6460 Emotionless - that's it. "I hope it puts the emotion in history for you as it did for me. It’s tragic how emotionless schools can make such an intense subject." I've got two advisees who are tanking in US History, and I think the problem is that there is no story there for them, nothing to connect to, no emotion or passion. Yes, it's important to be able to write a well supported Document Based in-class essay about Hamilton and Jefferson and strict vs loose reading of the Constitution, but seriously? Is that it? One young man told me today that, "History is boring." Again I ask, "Seriously? Boring?" That's got to take some work to suck the life out of US history. Now, I just have to be careful to not suck the emotion out of American Literature... Emotionless – that’s it. “I hope it puts the emotion in history for you as it did for me. It’s tragic how emotionless schools can make such an intense subject.”

I’ve got two advisees who are tanking in US History, and I think the problem is that there is no story there for them, nothing to connect to, no emotion or passion. Yes, it’s important to be able to write a well supported Document Based in-class essay about Hamilton and Jefferson and strict vs loose reading of the Constitution, but seriously? Is that it? One young man told me today that, “History is boring.” Again I ask, “Seriously? Boring?” That’s got to take some work to suck the life out of US history.

Now, I just have to be careful to not suck the emotion out of American Literature…

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