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Background and
Publications |
Sam Wineburg,
Historical Thinking and Other Unnatural
Acts: Charting the Future of Teaching the Past ( Website at |
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On reading
comprehension |
Wineburg notes that reading comprehension often becomes what
is measurable by testing, such as “the ability to respond correctly to
multiple-choice questions that presume an unambiguous right answer.” (80) |
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On visual
images |
“Through this repeated viewing
[of Forrest Gump, something covered
in the prior 3 pages], the video comes to function in a role not unlike that
of cherished writings and sacred texts in earlier times. Snippets of video
dialogue offer convenient metonymies—their invocation calls up a flood of
feelings, values, and associations. Because the human mind remembers detail
far better than its provenance, the detail remains but its source falls away.
So John is correct when he says that he always hears ‘baby killers’ but it’s
likely that he hears it most often from a character whose lines were written
by the screenwriter Robert Zemeckis. In other
words, the fictionalized past, not the historical event, becomes John’s frame
of reference for the present.” (240) |
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“The images shared by our participants
illustrate some of the differences between collective and historical memory.
For example, scholars across the disciplines have examined the question of
whether it was common for veterans to be ‘spat upon’ on their return to the |
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On sources in
the view of historians and of students |
“Such beliefs may help to
explain differences in the use of the ‘sourcing heuristic,’ the practice of reading
the source of the document before reading the actual text. Historians used
this heuristic nearly all of the time (98 percent), while students used it
less than a third (31 percent). For most students, the text’s attribution
carried no special weight; it was merely the final bit of information in a
string of textual propositions.” (76) |
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WCJC Department: |
History – Dr. Bibus |
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Contact Information: |
281.239.1577 or cjb_classes@yahoo.com |
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Last Updated: |
2011 |
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WCJC Home: |