Monday, March 28, 2011

5 Myths About Abraham Lincoln

"Five Myths About Abraham Lincoln"
Holzer, Harold
The Washington Post
Posted Online on February 17, 2011
URL:  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/17/AR2011021703340.html

Being a History Major, this article was a joy for me to read as it debunked five major myths about Abraham Lincoln - most of which I thought were true!  Mr. Holzer, a Lincoln historian, uses evidence to debunk the myths of 1) Lincoln was a simple country lawyer, 2) Lincoln was gay, 3) Lincoln was depressed, 4) Lincoln was too compassionate and 5) Lincoln was mortally ill.

As we have discussed in our classes, History has been written with many mistakes and as a society we are trying to rectify that so history is factually correct.  I have to be honest in saying it is hard for me to part with some of the corrections as that is not what I had learned.  Also, I want to make sure those who are correcting our histories are being as intellectually honest as those who may not have been in writing our past stories.  That said, it is refreshing to me to see the "rest of the story" being told and our nation's history being fully fleshed out.  And this article adds to that refreshment, so enjoy!

1 comment:

  1. The fact that I hadn't heard of a single one of these myths (or the debunked reciprocal of them) speaks either to my capacity for history recall, or the coverage Lincoln received in my American history class way back in the day... or maybe to both.

    Anyway, I tried to read this article from the perspective of a social studies or history teacher thinking up ideas for a lesson similar to Bigelow's Columbus lesson, or one integrating some of the techniques we thought up as a group to introduce students to a fuller version of Keller's life story. Any one of these five myths could serve as a jumping-off point for interesting research about Lincoln (following the sources that the author linked, and perhaps linking them to a few other primary source documents), but that supposes a classroom emphasizing depth over breadth of coverage. An AP history class would be hard pressed to spend so much time on such a project in the current model of the test, although it sounds like teachers could work in some valuable techniques that would make students stronger for the upcoming revision of the test.

    What kind of representations would a teacher use to encourage his students to follow one of these interesting myths, and debunk it? Or is that a moot question-- could the teacher simply present the alternatives to these five "major" myths about Lincoln, and wait for students' collective gasp of awe? I have been rolling around half a dozen neat ideas for language teaching representations, but I keep drawing blanks when it comes to figuring out a clever way of representing concepts in other disciplines. Any ideas Jeff, Paul, or anyone...?

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