Literature about war—whether the lived experience of the author or not—has over the centuries taken the form of many genres: epic, tragedy, comedy, narrative poetry, history play, novel, short story, memoir, and lyric poetry. While reading works from Homer’s Iliad to Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried, students can benefit from identifying not only the wide variety of genres depicting battle and its consequences but also from recognizing the stark contrasts these genres can represent in tone, style, point of view, and intent. Students may also find it of value to consider the war experience, if any, of the authors in question.
On April 14 we commemorate the death of Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865). The years in which Lincoln served as president, 1861–1865, were among the most momentous in America’s history. A month after his election, South Carolina seceded from the Union, triggering a four-year conflict that would leave nearly a million Americans dead or wounded, four million slaves free, and a nation changed forever.
Chronicling America, a collaborative project of NEH and the Library of Congress, offers a deep repository of historic American newspapers covering the years 1836–1922. Students can use newspapers available through Chronicling America to expose the rich texture of the women’s rights movement and its many milestones, meetings, and debates right from the beginning and in a way that few other resources can. As an added bonus, they will be working with the kind of complex informational texts that the Common Core English Language Standards recommends. In what follows, we'll be suggesting articles written from a variety of points of view that make arguments based on appeals to evidence.
Lissette Lopez Szwydky-Davis* and Sean Connors** received an NEH grant for their Summer Institute for K-12 educators, “Remaking Monsters and Heroines: Adapting Classic Literature for Contemporary Audiences.” What follows is a conversation between EDSITEment and Dr. Szwydyky-Davis and Dr. Connors about adapting literature for the classroom.
Teaching composition or expository writing in high school is an enduring challenge, perhaps even more so today, when the rapid-fire exchange of Tweets among students can lie at the hub of daily communication before, during, and after class. Nuanced thought, however, requires a greater gestation period than the nearly instant gratification made possible on Twitter.
As The Vietnam War by Ken Burns and Lynne Novick is now in the rearview mirror it’s important to focus on how we will offer students the best information about the Vietnam era. For it is no longer a question of “if” we talk about Vietnam, but rather “how.” At the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund our mission remains to honor and preserve the legacy of service and educate all generations about the impact of the Vietnam War.
Craig Harline, professor of history at Brigham Young University, received an NEH Public Scholar grant to write about Martin Luther between the years 1517 and 1522. His book, A World Ablaze: The Rise of Martin Luther and the Birth of the Reformation, was published by Oxford University Press in October 2017.
Craig Harline, professor of history at Brigham Young University, received an NEH Public Scholar grant to write about Martin Luther between the years 1517 and 1522. His book, A World Ablaze: The Rise of Martin Luther and the Birth of the Reformation, was published by Oxford University Press in October 2017.
We wanted to let you know about some great new resources available for National History Day to help your students investigate this year’s theme: Conflict and Compromise in History.
It was, and remains, the bluest blue I have ever seen. As I stood on a rock jutting out over Crater Lake, the remnants of a massive volcanic eruption 7,700 years ago, I thought about the immensity of time and history that gives this place shape and meaning. Then I leapt. The freezing cold water disrupted these thoughts for the moment, but the National Parks have a way of sticking with you.
