2. Comparative
History.
Comparative history makes great essay answers. Cite the
authority you disagree with, the authority who supports your
point and then use critical thinking tools and common sense to
explain why you find one point more convincing than another.
3. Critical Thinking and Essay
Answers.
Discussion Packet: Christopher
Columbus: Pro and Con
Class Two discussion Packet
Question: Why do you find one
category more persuasive than the
other?
4. Critical Thinking.
1. Statements:
a) General
b) Specific:
2. Sources.
a) Primary (Date):
When one "expert" says one thing and another "authority" says
another, how do you decide which is right?
Definitions
Examples
Makes vague
Christopher Columbus . . . was the first
statements
man who had the supreme courage to
push boldly out into the "Sea of
States conclusions
Darkness" in search of the new route.
rather than specific This was the great service of Columbus.
information
James Albert Woodburn, Ph.D. Thomas
Francis Moran, Ph.D. Elementary
American History and Government
(New York: Longmans, Green and Co.,
1910), 13, 16.
Gives us detailed
Bartolome de Las Casas tells how
information
"two of these so-called Christians met
concerning the 5
two Indians boys one day, each
Ws and exact
carrying a parrot; they took the
numbers
parrot and for fun beheaded the
boys." Howard Zinn, A People's
History of the United States (New York:
Harper Perennial, 1980), 6.
Material written
These are the times that try men's souls.
during the event or The summer soldier and the sunshine
shortly after
patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from
the service of their country; but he that
stands it now, deserves the love and
thanks of man and woman. Tyranny,
like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we
have this consolation with us, that the
1
b) Secondary Sources: Materials written
long after the event
3. Activity
a) Participants
Persons directly
involved in the
event
2
harder the conflict, the more glorious
the triumph. What we obtain too cheap,
we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only
that gives every thing its value. Heaven
knows how to put a proper price upon
its goods; and it would be strange
indeed if so celestial an article as
Freedom should not be highly rated.
Britain, with an army to enforce her
tyranny, has declared that she has a right
(not only to Tax) but "to Bind us in All
Cases Whatsoever," and if being bound
in that manner, is not slavery, then is
there not such a thing as slavery upon
earth. Even the expression is impious;
for so unlimited a power can belong
only to God. Thomas Paine, American
Crisis, Common Sense (December 23,
1776).
“A husband could safely sleep with
other women, knowing that his wife
could not take legal action in divorce. If
he caught his wife committing adultery
he could prosecute her lover for
abduction, because the wife was not
supposed to possess a power of consent.
He could also obtain a divorce, in most
colonies, in which case his wife would
be forbidden by law to marry her lover.
Even in the case of bigamy, a first wife
could not take action to dissolve her
marriage, because in court nothing was
decreed that tended to bastardize the
issue born in wedlock. Illegitimacy was
recognized by law only when a woman
was unfaithful to her husband.”
Elizabeth Evans, Weathering The
Storm: Women of the American
Revolution (New York: Charles
Scribner’s Sons, 1975), 3
Bartolome de Las Casas (A Spanish
Priest who sailed with the early
Spanish Conquistadors) tells how "two
of these so-called Christians met two
Indians boys one day, each carrying a
parrot; they took the parrot and for fun
b) Mythologiziers
Writers who try to
make the event
larger than life
4. Wheat vs. Chaff.
That which is
objective.
a) Facts
Things that we can
verify, confirm, and
be highly certain of
accuracy
b) Interpretation
What does the
event mean?
Casualty.
Speculation
Moving from
specific fact and
making general
statements about
history, society or
culture.
3
beheaded the boys." Howard Zinn, A
People's History of the United States
(New York: Harper Perennial, 1980), 6.
Christopher Columbus . . . was the first
man who had the supreme courage to
push boldly out into the "Sea of
Darkness" in search of the new route.
This was the great service of Columbus.
James Albert Woodburn, Ph.D. Thomas
Francis Moran, Ph.D. Elementary
American History and Government
(New York: Longmans, Green and Co.,
1910), 13, 16.
At Fort Pitt, two ostensibly friendly
Delaware Indians showed up at the end
of May to suggest that the British leave
to avoid attack. Pitt's commander
thanked them but declined their
suggestion and sent them on their way
with his idea of a gift: two blankets and
a handkerchief used by British smallpox
patients in the fort. "We hope it will
have the desired effect," wrote a militiaman in his diary. Two months later,
Jeffrey Amherst suggested to a subordinate that spreading smallpox-a
practice akin to later germ warfare should be considered as a method of
war: "We must use Every Strategem in
our Power to Reduce them." James L.
Roark, 141.
At Fort Pitt, two ostensibly friendly
Delaware Indians showed up at the end
of May to suggest that the British leave
to avoid attack. Pitt's commander
thanked them but declined their
suggestion and sent them on their way
with his idea of a gift: two blankets and
a handkerchief used by British smallpox
patients in the fort. "We hope it will
have the desired effect," wrote a militiaman in his diary. Two months later,
Jeffrey Amherst suggested to a subordinate that spreading smallpox-a
practice akin to later germ warfare should be considered as a method of
5. Neutrality.
a) Objective
b) Bias
Things that we can
verify, confirm, and
be highly certain of
accuracy
Businessmen are
likely to justify the
social value of their
line of work. A
President is likely
to tout his own
virtues
Look for statements
made against
interest.
6. Purpose:
Designed to inform
the reader.
a) Information:
4
war: "We must use Every Strategem in
our Power to Reduce them." There is
no evidence that the infected blankets
actually propagated smallpox or that
Amherst's war strategem was put into
greater practice. James L. Roark, 141.
On July 26, 1787 the Constitutional
Convention adjourned for ten days
while a Committee of Detail, John
Rutledge of South Carolina, Edmund
Randolph of Virginia, Nathaniel
Gorham of Massachusetts, Oliver
Ellsworth of Connecticut and James
Wilson of Pennsylvania met to arrange
and systematize materials. At the
beginning of the Committee's
deliberations, John Rutledge read aloud
some excerpts from Iroquois Indian
treaties that reflected the will of the
people. Pennsylvania Herald, 18
August 1787, Charles L. Mee Jr, The
Genius of the People (New York:
Harper & Row, 1987), 237.
American history has long been written
as a kind of Eurocentric mythology.
John C. Mohawk and Oren R. Lyons,
chief of the Onondaga Nation,
Iroquois Confederacy, Associate
Professor of American Studies, State
University of New York, Buffalo, Exiles
in the Land of the Free: Democracy,
Indian Nations and the US Constitution
(Santa Fe, New Mexico: Clear Light
Publishers, 1992), 3.
At Fort Pitt, two ostensibly friendly
Delaware Indians showed up at the end
of May to suggest that the British leave
to avoid attack. Pitt's commander
thanked them but declined their
suggestion and sent them on their way
with his idea of a gift: two blankets and
a handkerchief used by British smallpox
patients in the fort. "We hope it will
have the desired effect," wrote a mili-
tiaman in his diary. Two months later,
Jeffrey Amherst suggested to a subordinate that spreading smallpox-a
practice akin to later germ warfare should be considered as a method of
war: "We must use Every Strategem in
our Power to Reduce them." There is no
evidence that the infected blankets
actually propagated smallpox or that
Amherst's war strategem was put into
greater practice. James L. Roark, 141.
b) Propaganda:
Information given
with a political
purpose.
It is designed to
convince the reader
of something.
Unknowingly, they also smuggled
along many Old World viruses that
caused epidemics of smallpox, measles,
and other diseases that would kill the
vast majority of Indian peoples during
the sixteenth century and continue to
decimate survivors in later centuries.
James L. Roark, 34.
7. Other:
a) Qualifications:
Education, training
or experience that
makes that person
an authority on the
subject.
Well known
expertise on a
subject
John C. Mohawk and Oren R. Lyons,
chief of the Onondaga Nation, Iroquois
Confederacy, Associate Professor of
American Studies, State University of
New York, Buffalo, Exiles in the Land
of the Free: Democracy, Indian Nations
and the US Constitution (Santa Fe, New
Mexico: Clear Light Publishers, 1992),
3.
b) Proof
Footnotes:
Citations of
authority
Author, Title (Place
published,
Publisher, date),
page number.
Strip out the
qualifications I add
5
John C. Mohawk and Oren R. Lyons,
Exiles in the Land of the Free:
Democracy, Indian Nations and the US
Constitution (Santa Fe, New Mexico:
Clear Light Publishers, 1992), 3.
John C. Mohawk and Oren R. Lyons,
chief of the Onondaga Nation,
to most of my cites.
6
Iroquois Confederacy, Associate
Professor of American Studies, State
University of New York, Buffalo,
Exiles in the Land of the Free:
Democracy, Indian Nations and the US
Constitution (Santa Fe, New Mexico:
Clear Light Publishers, 1992), 3.