tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19457872.post1835146700134122543..comments2024-03-26T23:57:42.268-04:00Comments on SpeEdChange: History through Fictionirasocolhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01412837280249622430noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19457872.post-36526607613324801952010-02-02T11:40:02.345-05:002010-02-02T11:40:02.345-05:00Great post. This merging of genres and content are...Great post. This merging of genres and content areas is what is true trans-disciplinary creativity. Note I didn't say inter-disciplinary which means existing at the intersections of different disciplines. Trans-disciplinary on the other hand is going beyond the disciplines to something more fundamental. In your example it has to do with developing empathy - critical for both history and writing, but deeper than each. <br /><br />I have been engaged with something similar - writing poetry about science and math. It is a long story but you can see some examples and track how this ideas has flourished (thanks to the read/write web) <a href="http://punya.educ.msu.edu/2010/01/27/the-infinity-of-primes-proof-as-poem/" rel="nofollow">here</a> and <a href="http://punya.educ.msu.edu/2010/01/12/poetry-science-math-or-why-i-love-the-web/" rel="nofollow">here</a>.Punya Mishrahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14065661998381252793noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19457872.post-81104539386424862822010-01-25T16:43:46.402-05:002010-01-25T16:43:46.402-05:00I found this very interesting because we did somet...I found this very interesting because we did something like this as coursework at school and to be honest, I had always thought it a little weak – I enjoyed it a great deal myself, but I went with the consensus at the time that it was a bit of a "soft assignment". However, in our case, it wasn't nearly so sophisticated; we had to give an account of the Treaty of Versailles from the point of a British Tommy, a French Politician and a German General. There were only really two ways to do it within a thousand words or so, one of which was cliché, the other of which might be seen as owing too much to hindsight. <br /><br />But I was fourteen or fifteen at this point, and I knew that my great grandfather, to whom I had sometimes been compared, had joined up at my age to fight in the First World War, lying about his date of birth and had not been found out until he was at the front. Once discovered, he was sent to act as a dogsbody a drunken front-line doctor – you imagine the kid walking into hell! But I couldn't understand why anyone, anything like me, would want to join up to fight, kill people and risk death and suffering over an Archduke and some myths about murdered nuns in Belgian. <br /><br />I think fiction has a vital role in understanding events like that, how people understood their own world and why they behaved as they did. Because although I always loved history, it was fairly late in the day that I realised that we're not actually better than people in the past – that we're not magically more intelligent, sensible or compassionate than people who made terrific mistakes or colluded in great evil. To me, that's the most important lesson of history and it's completely absent until you begin to see human beings behind the flat historical facts.<br /><br />I think maybe when all the actual witnesses are gone, we need to create our own?The Goldfishhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15213378454070776331noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19457872.post-62134200475499358372010-01-25T14:28:17.282-05:002010-01-25T14:28:17.282-05:00Brilliant! Yes, yes! Kelly Gallagher talks about...Brilliant! Yes, yes! Kelly Gallagher talks about the power of fiction to help kids engage in imaginative rehearsal. You're right about the power of creating the characters and their world. I remember an assignment in my developmental psychology class to take a child character from a novel and write the rest of their life story with attention to what we had learned in class. <br /><br />I think these kinds of assignments have another power you haven't mentioned--they help make students better people too.<br /><br />Great post--thanks!Sarah Hanawaldhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16562865776353395978noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19457872.post-74100133929236374162010-01-22T22:14:35.107-05:002010-01-22T22:14:35.107-05:00Ira
Excellent post. The historical narrative is al...Ira<br />Excellent post. The historical narrative is always so powerful.<br /><br />Our 15year olds "adopt" a family and research their shared narratives via sources from 1896 to 1948. <br /><br />In Australian history this affords research on Federation, WW1, Gallipolli,Western Front, soldier settlment schemes, Great Depression,Phar Lap, Sydney harbour Bridge and WW2 when Sydney & Darwin were attacked. <br /><br />We know we have empowered learners when they ask to "readopt" their families the following year to continue their narratives until 2001. Now to integrate the unit further and encourage more diverse presentations using #DERNSW. <br /><br />Thanks for flying the history flag, not that THE best subject needs it!Tony Searlnoreply@blogger.com