Linda Simon The Naked Source Analysis
Christopher Girg
Professor Denise Lovett
English 1010
09/07/2013
Learning History
As far as this essay is going to deal with Linda Simon´s “The Naked Source” and Jane Tompkins´s “Indians”, first I will introduce you to Simon´s opinions about history and how she thinks people learn and should learn history.
“It is true that my students do not know history” (Simon 1). With this sentence Simon introduces her “The Naked Source” and already tells her reader what the text is about and what she thinks about her students. She describes the process of learning history as students have to do. That means learning dates, reading long texts or even whole books and answering some pointless questions. She also describes the process of learning history as historians do, which is much more complex. To let the reader know what she thinks, she quotes A. L. Rowse´s “The Use of History”. Rowse tells us people do not need “a library of books”, at least not to start learning history. She says one should only get a pen and a notebook and start walking. One should see places where history took place and just try to see as much as possible in order to get a feeling for what happened in the past and more what people were like back then.
Simon thinks students …show more content…
I am very sure that what students learn in school or by reading history books is a whole different thing to what real historians do. Historians travel a lot and try to see all the places where something happened in order to make their own picture of those places and happenings. Of course nobody can see everything or sometimes the places are not anymore like how they were back then. Also, in most cases there are no people alive to interview as a primary source. And at that point the historians start working. They have to find old letters or diaries or something else from that time. Simon writes about that process as the only way to really find out what happened in the
Professor Denise Lovett
English 1010
09/07/2013
Learning History
As far as this essay is going to deal with Linda Simon´s “The Naked Source” and Jane Tompkins´s “Indians”, first I will introduce you to Simon´s opinions about history and how she thinks people learn and should learn history.
“It is true that my students do not know history” (Simon 1). With this sentence Simon introduces her “The Naked Source” and already tells her reader what the text is about and what she thinks about her students. She describes the process of learning history as students have to do. That means learning dates, reading long texts or even whole books and answering some pointless questions. She also describes the process of learning history as historians do, which is much more complex. To let the reader know what she thinks, she quotes A. L. Rowse´s “The Use of History”. Rowse tells us people do not need “a library of books”, at least not to start learning history. She says one should only get a pen and a notebook and start walking. One should see places where history took place and just try to see as much as possible in order to get a feeling for what happened in the past and more what people were like back then.
Simon thinks students …show more content…
I am very sure that what students learn in school or by reading history books is a whole different thing to what real historians do. Historians travel a lot and try to see all the places where something happened in order to make their own picture of those places and happenings. Of course nobody can see everything or sometimes the places are not anymore like how they were back then. Also, in most cases there are no people alive to interview as a primary source. And at that point the historians start working. They have to find old letters or diaries or something else from that time. Simon writes about that process as the only way to really find out what happened in the