Preview

Teaching History Through Fiction Analysis

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
941 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Teaching History Through Fiction Analysis
In the selection, "Teaching History Through Fiction: Valuable or Dangerous" there are two different arguments on whether historical fiction should be used to teach history or not.

The Point text, "There is Value in Teaching History Through Fiction" argues that teaching history by using fiction is great at making readers and students by interested in the topic and have the topic mean something to them. In paragraph one, the text says, "...fiction can make history matter—make it irresistible—to young readers” This quote from Valerie Tripp basically explains what the writer's point was, that fiction could make history matter to the reader. To support their argument even more, the writer also added a quote from the reviewer Kathryn Hughes where
…show more content…
The writer of the Point argument also had a few well supported claims, one of them was that fiction should move people, to make them feel emotion so history should do that too. This is effective to the writer's claim because it explains a way in which fiction could be used to make history valuable or matter to readers. On the other hand, the writer also had one or two less supported claims. Such as in paragraph two where the writer used a film critic named Peter Rainer's review on the Boy in the Striped Pajamas movie as a supportive detail, which is good but then also states that the film critic also reviewed a movie called Boyhood (which is another child centered movie). …show more content…
In paragraph seven, the text says, "By manipulating the historical realities of the Holocaust for the sake of a good story, Boyne runs the risk of giving readers a distorted view of the Holocaust." This was an example of what the writer was arguing about and what they think about the book, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas. The writer believes that the book manipulated some historic events in the Holocaust for the sake of a good story. To support their argument farther more, the writer quoted David Cesarani on the topic of how Bruno would pronounce some words, it says, "Young Bruno mishears “Auschwitz” as “Out-With” and “the Führer” as “the Fury.” As Cesarani points out, “any normal German nine-year-old would have been able to pronounce Führer and Auschwitz correctly.” This shows us that the author had changed the pronouncing of the words Auschwitz and the Fuhrer to out-with and the fury, this is impossible because Bruno is born in Germany and he should then also be able to speak German fluently. The writer also had some well supported points, one of them was a quote from Cesarani that says, "Guards patrolled the fences and prisoners did not have the freedom to move about at will. Boyne’s literary device hides the ugly truth of the concentration camps: constant roll calls, slave labor,

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Zinn's Purpose Analysis

    • 431 Words
    • 2 Pages

    On page 7, Zinn stated “ When we read the history books given to children in United States, it all starts with heroic adventure-there is no bloodshed-and Columbus is a celebration.” This quote shows how the winners writes history. History is suppose to be where we can learn from our past and progress as an society, but throughout history, there are always cases that winners writes history and they changed or ignored the facts that are important for our society progress as a whole.…

    • 431 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    be straightforward in the First Edition Introduction: “Students consider history “the most irrelevant” of twenty-one subjects commonly taught in high school” (Loewen 1). He alludes to what most high school students already believe: history is boring. Loewen notes that history textbooks appear bland and often cover far too much information. Textbooks often have a lack of solid causation and lead students astray by focusing on facts, figures, and dates rather than main ideas and historical connections. Combining the average student’s attitudes towards history with flawed teaching methods leads one to…

    • 532 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Dear Dads: Save Your Sons

    • 276 Words
    • 2 Pages

    1.) At both the beginning and end of this persuasive essay, Bacorn describes a mother and her 15-year-old son. Why does he focus on their story? Would the argument be as effective if he had begun with paragraph 4 and ended with paragraph 10?…

    • 276 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    The movie “The Boy in Striped Pajamas” is filled with conflict. The movie is take place in Germany, during World War II. Bruno is the main character, he is a nine-year-old boy and his family moves from Berlin to a new home. Bruno’s father is a SS Commandant and is assigned to take command of a prison camp. He gets promoted to commandant of Auschwitz. Bruno explores off into the woods to where it is off limits. He stumbles across this fenced off area and sees a young boy about his age.…

    • 1002 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    History is the study of the past; however, every person’s opinion varies and tends to make history a sore subject. In today’s society the average American knows little to almost nothing when it comes to history. During high school many people have thought of history being not as important as other subjects and put it off to the side. Yet later on in life they have watched a historically based movie or television show and found interest in history. Learning from movies that inaccurately portray history is embarrassing, but it can also motivate people to learn more about the topic.…

    • 492 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Word "Retard"

    • 811 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Bauer’s argument is not organized or structured, which makes it very hard to follow. Bauer does not follow the basic rules for a good argument. She does not give the reader enough information at the beginning of the story to tell them what the argument is about. Firstly, this essay lacks an introduction or thesis statement. From the start of this paper, the reader has no idea what the argument is about. Secondly, Bauer jumps randomly from one paragraph to another with no structure to her thoughts. She provides examples of the movie Tropic Thunder, and…

    • 811 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    As we practice the process of constructing arguments and thinking like essay-writers, you will encounter prompts to guide your thinking and reading. For each of the following, you must read the text, identifying and writing appropriate historical evidence to answer the prompt as you proceed.…

    • 581 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Apush Dbq Analysis

    • 957 Words
    • 4 Pages

    5. Using historical narrative (telling the story of the era) instead of creating an argument…

    • 957 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    There are four points stated in the essay that are eligible to prove that any literary text can be an entry into the historical world. First is that a historical work need not deal with past events. It is true that we are reading historical texts with events that happened in the past but these texts are clearly written when our past is still their present. History is a record of event wherein events are recorded at present. When we are reading historical texts, we can imagine the things happened before, but many of us can not relate with those events. One example is that, Filipinos before are very conservative in a way that writing texts about people who are not conservative infuriates them but now many of us can write or even draw/illustrate people who are not conservative without feeling any emotions or with only less emotions. In this first point, a writer writes the ways people lives and how society are shaped during that particular dimensions of time and space and that is already called history.…

    • 813 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    John Boyne uses narrative voice and a variety of other literary devices to convey the main ideas of prejudice and discrimination, power of friendship and innocence in his novel “The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas (BITSP)”. Boyne’s novel portrays the story of a young German boy in Nazi Germany who befriends a Jewish child residing in the Auschwitz Concentration Camp. The author explores prejudice and discrimination, power of friendship and ideas of innocence in his novel. Boyne uses third person limited narrative, dramatic irony, juxtaposition, setting and symbolism to convey these ideas in his novel. Boyne’s novel uses these techniques to create these ideas, giving us an insight into the experiences of the Jewish people during Nazi Germany.…

    • 1250 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    For example in the text it says that, "for the older reader, of course, Bruno’s innocence comes to stand for the willful refusal of all adult Germans to see what was going on under their noses in the first half of the 1940s.” For younger readers, she argues, the story’s slow release of details “becomes an education in real time of the horrors of ‘Out-With,’ known to the grown-ups as Auschwitz" This shows us that the story could be taken as adults ignoring the events taking place around them or as a slow release of events in real time in Auschwitz. What Hughes says helps support the claim made in the Point essay by showing how historic fiction could benefit people in real life. All in all, Kathryn Hughes' view of The Boy in the Striped Pajamas is that it can mean different things for adults and for…

    • 956 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    ‘A fascinating account of a fascinating period.’ How far do you agree with this judgement of your chosen book? Explain your answer.…

    • 1658 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Fiction Analysis

    • 879 Words
    • 4 Pages

    The two short stories, “The Yellow Wallpaper” and “Story of an Hour”, are two very similar stories. They share similarities of feminism, freedom, and marriage.…

    • 879 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In Flannery O’Connor’s short essay, Total Effect and the Eighth Grade, she proposes that “…fiction, if it is going to be taught in high schools, should be taught as a subject and a subject with history.” (p. 137) In other words, fiction should be taught as a true subject rather than just a genre of writing. O’Connor supports the idea by explaining that “There is much to be enjoyed in the great British novels of the nineteenth century” (p. 138), and there is no valid that teachers could not teach students using this material. She then goes on to point out that to the less sophisticated or less motivated readers, these books can provide simple enjoyment.…

    • 404 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    He argues that “the books are too busy telling the students how great the United States was and still is to give them much real history”(Hade 568). It is true, we all know that books will never admit that we were wrong for some part, on the contrary books will brush off the real issues or the real story of the issue to present the United States as being on the right side and doing the best of…

    • 612 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays