January 26, 2017

Today we took a few minutes to debrief the most significant takeaway from the Silas Deane reading from the summer assignment: that History does not equal "the past" but instead is an activity, a process by which we explore and attempt to bring order to and make sense of the past.  This means that there will inevitably be multiple different understandings of and perspectives on the past.  This does not negate that there are unchangeable, objective facts, but how historians select and assemble those facts in the creation of a plausible story about the past leads to differing histories.

We used this understanding as a springboard to jump into reexamining our knowledge about pre-Columbian American societies. We started first by comparing snapshots of two societies in 1532 then compared representations of Native Americans from the 2005 movie The New World to accounts and images of Native American societies left by those who actually encountered them as well as a modern historical work's summary of current historical consensus on the Powhatan.

The last activity for the day was to show you the format we will be requiring for all textbook notes.  It is a modified Cornell notes format and must be hand written.  These will be the expectations from Chapter 3 forward.  I have attached an image below of how to set up your paper for notes.

Don't forget that Chapter 2 notes are due tomorrow!

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