Chapter 4:

Textbooks are the major source of reading in any student’s life and can make doing their reading very hard. I know as a student it is not the easiest thing in the world for me to sit down and doing the readings for class. However, I will sit for hours and read for pleasure. The chapter talks about the needing for balance between the dry textbook reading and the sources that students don’t want to put down. As a history major it is important to use many different types of source and many different types; from long selections in textbooks to short clips for a newspaper. One thing that really stuck out in the reading was the fact that students will sit for six hours trying to read a textbook and not really understanding the material in front of them. As a teacher, I would rather a student read a few small articles or even journals, spending only one hour and really understanding the information. One of my favorite things to do as a history major is research. The idea of finding many different sources on one subject and fishing through for information is fun. It allows me to explore the topic and draw my own conclusions because there are multiple points of view at my fingertips. Therefore, why should high school students only be exposed to one type of resource? The idea is to create a lifelong learner and if we put blinders on the students reading how will they learn to explore. How will they learn to take three different accounts of one event and draw their own conclusion?