Day 59

Quick write of the day: Why do people glorify others?

As a class, we have been looking at the Columbian Exchange intensely for the past week and lately, the class read two different views on Columbus. One was more or less glorifying Columbus and the other more or less vilifies him. Since we have been looking at one individual — Columbus–, I thought to have the students answer why we glorify anyone in the first place.  I asked them to write for five minutes.

Then they had a conversation — I have a sheet to help them have a conversation — for four minutes with their partners.

Afterward, we went back to the two views on Columbus we have been working with and started to pair the two documents. Here are excerpts from the two documents with the prompt.

It’s difficult to bring in the tone or point of view in from a document on a subject that you are not well versed in. However, the students were amazing. They started to see that by glorifying or vilifying someone or something it is only doing it through one particular lens.  They were able to write it and for the first time this year, have two sources connect to one another. They were bringing in the perspectives of the author and seeing past their intent to discuss the effects of the Columbian Exchange.