Hi. I’ve got a secret. I’ll deny I said this if anyone asks, but here goes. Through no fault of my own, I ended up in South Carolina this weekend. I ate their barbecue and I kind of liked it. I even put a little of that mustard sauce on one forkful and, it was ok. I still think, however, that mustard on barbecue is a crime against Nature and Nature’s God, but…. there you go.
Anyhow, the Daniel Morgan monument in Sparkle City is incredible on the pimpin’ scale. I love it. It almost rates a Nathaniel Greene on awesomeness of hat and pose. It also has an interesting phrase: “One People: No North, No South, No East, No West. A Common Interest. One Country-One Destiny.” This is a bit more elaborate than the marble stump here at Guilford that has the same sentiment: “No North, No South, Washington, Greene.” Apparently this is a theme on late Nineteenth Century Revolutionary War monuments in the south…reconciliation and all. I did wonder if Rev. War monuments in the northeastern states from the same period have the same phrasing, or if they were even aware that the Rev. War happened south of the Susquehanna (or did they know that reconciliation was even a thing at the time.)
I’ve been grading papers for my classes. So far I give myself a D. Here’s what I want, no, what I’m going to tell the students:
Dear Students,
I haven’t been clear. The purpose of this class is to learn historical thinking skills. Your papers need to be well-articulated arguments about why something in the past happened the way it did, supported by evidence, rhetoric, etc. This way, you become critical as thinkers in the modern world and you don’t take what we have in this world as universal or for granted. The purpose of this class is NOT to tell feel-good stories. Your papers should not be simple morality tales about how personal struggle can result in saccharine self-actualization and a happier world. Bleh. Stop it.
Thanks.
One class has done Wikipedia editing projects. I haven’t looked at all the results yet, but I’m intrigued by the few I have seen so far. Their attention (again, so far) to editing, clarifying, judging good information, and adding relevant data has been promising and is absolutely something we can build on in their own papers.
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