This is an interesting question!

I would go about it by expanding upon the difficulties historians have with retaining the human events, causes, reactions, and effects of history without placing their own bias upon it.

Some historians do extremely well with this – practically placing themselves in the setting to get an unbiased view of it – while others…yeah, not so much. Which would be why we now have history books stating that our founding fathers were rich, selfish, capitalist pigs (without mentioning the fact that those men either lost all they had or gave it willingly to try to win freedom for their country).

Personally, I think I would organize my three points around…

1) What steps does a historian need to take to maintain a balance in reporting history – keeping the human aspect while maintaining objective truth?

2) What happens if a historian ignores those steps, and decides to interpret history from their own view? What repercussions can and does this have?

3) What does this mean to you? What steps can you take to ensure that you perform a correct study and interpretation of events, people, causes, reactions, and effects in history?

I’m not sure which books you were assigned, but these are things that have affected how I study and teach history. Those who don’t study history are destined to repeat it – but those who study it wrongly can do even worse.

Hope that helps!

“Human memory is never as simple as historical fact.”

Quite interesting. A short answer, (with me never having read the book) is, that only one version o history happened-yet the ‘facts’ that we learn are simply the memories of different people-compiled by historians.

I might start it out with an example from my own ‘history’-for a long time, my unmarried aunts and uncles all lived with my grandfather, in the same house. When grandpa died, they continued living like this, even though they could all afford to go their own way.

Now, one day, during dinner, my aunt got fed up with my uncles…especially one, who once got her very angry when he held out his glass for a refill of milk, even though the bottle was on the table. Well, this is how the story was told…until, much later, when this uncle had a breakdown and committed suicide. After that happened, the story was still told-but with another uncle playing the part of the lazy culprit.

So how can we know that true historical events weren’t modified by insanity or guilt feelings withn a family?

I might go on to elaborate on who were the historians. At first, they were probably the best storytellers. Then, as written languages became common, the person in the community who could write (if there was one) would probably be the one to have his version of the facts survive. The rich would begin to prevail, as they had the time to learn and observe, then the best educated, as education became more valued, then more prevalent-now, someone probably needs to have a master’s degree, before he’s taken seriously as a historian.

There are other factors, too-how close was this person to the governments and people involved? If wars were involved, did they serve? Have a position of authority? Many things can be taken into account.

Now, I didn’t read the book, and although I feel as if I’ve written one here, I doubt i this will fit three pages. But, I’ve given you several places from which to start. The idea that morphed for me, is that the human element always effects how history is recorded-and perceived. Or, you may get a whole new idea.

ok if you no what you want to say and all pick out three major facts or statements you want to get across. then make your thesis statement from there. after that in your intro write what your going to say about one statement and do the same after that about the next two statements. then maybe put in another supporting sentence. from there your first paragraph should be about the first statement you listed. the second paragraph should be about the second statement and same dealing witht he third. after that you got 4 out of five done. then go to your conclusion paragraph which should include restating you thesis somehow and your thoughts and feelings on the whole subject. hope this is what your wanting to no.

make a draft. organize things in the order they appear in the book. try this………

starting paragraph

details (at least 4 paragraphs)

conclusion.

try to do the details in order. the starting should explain your point and what you will talk about! add alot of emotion in your paper and details in every paragraph. use quotions from the book. use ” ” if you will do a word for word sentance. i hope i helped!

if your innovations are not prepared and sparkling then the reader won’t have the skill to understand your argument or ingredient. i assume the reader would be your instructor or professor so if your essay isn’t prepared, there’s a competent hazard which you will receive a low grade, or probably fail.

here you go. my school has non fiction orgenizer on there web site. just pirint it out. http://cfpms.ucfsd.org/pdfs/summerreading07/2007NonfictionOganizer.pdf