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medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture V. Kerry Inman wrote: >I taught high school for many years where > sweeping generalizations > are often received better than scholastically > correct ones. And I have > difficulty sometimes putting myself in the current > context. > > "Shakespeare was the greatest writer of all time!" > > "Most contemporary scholars tend to consider > Shakespeare as one of, if not the, > greatest writer in the English language of all time, > if in fact William > Shakespeare of Stratford is the writer of the plays > attributed to him." > > Imagine being 17. Which puts you to sleep? Actually, I am a high school history teacher who cautions students to avoid making sweeping generalizations and I carefully avoid making them in my teaching. Actually, the students prefer this, especially when they consider the qualifications on the sweeping generalizations they have learned in other and earlier classes and realize that they were wrong. I find seventeen year olds to be natural iconoclasts. I don't think they are nodding off in my class more than in any other. And I don't think high school teachers have to consciously distort the past to keep their students awake- quite the opposite. Cheers, RK McCaslin --- "V. Kerry Inman" <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval > religion and culture > > It isn't really. But such sweeping generalizations > serve sweeping general > purposes. I taught high school for many years where > sweeping generalizations > are often received better than scholastically > correct ones. And I have > difficulty sometimes putting myself in the current > context. > > "Shakespeare was the greatest writer of all time!" > > "Most contemporary scholars tend to consider > Shakespeare as one of, if not the, > greatest writer in the English language of all time, > if in fact William > Shakespeare of Stratford is the writer of the plays > attributed to him." > > Imagine being 17. Which puts you to sleep? > > --Sorry for the hasty conclusions and sweeping > generalizations, but they > probably will not stop. Just take them for the > limited value they have. I find > it somehow "American" to talk in this manner. Maybe > that is not a good thing. > > --V. Kerry Inman > > > Quoting John Dillon <[log in to unmask]>: > > > medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of > medieval religion and culture > > > > Dear Kerry, > > > > How is the reworking of a literary motif in a > fresh context plagiarism? > > > > For another take on King Alfred's cakes, see: > > > http://botit.botany.wisc.edu/toms_fungi/dec2004.html > > > > Best, > > John Dillon > > > > ********************************************************************** > To join the list, send the message: join > medieval-religion YOUR NAME > to: [log in to unmask] > To send a message to the list, address it to: > [log in to unmask] > To leave the list, send the message: leave > medieval-religion > to: [log in to unmask] > In order to report problems or to contact the list's > owners, write to: > [log in to unmask] > For further information, visit our web site: > http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/medieval-religion.html > Rod McCaslin Teacher,World and European History, Centennial High School Ellicott City, Maryland Graduate Student UMBC Historian, St. Andrews Society of Baltimore ____________________________________________________________________________________ TV dinner still cooling? Check out "Tonight's Picks" on Yahoo! TV. http://tv.yahoo.com/ ********************************************************************** To join the list, send the message: join medieval-religion YOUR NAME to: [log in to unmask] To send a message to the list, address it to: [log in to unmask] To leave the list, send the message: leave medieval-religion to: [log in to unmask] In order to report problems or to contact the list's owners, write to: [log in to unmask] For further information, visit our web site: http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/medieval-religion.html