INTRODUCTION- All through our school years, we
were told to use the readings in textbooks as our guide to learning. So sure
enough, we “knew” the textbooks were always right and had all the correct
answers. We even taught our family a thing or two from the textbooks and soon, other
readings. We did this because we didn’t think of it as anything but reliable
since we used it to prove ideas true in our classes. But now we've learned
there are many different sides to a story and people can conveniently leave out
details to gain the trust of others as well as getting others to agree with
them. In text there is this element that is called “persuasion” and with enough
convincing and a little proof, readers will be persuaded without them knowing
the actual truth or even being sure they know what they are agreeing to. Well some
authors of historical texts are doing just that, persuading you to agree with
them by making you believe they are telling you the whole story. When
persuaded, you will be oblivious to the actual details of people and/or series
of events in history and will act as the author's puppet, basing ideas and
actions on what they persuaded you to believe. If you haven’t checked its
reliability and go along sharing what you read, you can get in terrible
arguments that end tragically; if you imply/say to others that it is reliable,
you can be responsible for another person’s tragedy or failure. To be sure the
text you read is giving you the full picture, look for Evidence. Evidence is
the most beneficial Habit of Mind a reader can use to learn history. When it is
used you can spot the author’s reference to another text, author, or artifact
that is used to support his/her idea. The text references can be primary
sources, secondary sources, or tertiary sources so be careful which is the one that
is being used because that determines whether the references are reliable
themselves (don't trust tertiary sources because they can be too general and
the information given can outdate quickly). With Evidence you can also learn
why this fraction of history interest people and what’s the authors reason for
writing the text.
