General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Common Core teaches Gettysburg Address with no context or background. Unbelievable. [View all]bhikkhu
(10,718 posts)...so I'm just trying to answer in a way that explains how it makes sense. "Close reading" it the basic thing, not history. In my own experience, I mentioned that this was the approach used in a college class I had learning about Frederick Douglass; where we were given the text but not the context, and we had to approach the work solely by modelling the mind and the perspectives of the writer.
I have to say, I don't remember the teacher's name, and I don't even remember what class it was (something western philosophy related), and I can't recite a list of names and dates related to the life of Frederick Douglass, but I recall exactly what it felt like to really understand what he was thinking and writing and feeling, and how it felt almost like meeting the man himself. It was profound and memorable, and not something you could get from simple reading and memorizing. To this day if I see a picture of him its not just a face I know some facts about, its like a person I know.
Its "higher order thinking", or at least working toward it, and it has real value. If I were a teacher I would love to be able to try it in a classroom. And I think you can't have it both ways - you can't criticize testing for the rote memorization of facts, then also criticize the development of thinking skills that don't rely on rote memorization. At some point, there has to be some method you don't disparage.