I hope that over the past two days we have gained appreciation for the challenge that historians face as they attempt to interpret the past. In many case, they little more than objects and symbols to go on. It is important for them to have finely-tuned analytical skills, the same skills you'll need to be successful in whatever profession you choose.
So, how did you do? What difficulties did you encounter when trying to interpret the collage created by your classmates? How successful were you in your interpretation? What skills and/or resources do you think historians have that you were unable to use in this activity?
Finally, why do you think it is important for us to regularly reexamine the past?
Compose your comment as a coherent, well-written paragraph. I'm looking for thoughtful comments.
Shelby Etheridge 1st
ReplyDeleteThe main problem with interpreting the rest of the class's drawings is that the majority of our class, not to offend anyone but we just aren't good artist.Some other problems were that some people were not very descriptive in their art.I did fairly well with interpreting the pictures. I think the main reason that historians should examin the past is to learn more about the past for one reason but secondly to learn how, why, and what we did.
My Main Problem was that the pictures where somewhat hard to understand. Some people only drew a dog (which could mean alot of things). (No offense intended). I belive we where somewhat successful and other than that I had a fun time with it.
ReplyDeleteExtended-Historians without a doubt have to have a vivid imagination and have to work long and harder than we did to come up with a reasonable conclusion.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Shelby we aren't the best artists, but it wasn't too difficult to understand the other classmates pictures on the collage. I Had a really great time doing this assignment. To me was pretty easy but to them historians studying a topic for years to get a conclusion I think it would be a pretty tough time.
ReplyDeleteThis was an interesting assignment. The main problem, in my humble opinion, was that the drawings were not very descriptive. Take mine for example. Sure it was easy to determine I got a laptop, but they had no way of knowing that I was getting my FIRST laptop. Despite these difficulties, I feel I did fairly well with determining the stories behind the pictures(Although this might have been because I knew all the people who drew them). One tool historians have that I lack is experience. Lots and lots of experience. Plus, to me this was an assignment in my Adv. World History class. To them, it's a profession.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Joe it was a very interesting assignment. But sense we are not all artists it made it harder to understand what everyone was think. I also think that it was a good assignment for the second week of school.My guesses were a little more off than others but other than that I was pretty much spot on.
ReplyDeleteOne of the difficulties that I had interpreting other art works was, my lack of imagination. For example, Alexa's drawing of cards. I would have said a card game, While other people said A card game with someone special, or playing poker. I think I did pretty well at terminating our drawings though. Historians obviously have a lot more of experience, and this was just a little activity. To them it is their job and they need a lot of drawings to come up with a conclusion.
ReplyDeleteI did alright trying to interpret the collage created by the class. One of the problems I had was that many people didn't really do a good job of putting in detail to their work. Some skills that historians have that we didn't have is mainly the experience. They do this for a living, we obviously don't. Last i think it is important for us to regularly re-examine the past so we can make sure we haven't skipped over anything important. Also we now have better ways of collecting data so it would help us get more accurate more information about the past.
ReplyDeleteI did okay trying to interpret the collage created by the class. Although it was hard trying to figure out what they were getting at with their picture. Historians do this as a job, it's what their good at, they have a lot more experience. It's easier for them to see things throughout different perspectives. I agree with Alexa, the more experience that you have with something, the better you are, usually. I think that if we had more experience, then we'd probably come up with better conclusions, and more accurate answers.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, this assignment was fairly easy compared to the job that the actual archeologists have. We as a class knew that the drawings were
ReplyDelete...continuing that thought. We as a class knew that the drawings were depicting a particular time in our lives. Archeologists, however, don't even know the general subject of the drawing. For example, my picture was of a cirque de sole show, and most everyone saw it as such. But if an anthropologist saw it, he or she would see it as some sort of death trap. In this way, it is important to rexamine the past repeatedly so that mistakes such as this do not occur.
ReplyDeleteI personally liked this assingment it showed how hard it really is for archeologists to find out about the past before the time of writing. It was pretty easy to tell what some of the drawings were beacuse we knew who drew them even though we are all not the best artists it was still wasen't that hard to tell what they were.
ReplyDelete