10 Great Resources for Teaching the Civil War

I was drafting and researching what would become my historical novel Brookhaven, and I looked at the census records for Pike County, Mississippi. I’d been having trouble finding my ancestor Samuel Young listed anywhere in Confederate rosters. The only one clue I’d previously found was a listing for S.F. Young, who joined a Mississippi rifles unit late in the Civil War and was sent to Texas. And I thought the census record might have another name by which he was known.

I found the list of Youngs. And the family I’m looking for. There he – Samuel F. Young, age 13. My eye travels up the list to his father, Franklin. And the occupation listed was farmer. The same occupation was listed for Samuel’s two older brothers. 

Something was wrong. My father always insisted we came from a long line of shopkeepers, that the family had never owned slaves. Yet here they were, listed as farmers. I checked the census for 1870 and 1880 and found Samuel listed as – a farmer.

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.

Photograph: The 1885 (first) edition of The Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant, published by Mark Twain's publishing firm.

Some Thursday Readings

The Unofficial Inking: Dorothy Sayers’ Influence in C.S. Lewis’s Imaginative Apologetics – Andrea Glover at An Unexpected Journal.

A Deep Longing: On embracing Romanticism – Andrew at The Saxon Cross.

Poet Laura: The Consequences of Cats – Sandra Fox Murphy at Tweetspeak Poetry.

Another Ash Wednesday – poem by Maureen Doallas at Writing Without Paper.

“In the Wilderness,” poem by Robert Graves – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.

Take good notes

After John 7:14-24 

He speaks; they hear,

they do not listen.

In simple words, he

outlines his authority,

explaining the difference

between Father and self.

He focuses on their intent

to eliminate any perceived

threats. He points out

their hypocrisy, duplicity,

their enslavement 

to appearances, favoring

perception over reality, 

perception over the true.

One might think they would

take good notes; they do,

but the wrong kind:

the notes of condemnation

and destruction.

 

Photograph by Antoine Julien via Unsplash. Used with permission.

They marvel

After John 7:14-24

They marvel, with grumble

implied, at the man who

teaches without learning,

without credential, who

hasn’t studied with experts

but only with those who

fashion wood for a living.

They marvel, with sarcasm

implied, suggesting he’s

a trickster, a charlatan,

a heretic of sleight of hand.

His answer pierces and

punctures, claiming

authority they themselves

desire but dare not claim,

holding up a mirror

to their accusations, seeing 

their real intent poisoning

their hearts, their desire

for worldly acclaim,

their fears for worldly status,

their anger at anything,

anyone,

threatening their station,

threatening their self-perception.

 

Photograph by Saravaswa Tandon via Unsplash. Used with Permission

Festival teaching

After John 7:14-24 

Festival time:

the festival of remembrance,

the time to live in shelters

of lives, remembrance

of wanderings past,

of wilderness past,

forty years of purification.

He waits.

he doesn’t go at first,

avoiding the crowds;

the time is not yet.

When he goes, it’s not

to the festival but 

to the temple, to teach.

When he speaks, 

this uneducated man,

even the learned marvel.

He speaks, and he teaches,

in the midst of wilderness

remembrance, a wilderness

of its own kind.

 

Photograph by Winston Chen via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Substituting in Spanish class

I took Spanish once

in high school, back when

dinosaurs roamed the earth

I was one of these faces

bright, smiling, reaching

to play after a long day,

some serious and some not,

some studious and some not

faces full of expectancy

without the marks of life.

Photograph by Ian L via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.

An unexpected conversation about schools

A seminary professor is talking with a small group of mostly older adults.

“We’ve had to change how we teach our courses,” he says. “Half of the students in our classes have made it through high school and college without reading a book. They can’t write an essay. They don’t know how to spell or anything about grammar and punctuation, because they were never taught it.

“These are young men mostly in the mid to late 20s. If they went to one of the better public high schools or a private school, they’re in better shape. If they went to an average high school or worse, they’re in worse shape. And they made it through college without reading a book.

“Boys are taught differently in schools than they used to be. They’re expected to behave like girls so the teachers can teach them all the same. If they don’t, and most of them don’t, they’re doped. Given Ritalin for years. They sit in the back of the class with their baseball caps on backwards and looked spaced out. However, they usually find ways to rebel.

“Do you know what it’s like to be talking with a 28-year-old who discovers his intellectual potential for the first time in his life? When he realizes he isn’t stupid?

“The first thing he understands is how many of his years have been wasted. And then he realizes just how many people participated in that waste.

“This has been going on a long time.”

This short conversation left me stunned. It came up independently of the subject at hand, which wasn’t about schools or young people or the state of American education.

A student can enter a seminary after graduating from college and high school and never have read a book. Students can walk in the door having never understood or even glimpsed their intellectual potential. Students can walk into a seminary without knowing how to write an essay.

And if it’s true for seminaries, it’s also true for business. And government institutions. And non-profits. And schools.

Yes, this has been going on for a long time. We pulled my oldest from public school after 6^th grade – and we lived then. As we do now, in one of the best school districts in the state, with the second highest paid superintendent.

We pulled him because his English teacher kept sending notes to parents about classroom activities – and the notes were filled with misspelled words and grammar and punctuation errors. The English teacher didn’t know grammar and punctuation. Or how to spell.

This was in 1993.

A generation ago.

Photograph by Ian L via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.