My "150th Anniversary of the Gettysburg Address"

[Eva Elisabeth]

Please correct me if I don't understand the purpose of this specific curriculum correctly. If I understand it correctly, this curriculum only refers to a reading/text comprehension exercise in "English Language Arts and Literacy", and it says: "refrain from giving background context...at the OUTSET". If you want to examine students' reading comprehension skills, any previously given background information would sure make it rather difficult to determine whether students answer questions on the text correctly from what they understood from reading or from what they had already known before. I just skimmed the site and didn't read those 29 downloadable pages, but the curriculum doesn't forbid to discuss the historic context after the initial reading for text comprehension, does it? I hope, however, any teacher will do this, and/or that this is part of history education/curriculum elsewhere. Otherwise it would be like teaching spelling by using nonsense words.

The question is, as this address is highly enmeshed in the historic background and proceedings, if it does make much sense at all to use it for this purpose.

What I regard the most objectionable is the advice "to notify students that the short text is thought to be difficult and they are not expected to understand it fully on a first reading -- that they can expect to struggle".

How could you motivate students if you promise them to struggle???