My "150th Anniversary of the Gettysburg Address"

[Anita]

Roger, what would Lincoln say about Common Core? This is from your link. "...This close reading approach forces students to rely exclusively on the text instead of privileging background knowledge, and levels the playing field for all students as they seek to comprehend Lincoln’s address." I figured there was an agenda somewhere.

Since when is historic context "privileging background knowledge" ? What are they learning in history class? The way you level the playing field is to teach those students who don't know, why the speech was written in the first place.