Texts do not clearly state their goal or perspective but as we discovered in class the perspective or interpretation can be found in the selection of material and its arrangement in the text. What was striking to you about this exercise? What did you learn? Should textbooks come with a warning about 'hidden perspective'? Do we need to teach students how to 'read' these texts?
I found the exercise we did in class with the textbooks to be really interesting. I feel like people forget that textbooks, while they are presenting facts, also show a certain perspective. Just through the selection of the information the author decides to present and the way in which they present it is a form of perspective. The exercise in class definitely taught me the importance of realizing that even in textbooks there will be a “hidden perspective”. Comparing the textbook excerpts allowed me to see that while they did deal with the same subject, the authors focused their attention on different aspects of the Great Depression, for example some left out the international relations completely while others largely focused on it. I think it is important to teach students how to “read” textbooks because its important for the student to realize that there will be “hidden perspectives”, there is also a lot to learn from what the author chooses to omit.
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