Education in Colonial America
Common School Reform
Key Terms in
History
Writing 101
100
What were most colleges and universities for in the colonial era?
Train ministers with an emphasis on basic literacy for reading religious texts.
100
What was common about common schools? Name three commonalities.
Common language, common social mores, common culture, and equal opportunity for elementary education.
100
What is a primary source?
A primary source is a document, image, or artifact that provides us with evidence about the past.
100
What are two questions (using Jon Morrow’s words) you might consider when constructing a paragraph?
So what? Who gives a shittake? Is it a two-headed baby? Is there an echo in here? Are you writing in a monotone? Are there on-ramps and off-ramps?
200
Name four types of education, particularly schools, that were available to children and youth in colonial America.
Tutoring, home schooling, charity schools, dame schools, endowed free schools, apprenticeships, and so on.
200
Who was Horace Mann and what did he believe?
Horace Mann was a common school reformer and leader. He wanted to give children and youth access to education so he began to crusade for public education to promote common schools. Believed in education as a great equalizer and a way to make Americans.
200
What is a secondary source?
A secondary source is a book, film, article, or museum that displays primary sources selectively in order to interpret the past.
200
Why should we use sources in our academic work? Name two reasons.
Here are a few reasons: to support our arguments, to join academic argument, to build our credibility, to build knowledge, and so on.
300
What were some of Noah Webster’s main ideas about schooling during and after the Revolutionary era?
He wanted a national history to get unified culture, national ideals through textbooks, new national language spelled and pronounced differently from British English.
300
Who was Bishop John Hughes? And what did he promote?
He was an Irish immigrant Catholic. And he argued that, in common schools, there was an indoctrination into Protestant faith that was problematic. And Catholics deserved their own schools so he led the parochial school movement.
300
Define historical significance.
Significant events include those that resulted in great change over long periods of time for many people. Significance depends on one’s perspective and purpose. A historical person or event can acquire significance if historians can link it to larger trends and stories that reveal something important to us now.
300
Name two ways one can present sources in an academic work.
Direct quotes, summaries, or paraphrases.
400
What was Jefferson’s “Bill for the More General Diffusion of Knowledge”?
In 1779, Jefferson proposed this bill, arguing for the need to develop republican schools to fight tyranny and educate the broader public.
400
What three concepts defined common school reform, according to Carl Kaestle? Define these three concepts. What does Hilary Moss add to this conceptualization?
Capitalism (assimilate population into economic institutions, schools encourage literacy, mathematics. more wage labor and more productive hierarchies) Republicanism (united concepts of virtue, balanced government, and liberty) Protestantism (self-control, morality—emphasis on discipline and order and obedience, industry). Moss argues that race was an important factor in the common school reform movement and that African Americans existed outside of the mandate for common schools.
400
What is a historical question? Discuss the key components to a good historical question.
A historical question is a question about events and trends in history. Key components: why, how, or where something happened, where events fit into sequence of history, conditions surrounding a particular event or person, and so on
400
What are at least two standards of historical dialog according to Kaestle’s article, “How Do We Know When We Know”?
compatibility between micro- and macro- levels of analysis, synthesis of contradictory claims, or reinforcement across regions or nations
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