You have read, annotated, and discussed Billy Collins' poem, "The History Teacher." Based on your table/group's discussion, and based on the evidence presented in the poem, respond to the following prompt:
How does Billy Collins present/develop the Central idea in this text?
In your paragraph (6-8 sentence response):
-identify the central idea
-provide contextual evidence to support the central idea
-discuss the general technique Collins uses to bring out the central idea
Ensure your blog posting is free of Grammatical and Structural errors.
Having posted your blog, with your name written in the blog to identify yourself, you must now respond to at least ONE other classmate's blog posting by either agreeing or disagreeing with the central idea that he/she presented. In taking a position on the classmate's posting, you must support, using evidence from the text as well as your own reasoning, why you have taken such position in responding to the person's blog.
Use the blog rubric to guide how your grade will be assigned for this activity!
Happy blogging!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Billy Collins presents the central idea by showing it in the first line of the first stanza. It says " Trying to protect his students' innocence,''. Afterwards, the teacher makes up lies about events in history, like the Spanish Inquisition and the Enola Gay dropping an atomic bomb on Hiroshima. But that's not the point of the text. The point is that history can be REALLY gruesome and horible, and adults think that if kids heard the truth, they would think of the world as a bad place. So the adults sugar coat everything to make history sound kid-friendly. However, in doing so, the kids are fed false information and believe that. In lines 3-5 of the last stanza, it says " Wondering if they would believe that soldiers in the Boer War told long, rambling stories designed to make the enemy nod off". This proves how the adults are feeding the kids false information. Also, the kids in the classroom aren't innocent. In the 5th stanza, it tells of the kids bullying the weak and the smart, telling how bad they are.
ReplyDelete~Marc Boudreaux~
DeleteI have to agree with you Justice as you plainly and clearly state the central idea and then use textual evidence to back up exactly what you stated. After you stated the evidence you then elaborated on that and if a person on the outside had no idea what to choose then, now they do. Heck to tell the truth I used this as a partial outline for my own. You put the better ones (examples) out into play. So no lie I can't really find anything out of the ordinary in this :/
Destiny Samuels
DeleteYou did good explaining but you didnt explain to us the central idea of the poem you could of added the central idea but you gave good details about the poem showing what the teacher told the students.
Wilford Bruno
ReplyDeleteBilly Collins uses various wording in the poem in order to get across his point. This is
called the central idea, the central idea of the poem "The History Teacher" is that adults
assumes that it is crucial to keep a child guiltless. He provides major details to get this
point across, to exemplify, he gives them inaccurate information. As this occurred in
line 3, he talked about the chilly age as it stated "the Ice Age was really just the Chilly
Age" this is false information. Also he wanted to keep the children innocent although
he fails to do so. in the fifth stanza it talks about the children leaving the classroom in
order to torment the weak and the smart.
Wilford Bruno (EDITED)
DeleteBilly Collins uses various wording in the poem in order to get across his point. This is
called the central idea, the central idea of the poem "The History Teacher" is that adults
assumes that it is crucial to keep a child guiltless. He provides major details to get this
point across, to exemplify, he gives them inaccurate information. As this occurred in
line 3, he talked about the chilly age as it stated "the Ice Age was really just the Chilly
Age" this is false information. Also he wanted to keep the children innocent although
he fails to do so. in the fifth stanza it talks about the children leaving the classroom in
order to torment the weak and the smart.This means that the history teacher's way
of teaching had a negative impact on the children.
Jovenel St jean
DeleteI agree with your point that the adults assume that it is crucial to keep a child guiltless. You gave excellent points to as to why the kids are not as good as they seem and also gave good points as to why teachers over look the fact that they arent all little angels.
Nicholas Ramsamooj
ReplyDeleteThe author Billy Collin's presents/develops the central idea in numerous ways. The central idea of the poem, "The History Teacher" is adults find it necessary to keep the younger generations mind virgin. He proves his point by giving an example of a history teacher breaking down previous time periods into a less violent perspective. The teacher alters the: Ice Age, Stone Age, Spanish Inquisition and the War of Roses. However, feeding the children false information is not the overall idea of the text, the central idea is adults are avoiding exposing children to the outside world, they want to keep them in a special comfort zone. For example in the first stanza, "Trying to protect his students' innocence." Little do the adults know that the children aren't as innocent, for example in stanza 5, it states, "The children would leave his classroom for the playground to torment the weak and the smart", proving the point that the students are not as innocent as the adults think they are.
Elijah Figaro
DeleteI agree with your statement because it presents the central idea of the poem in a orderly fashion. You give examples of how the teacher tries to keep the minds of the others virgin. However, you don't give the main example of the bombing of Hiroshima, which is one of the main examples of how the teacher tries to keeps the minds of the children virgin. Give examples of how these time periods are put into a less violent perspective.
destiny samuels
DeleteYou told if you agreed with it or not but you didn't put the main idea of the poem but good job Elijah
Elijah Figaro
ReplyDeleteThe central idea of the history teacher is that "{History is not meant to be joked with.}" I can prove this with the last stanza where, "...wondering if they would believe that soldiers in the Boer War told long rambling stories..." yet the teacher feeds them false information,"... and the Enola Gay dropped one tiny atom on Japan." However, the students are well capable of knowing these information, because they can bully other kids, "...torment the weak and the smart..." so if they can torment the weak, they must be able to do learn about the deaths of others. Maybe the tormenting could stop then. The teacher is trying to protect innocence that is not there in the first place.
Matthew Millington
DeleteElijah, I agree with your central idea. History should be told the way it happened in the past because it can't be changed. Try to elaborate more on your details.
Ashraf Uddin
DeleteElijah,I think you'r central idea is correct and i really agree with you.But you gave little details to prove your central idea.You gave lots of facts but no details to prove your point.
Marc Boudreaux
ReplyDeleteBilly Collins states the central idea clearly in the first line of the poem by just simply stating "Trying to protect his students innocence" he then provides examples of when the teacher understated many important ages in human history. For example instead of the Ice age, it was the chilly age "a period of a million years when everyone had to wear sweaters." (line 3-4) Or the War of the Roses which "took place in a garden" (line 11) But that's just part of the central idea, the WHOLE central idea is that most people try to soften the blow of things but making it smaller than it may seem; even when we probably can take the full brunt of the force. In the 2nd to last stanza it says "The children would leave his classroom for the playground and torment the weak and the smart" showing that they probably CAN take what ever horror or inappropriate tidbit of information you throw at them. So it makes little-to-no sense to cover it up.
This really captures the central idea of the poem. I agree with what you are trying to say here as I have written the same here.
DeleteDestiny Samuels
ReplyDeleteThe central idea of the poem, "The History Teacher" is to teach the kids something really close to or the actual facts of history. This is the main idea because the teacher sugar coats everything that happened in history making it seem like it was not that terrifying. An example is in stanza 4 because it says, "The Enola Gay dropped one tiny atom on Japan" when in actually history they dropped a bomb to blow up Japan. Also when he said, "The Ice Age was really just the Chilly Age, a period of a million years ago when everyone had to wear sweaters" when most people and animals died. The point is that history wasn't always pretty and the teacher taught children false information making it seem like it wasn't that harmful. I think the teacher did this because he lives in a nice neighborhood and he doesn't want the children to become bad and dangerous because of how horrible history is.
Jovenel St Jean
ReplyDeleteI think the central idea of the poem " The History Teacher" is that grown ups think that feeding the kids false information will keep them innocent. The way the adults sugar coat the truth leads the kids to think what they are saying is the truth. Being lied to like this will make the kid hate their parents because they let them roam free into the harsh world with information that will get them bullied. It says" trying to protect his students innocence," how is he protecting them if he is telling not letting them accept the fact that they will sooner or later be let into the real world soon and the little knowledge they know will not benefit them when they seek a higher degree in those subjects. Kids who are now learning the subject will accept any bit of information they are fed so if he wants them to be innocent he should answer their questions truthfully and let them feel pain weather you like it or not. The teacher being a father figure will only help them for sometime so if he keeps holding them back he's not doing a good job
Micah Njibe
DeleteAlthough i somewhat agree with your central idea, i think it isn't general enough. Your central idea is too specific. It is a good central idea but that idea applies to this poem and cannot be used for everything in life. So you can be a little bit more general, but everything else is awesome. Keep up the good work Jovanel!
Keyshawn Robinson
DeleteI believe that this claim is true and that the teacher is trying to sugarcoat the truth from the kids to protect there innocence. But i don't know about them hating there parents, yeah they would go into the world without any knowledge to how harsh it is but i don't know how they this will affect how the kids fell about there parents.
Alfonso Hernandez
DeleteI agree with your claim because what you said is true and kids should not be fed the wrong information. The wrong information could make them them seem like they don't know anything and could make them fail. Your claim is written correctly and your details support your claim.
Micah Njibe
ReplyDeleteBilly Collins' poem, "The History Teacher" is about a history teacher who teaches his students history but he teaches it in a way that will "protect his innocence" as it says in stanza 1 line 1. The central idea of this text is that everyone's perspective on someone is different. For example, the teacher tries to protect their innocence. For example in stanza 1 the teacher tells the kids that the "Ice Age was just the Chilly Age where people needed to wear sweaters"or in stanza 2 where he says that the "Stone Age became the Gravel Age named after long driveways" and when he said the "War of Roses took place in a garden." So he was trying to "protect" their innocence, but in stanza 5 lines 1, 2 and 3, it says, "The children would leave his classroom for the playground to torment the weak and the smart, messing up their hair and breaking their glasses." This shows that the kids aren't really innocent. But it appears that way to the History Teacher because the kids live double lives.Also this is a good example of the authors diction. The author uses his words to really bring out the central idea. He uses words like torment. Torment is such a strong term to describe how someone treats another person. For Collins to use that word must show that the kids are the exact opposite of what the history teacher sees. So overall, Billy Collins really brings out the point that perspectives are different.
Keyshawn Robinson
ReplyDeleteI think the central idea of Billy Collins "The History Teacher" is that you shouldn't hide people form the truth because then the children wont be prepared for the world when it hits them
. This central is true because in the text the history teacher feed the children lies about history. For example in the poem it said "trying to protect his students innocence he told them the ice age was really just the chilly age, a period of a million years". what hes just doing is lying to the children and keeping them from the deaths that happened because he think that there innocent. But there not innocent because after class they would"torment the weak and the smart" and "mussing up their hair and breaking their glasses. This is saying that these kids are just aren't innocent they don't have pure minds so i think he shouldent lie to them because i think they can handle the gruesume past.
Destiny Samuels
DeleteThis is a great central idea that ties in with overall everything in life and not just the poem. I agree with you because kids should be prepared for the world when it hits them instead of thinking everything is good when its really not. I like this because you actually thought about a overall world central idea and i agree that parents or teachers should not lie to their kids because thery should help prepare them for the real world so they understand how challenging it is. Great job Keyshawn
Victoria Awode-
DeleteThis is a outstanding central idea because you said the central idea and included examples and details.You quoted sentences from in the text such as''trying to protect his students innocence he told them the Ice Age was really just the Chilly Age, A period of a million years''. Next time capitalize words like the''Ice Age and Chilly Age ''.
But over all great Job Keyshawn !!!
Nicholas Ramsamooj
DeleteI agree with this statement that Keyshawn made because it brings out the central idea of what the author is trying to portray in his poem, "The History Teacher". Very similar to what I mentioned in my response to this poem.
Javier Fontanez
ReplyDeleteThe central idea of Billy Collins "The History Teacher" is that a teacher is trying to protect his students from the cruel truth of history. For example in stanza 3 when he states "The Spanish Inquisition was nothing more than an outbreak of questions." This shows that the teacher makes serious topics fun and tells them lies about what actually happens. I think that the teacher only told them the lies because he didn't think they were ready to understand the truth.
Lamar Bowers
DeleteI disagree with this statement made by Javier Fontanez. I disagree with this statement because i don't believe that the central idea of the poem is that he is trying to protect his students.. its more like he doesn't believe that his students cannot handle the truth. In his mind, he believes he is but he isn't actually protecting his students by not telling them the truth he is actually hurting his student in multiple ways. This is why i disagree with this statement.
Lamar Bowers
ReplyDeleteBill Collins portrays the central idea of the poem "The History Teacher" in a multitude of ways. The central idea of this poem is that he doesn't want the students of the history teacher to face and learn about the harsh truth and reality of history. He does this so he can so called keep the children "innocent". As stated in the first line of the poem. Throughout the poem the teacher will tell the students false information about times in history.For example,in the first stanza the poet states "he told them the Ice Age was really just the Chilly Age,a period of a million years when everyone had to wear sweaters". This shows one of the lies that he illustrated to the kids in order to "protect their innocent".Little did he know that the kids weren't exactly to "innocent". For instance in the fifth stanza he explains that during the time in which they played is the time in which the weak and smart will be tortured and also the time when the kids were muss up there hair and break their glasses. This doesn't sound a little to innocent to me. I feel as if the history teacher would not tell the truth because he felt as if they could deal with the truth... also because he was afraid of how they would take the truth.
Charles Sims
DeleteThere are details that are supported for your central idea.I agree that the history teacher is protecting the children from the reality of the truth, but your central idea is only relevant for the poem instead of having a broader meaning. A central idea is supposed to me a moral instead of the summary of the story
`
Ashraf Uddin
ReplyDeleteI believe the theme of this poem was clearly to demonstrate the innocence that children still possess while also indicating the fact that there is a certain point when children lose that naivety and gain the unfortunate knowledge of the terrors in our world. Billy Collins mainly uses imagery and metaphors to establish this as the theme of his poem by comparing the actual atrocious events that have already occurred to more peaceful, innocent occurrences that a child can believe and relate to.It is proven when it saysThe poet ends the poem explaining that the history teacher is going to teach “that soldiers / in the Boer War told long, rambling stories” (20-21). This is to alarm the reader because surely history will be repeated in the children if the history teacher does not start teaching historical events correctly.
Also The speaker explains the history teacher is “Trying to protect his students’ innocence” (1) by teaching incorrect historical information. This is ironic because the children are not innocent, for they bully the children on the playground who know the correct historical information. By not learning history, the children are beginning to perform acts that could later on lead to the repetition of historical events.This shows that kids are not that innocent as they think because some are bullies.
Javier Fontanez
DeleteI agree with you in that the main theme of the poem was demonstrate the innocence that the children poses. You used great details to explain how the author expressed the theme of the passage.
Charles Sims
ReplyDeleteThe central idea of the history teacher is that history should not be lied about. From stanza 1-4, the history teacher is rephrasing history to not scare the children. According to the first stanza, "Trying to protect his student's innocence he told them the Ice Age was really just the Chilly Age". This shows to protect the student's innocence, the teacher has to explain history in a different format so that the students would have a certain view of the world based on history. Even though teacher is caring for the students, the students would have to learn the truth eventually so he can tell them the truth before they learn the hard way. The history is trying to protect the student's innocence, but the students end up to be bullies. according to stanza 5, "The children would leave his classroom for the playground to torment the weak and the smart." This shows that the students deserve to be told the truth no matter their age because what they are doing is wrong but they are treated as if they were innocent.
I agree with this because you gave an overall central idea and not just one for the history teacher but for everyday life. You also gave supporting details on how the teacher lies to the kids about everything everything in history. Overall you did a good job
DeleteErik Sanchez
DeleteYes, history should not be lied about, but like the other reply said, this central idea just applies to the history teacher and it should be a theme that can be applied to everyday life. Although you gave really good supporting details, you should try to make the central idea be one that you can learn from and use everyday. You did well overall.
Matthew Millington
ReplyDeleteThe central idea of "The History Teacher", by Billy Collins, is that the past is full of horrible events, but it is the only past we know and should know. It is our past that is being taught. It already happened and cant be changed so it shouldn't be told any other way. On the contrary, in "The History Teacher", the history teacher feeds his class with false information about the past events that they should be learning in class. He says that the "Ice Age was really just the Chilly Age, a period of a million years when everyone had to wear sweaters." It was actually a time when there was extremely cold, deadly weather. "And the Stone Age became the Gravel Age, named after the long drive ways of the time." This was the prehistoric time period of humans and early man. He especially did with harsh times like the Spanish Inquisition. "The Spanish Inquisition was nothing more than an outbreak of questions such as How far is it from here to Madrid? What do you call the matador's hat?" It was when baptized members who held contrary opinions to the catholic faith were tortured. The general technique used by Billy Collins is figurative language. He use language to make history not sound as bad as it was.
Justice M.
DeleteAfter reading this response I was speechless. I agree with your main idea and I especially like the way you used examples to back up your claim and research to support your example. This goes beyond that of what someone else would put. Great job Matt!
Victoria Awode -
ReplyDeleteThe central idea of the text ''The History Teacher'', is the history teacher protecting the innocence of his students by creating his own harmless versions of Historical events.An example of this is he calls the Ice Age ''the Chilly Age, a period of a million years when everyone had to wear sweaters''. Which is not true because the Ice Age was a cold period marked by extensive glaciation.
Eli Lee
ReplyDeleteI think the central idea of the poem is that we should appreciate and acknowledge the past to make the future. In the poem, the history teacher sugar coated history to protect the “innocence” of his students. This wasn’t the right thing to do since his studies one, weren't innocent in the first place because they were bullies, but two because now he has kids believing that history is perfect and this is making the kids less intelligent then they would be had they known the truth.
Christopher Valdez
ReplyDeleteThe central idea of the poem "the history teacher" is that a history teacher is protecting the innocence of the children by making a i child friendly lesson of lies. according to the poem he says that " the Spanish inquisition was nothing more than an outbreak of question" this is not true because many people died in this also it was much more than a question.also the children are bullies and he didn't know for example "the children would leave his classroom for the playground to torment the weak" he teach the kids wrong history to make sure history don't repeat it self.
Erik Sanchez
ReplyDeleteThe central idea for Billy Collins' "The History Teacher" is that innocence doesn't last forever there fore you have to conserve it for as long as possible. This statement can be proven by the quote, "Trying to protect his students’ innocence he told them the Ice Age was really just the Chilly Age, a period of a million years when everyone had to wear sweaters." (Lines 1-4) This quote shows how the teacher told them that the Ice Age got its name because people wore sweaters. Instead of telling the students the hardships people faced back then. Another quote to support my statement is "... the Enola Gay dropped one tiny atom on Japan." (Line 12) This quote shows how instead of telling them (the students) the truth about how the Enola Gay dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan where people lost their friends and family. The Teacher said that the Enola Gay dropped one tiny atom.
OMAR ISAAC
ReplyDeletethe central idea of the history teacher is that children aren't gonna be children forever they need to learn that the world they live in isn't a innocent place its war in the world
the teacher was lying to the students when he said the ice age was the chilly age it was babying up the truth
Christopher Valdez
Deleteyour answer was terrible and had no supporting details. you only had one sentence and no example. you also didn't quote from the poem.
Christopher Colin
ReplyDeleteThe central idea of Billy Collins "The History Teacher" is that the teacher believes he's protecting the students innocence by fabricating the stories he reads to his students. In stanza 5 it states "The children would leave his classroom for the playground to torment the weak" this shows that his students aren't innocent and by fabricating his stories he's not helping anybody but just delaying the real issue.
Govindra Komar
ReplyDeleteThe central idea for Billy Collins "The History Teacher" is that sometimes people have to lie for the good of others. This is shown in multiple ways through out the poem. For example the history teacher said that the Spanish inquisition was a lot of questions instead of telling them that it was a violent part of history where the Spanish punished converted Jews. He also said in the first stanza "Trying to protect his students innocence". These show that the history teacher told his students a lie to protect their innocence. He lied to protect them. So sometimes lies are not hurtful but helpful.
Christopher C.
DeleteI agree that the History Teacher had to lie for the good of other, you also provide evidence and examples to support your claims about the overall central idea.
Aaliyah Buckner
ReplyDeleteThe central idea of Billy Collins poem, "The History Teacher" is a teacher sugar coating the vulgar ways of history.
By using literary devices such as Allusions, for example in Stanza 4, it states " The Enola Gay dropped one tiny atom on Japan"
Now an Allusion is a direct or indirect reference to a familiar figure, place or event from History, Literature, Mythology or from the Bible
and in this case its a familiar even in history to make a reference to what really happened but he put his own little sugar coated version
to it for his younger audience. Also when he stated, ""The Ice Age was really just the Chilly Age, a period of a million years ago when
everyone had to wear sweaters". He just sugar coated an event in history when an extreme amount of our population and animals have died
due to extreme weather conditions. If I do say so myself the technique he used to sugar coat the terrors of history and the way he made his
own little versions of history was quite interesting, but it still does not change the fact that he lied to the students even though history may be
a little harsh and hard to understand kids still need to know and understand. So they can understand why things are done the way they are done
now and notice the sacrifices made and to not take what they have for granted and to also not repeat history in their years to come.
Aaliyah Buckner (EDITED)
DeleteThe Central idea of Billy Collins poem, "The History Teacher" is to teach students false or sugar coated events from history
to protect their innocence .He brings out this by using literary devices such as an Allusion, for example in Stanza 4, it states
"The Enola Gay dropped one tiny atom on Japan". For the people who don't know what an Allusion is, it's a direct or indirect
reference to a familiar figure, place or event from History, Literature, Mythology or from the Bible and in this case its a familiar
event in history. He made a reference to a traumatic event in history but put his own little sugar coated version to it for his younger
audience. Another way is when he stated, "The Ice Age was really just the Chilly Age, a period of a million years ago when everyone
had to wear sweaters". He sugar coated yet another event from history from when an extreme amount of our population and animals have died
due to extreme weather conditions. If I do say so myself the technique he used to sugar coat the terrors of history and the way he made his
own little versions of history was quite interesting, but it still does not change the fact that he lied to the students, even though history may be
a little harsh and hard to understand kids still need know. So they can understand why things are done the way they are done
now, notice the sacrifices made so they don't take what they have for granted, and to also not repeat history in their years to come.
Christopher Valdez
ReplyDeleteYou did poorly stating the central idea you gave no examples to back up your claim.Also you answer only in one sentence and gave no examples on how is babying the truth. in addition you didn't state nothing from the poem.
Alfonso Hernandez
ReplyDeleteThe central idea of the poem "The History Teacher" is to tell history in a more understandable way to children. A quote that supports my statement is "Trying to protect his students' innocence." Another quote is "the Enola Gay dropped one tiny atom on Japan." The author uses personification to develop the central idea in the text. Personification is used in the quote "the Chilly Age, a period of a million years when everyone had to wear a sweater.", this quote creates a image in your mind of people wearing sweaters instead of people freezing to death.