Loewen’s
introduction serves as a general platform for justifying his writing of Lies My Teacher Told Me. Coupled with
reoccurring and non-reoccurring use of rhetorical moves and bold devices, he establishes
credibility, and adequately prepares the reader to approach each chapter with insight
into his character, as well as the context that surrounds his writing. Additionally,
he conveys how he feels about history, stating it’s “full of fantastic and
important information” (Loewen 3), posing the question “What has gone wrong
[with it]?” Backed with supported information in the introduction, he
approaches the reader with citation and references establishing credibility in
a timely manner, working towards the eventual reveal of controversies and
“conflicts” in history. Loewen assigns responsibility for the missing
information and misinformation surrounding what we think we know about history,
unfolding literary moves that flow throughout the text, illustrating his points
and validating the purpose of Lies My
Teacher Told Me.
By
making bold daring moves straight out of the gate with statements like “Something
has gone very wrong” (Loewen 1), Loewen instills a bit of intrigue, setting the
path to impart concern while hooking the reader. “What is this? What has gone
wrong?!”, we are left asking. He then follows the posed issue with an
explanation, supported with evidence conveying authority. Similarly, Loewen uses
this literary approach with the phrase “Textbooks stifle meaning by suppressing
causation” (7), explaining that by “[leaving] out what we need to know about the
American past” (7) students do not grasp the synchronicity of cause and effect.
Loewen repeats this move later with the “headline grabber” “The truth is that
Helen Keller was a radical socialist” (13). To many American readers the idea
that somebody who has been, historically, held up with such esteem could be a radical socialist, is startling. By beginning the paragraph in such a
bold “shocking” way, Loewen effectively grabs the attention of his primary
audience as he pulls them in with supports to his claim. Again, in chapter
three with “The true history of Thanksgiving reveals embarrassing fact” (Leowen 90)
he captivates the reader. Using a word like “embarrassing” applied to a holiday
that many North Americans hold in such regard, could seem, to some, shocking. In
addition to being titillating, using these bold astute assertions convey authority.
Rather than using phrases like “I think…” or “In my opinion…” which some
readers may find diminishes authority in his tone, he puts power behind what he
is trying to say. The key move behind these statements is to draw you in, to
illicit an emotion, to capture your attention and to validate Loewen’s voice.
Loewen
goes on to make an appeal that history is actually interesting and important, making a compelling case for his claim. Using
words like “fantastic”, “important”, and phrases like “power to spellbind audiences”
to describe it, Loewen passionately asserts that history is not “boring”,
“predicable” or “melodramatic“ (Loewen 3, 5) as the textbooks may lead a student
to believe. He moves to provide relevant examples to prove his point by
mentioning the enduring popularity of History as a subject in media formats like
public television, movies, other books about history, museums, etc. (4-5). In
doing this, he illustrates that the public is actually interested in history;
and not only is it interesting but you
should be interested in it, not just because
it is exciting, but because history is important. History is “directly relevant
to our present society” (Loewen 3), he says “More than any other topic it is
about us. Whether one deems our
present society wondrous or awful or both, history reveals how we arrived at this
point. Understanding our past is central to our ability to understand ourselves
and the world around us. (Loewen 2)” Perhaps Loewen’s strategy of telling the
reader that history is interesting and important, is to convince readers that his text can be set apart from those
“others” - those textbooks full of dry material - because he understands this;
he understands it and is preparing the reader for “his” “amazing stories” (8) about
“us”. Using this approach, backed with reasoning, Loewen gets the reader to understand
that history is important, interesting even; but it may not be your fault if you think otherwise.
Loewen
shifts, first suggesting teachers and students are mutually responsibility in a
perception of each other’s low interest in the history. Teachers respond to the
low morale of students towards history by “going through the motions”, which
makes history seem uninteresting to the student, thus propagating low morale in
a vicious cycle (Loewen 2). However, Loewen then spends considerable time assigning
layers of responsibility, making the claim that textbooks “alienate students” (6).
Then taking aim at textbook authors, and publishers, he establishes blame for
the crux of the problem, systematically deflecting it from students. It is the
textbooks themselves, formidable in size and content, and physically unbearable
to transport (Loewen 4); the textbook publishers are too unconcerned with outdated content to laboriously peruse the books
to remove it, and they are “unaffected by recent research” (Loewen 7); and
historian textbook authors receive no respect from their peers to be bothered
to update them (Loewen 7). These are all very powerful declarations supporting the
argument that it is not students’ fault that they may find history
uninteresting and unimportant. By reducing primary audience blame, Loewen works
to align them with “his side”.
Loewen
implores the reader to consider the significance of asking questions about
history. In using plural pronouns throughout the text, and continuing to pose
queries into who “the we” are in these narratives of history textbooks to begin
with (Loewen 64,37) he places us in the narrative. Loewen leaves us questioning
who history is being written for; if “it is about us” (8), at the core of who
we are, and “central to understanding ourselves” (2), do we not then have
ownership in it, he implores; do we not have rights to more than
basic facts and cloaked “evidence and reason”. By not having access to source
material in textbooks, we are not encouraged to think critically about what we
are reading. The “textbooks keep students in the dark about the nature of
history by offering them “reasoned judgments” (Loewen 8), leaving out conflict
and controversy so we have no chance to the scrutinize history, and therefore
have no concrete way to determine who the “we” are or “understand the world
around us” (Loewen 2). His message here, effectively communicated, is that we must
be offered as much information as we can, so that we can think critically about
it and who we are, and textbooks do not provide adequate resources for that. Therefore,
if we do not ask questions about our history, and are offered only piecemeal
information, we end up being whoever they
say we are.
Moving
towards punctuation, Loewen’s use of scare quotations throughout his entire text
pointedly draws attention to words. It is why
Loewen uses quotations to draw attention to the words that is important,
such as in “Legacy books”(3), “new new”(3), “war on terrorism”(8), and then in
the meat of the text with “ruling class”(28), “establishment”(29), “primitives”
(49). Shedding light on these words and phrases that are weaved through the
tapestry of history books, he encourages the reader to think about them. What
images do these words conjure, how, when used do they effectively elicit a
deeper meaning. For example, by using a term such as “primitive” in conjunction
with the native tribes of early America the reader is left with nothing but
very crude ideas of the (lack of) culture and “savagery” that may have existed.
Likewise, the term “savage”, when applied to historical texts brings to mind animal-like
primitive people, perhaps even “godless”. His intention in using these
quotations become clear, that some words written in history textbooks can frame
your way of thinking about the people of history, and it is just another way we
are cheated from the whole story.
Loewen continues to use quotations in his
introduction to reveal his character and personality. Listing book titles that
include inflated words like “Great”,
“Triumph”, “Promise” and “Pageant” in their titles and juxtaposing the
titles against those of more modest subjects, such as Principles of Chemistry, Loewen wittily pokes fun at how the
publishers try to profess the books grand completeness (6), cleverly revealing
the sense of ego and clear nationalistic slant many textbooks take.
Additionally, Loewen effectively makes use of quotations as a literary device in
the introduction in several different ways, in some cases establishing a
relationship with the reader, and in others demonstrating his character. For
example implying students may say “nothing good will come of this” (Loewen
4), he communicates that he understands, establishing relationship with the
reader. By suggesting that textbooks hype themselves with underlying messages
such as “You have a proud heritage. Be all that you can be” (Loewen 6), the
reader can reason that part of Loewen’s character does not include overly
patriotic or nationalistic tones. These specific moves work well illustrating
dialogue, and may subtly align the
reader with Loewen if they understand
he is being both funny, and understanding of the “history textbook plight of
the students”.
Finally,
Loewen discusses his professional credentials, the hours of work he put into
writing the text, revealing his (negative) experience of having been part of a
textbook creation, and disclosing how his view through a sociologist eyes may
be applied to his view, further legitimize the work at hand (8-9). By waiting
until the end of the introduction to “introduce himself”, he keeps it fresh in
your mind that he is indeed qualified to make the claims, to pull the punches
as you delve into the chapters. This move poised at the end has the effect of
ushering the reader into the first chapter of the book with confidence in
Loewen’s credibility and ability to inform you what has been missing from your
history.
Loewen’s
overall tone in the introduction can be interpreted as effective in preparing
the reader for the potential bold devices in his book, as well as the parts of
his personality that might show through. Establishing basic professional credibility
and connectedness through key moves, we can understand his motivation to reveal
to us the interesting and important information history has in store for us.
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The notes from the instructor that came along with the grade:
"You clearly understood the effects of Loewen's choices as a writer and can see the larger issues inherent in these choices. You present a sophisticated analysis of his work and are incredibly thorough. There are moments though, when you begin to lose focus; and, at times it felt like you thought you had to include everything. This semester let's work on focus and choosing the strongest arguments and examples to stand. That said though, this shows real critical engagement with the assignment and Loewen's text. Very well done."
Thank you for making it this far. Wish we had some candy to give you...
