The underlying lessons of this opening exercise – about the fragmentary nature of our sources, about the voices that are present and absent, about the methods we can use to answer important questions about the past, about the impact of our own perspectives and biases on our interpretation of this material – then guide our subsequent study for the remainder of the semester, as my students learn to analyze ancient sources both for what they reveal and what they conceal about the past, and as they learn to listen to the voices from the past as well as the voices of their classmates.Cross-file under Pedagogy.
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