Takaki - Chapter 7

This is the second week in a row that I've become extremely frustrated with Takaki. I understand that his objective is to present the "other" view on American history; however, he is as much an instigator in failing to tell the entire story as textbook writers are in telling the "white man's history." In this chapter, Takaki fails to lay out why Americans sought to expand west. Instead, he only focused on Mexican reaction to the desired expansion.

If it were my choice, I would not use Takaki's book in its entirety in my classroom. Although I have found that certain chapters do a good job of explaining the other point of view and would nicely complement a classroom textbook, the past two chapters have not done so. And although I was encouraged to revise my post from last week, I think the explanation here should suffice for that.

If I were forced to use this particular chapter of Takaki in a high school US History class, I would definitely have students read both the classroom textbook chapter(s) on the US landscape prior to the Civil War and chapter 7 from Takaki. For example, my classroom textbook for next semester's student teaching, America: Pathways to the Present, does a phenomenal job of outlining the underlying reasons why the United States sought to expand west. I would have students read both the chapters from the textbook and Takaki, and make a chart showing the causes and effects of events involved in the Mexican-American War. One column would be a major event that occurred during the war, and another column would be the result of effect of that event. For example, at the end of the table the end result listed for the Mexican-American War was that the United States gained Texas, New Mexico, and California. This table would then assist students in their preparation for an exam.

This kind of table as opposed to an outline would be preferable for two reasons. First, there were so many events that occurred in such a small amount of time that students may have difficulty in trying to get so many events into the time line. Also, this table would allow for details about the events to be organized as opposed to being squished into a box within a very narrow window of space on a timeline. Unless students completed the timeline on the computer, it would be near impossible for them to effectively organize the information by hand. An organized table could be completed by hand or on the computer.