hi students welcome to this uh reading exercise guide video in which i will be taking you over question by question the very first exercise that you will be completing for this class i made this little guide video because these exercises i have heard from students in the past are by far the most challenging part of this class and that's by design they're meant to be and so i don't want to make them easier instead what i want to do is give you a little more assistance right now at the outset of this course in how to be successful in these exercises and once you kind of get the the feel for how to do these you'll be better prepared to be successful in the rest of them so i won't have to provide these videos for all of them but before we sit down to even do an exercise on a reading you first should have downloaded the document that i gave you to read from the canvas shell i highly recommend that you print it off although you do have the option of as i have it here simply pulling the the pdf up on that screen and reading it on your device but even if you think that that's what you will be doing all semester with these documents i highly recommend that you at least give printing it off a try and working from a paper copy that you can markup highlight underline and things like that as i have done i found that as the most effective way to do the kind of close reading of a text that we're going to be doing here so print out your document and before you watch this video and do the exercise you should have already given this document one complete reading all the way through um just sit down and read the thing from front to back whether it's in one sitting or a couple sittings whatever read with a pen in your hand but don't get too bogged down in note-taking and stuff just read and make a little star or an underline where you notice particular things and but keep moving along in the document and read through it i want to bring attention to uh the instructions that i gave you in reading this document so i asked you to as you read think about according to the author what is it that historians do right and then also think about how we have this author writing about historical events how does the author have that knowledge how can the author know about these events that happened in the past where does that knowledge come from so think about those two big questions as you read if you've already done that we'll continue if not pause this video now or you can just close it down and come back to it later but do a first reading and in your discussion for this module i'm going to ask you first of all for what your first impressions your first takeaways from that reading were but if you've already done that first reading then we'll charge on ahead so you've read the document you've printed it out read it made a few underlines or or highlights here and there to draw attention to things that you found were really important as you were reading along and now we're going to sit down and answer some questions about the document and these questions are designed for particular purposes this is not a quiz this is not to ask you some questions to see if you read the document or see if you were paying attention and read it well i do not expect you to be able to answer most of these questions after just reading the document i expect each of these questions what i hope to accomplish with each of these questions is to send you back into the document to do a closer reading of it to search out particular details to ask new questions of this document that you weren't necessarily asking when you read it the first time through so let's go question by question and i'll show you a little bit more what i mean by that come over here we'll start with we're going to start with question two i'll come back to question one question two is the first question about the document specifically so who is the author of pet peasant fires the drummer of nicholas hausen which is our document here and why did the author write this book right so as i told you this is uh a pdf is is a copy out of a book it's opening chapter of a book um so i've asked you a question about who wrote this and why they wrote this book well right away under the title you see a name richard wonderly so presumably that is the author's name right um but you'll see that the when i ask you who wrote something and whoops i just selected one but i can change it later when i ask you who the author of something is i'm not just looking for a name i mean who is that person what do we need to know about that person to understand why they're writing this so we've got a few options here one says the author hans behem was a 15th century german peasant who wrote about revelations he received from the virgin mary to guide pilgrims in their revolt now if you read the document as you should have you know that hans behem is the subject of this writing it's what this writing is about so hans behind would only be the author if this was an autobiographical work you can probably figure out by now that that's not the case so we can eliminate that option let's see what our other options are the author is a novelist in the present day named richard wonderly who writes fiction about medieval characters for entertainment okay this one gives the name richard wonderly that is the right name is all the other information about him correct is richard wonderly a novelist um does richard wonderley write fiction about medieval characters for entertainment is that what this is is this fiction for entertainment let's hold on to that question maybe you already know the answer but let's say you don't let's see what the other options are um well the actually the last two both start out the same the author is a professional historian working at the university of colorado who wrote to tell hans becham's so so they both start out that he's a professional historian working at the university of colorado and then they each have some differing information after that one says um he wrote to tell hans behem's story and by doing so explore what it means to study and write history and then the last option is professional historian university of colorado and he's writing or he wrote an objective historical account of hans baham's story providing only the available facts okay so think about these three different options we have we know the name of the person but it's asking for some more information explore the front page we've got some publication info here for the inside cover that i've included but hopefully when you read this over you read it front to back and you noticed hopefully you did not skip over after the bibliography this last page where they've got a little bit here about richard wonderly so if you didn't notice that on your first reading you're going back over this you're looking for information about the author you find this and this is going to give you some more of the information you need to know he's a professor of history at the university of colorado colorado springs and the author of some other nice books that's wonderful okay so that kind of points us in the direction of these two here to finally narrow down exactly what the right answer then is um we have to say okay um what do we know first of all we can rule out novelist because richard wonderly it tells us on the back cover he's a historian so of these two that say he's a professional historian working at the university of colorado is he telling hans behind story and by doing so exploring what it means to study and write a history or is he writing an objective historical account of hans baham's story providing only available facts you read the document you decide which of those two is right question three according to wunderly our author who and or what do historians interpret this is an important question let's look at our options here well right away i notice ah this is one of those all of the above are true so that's always important to notice never want to click on the first answer that appears right because this always may be a possibility so our first option is historians interpret documents by which he means primary source documents left by historical figures from the past okay according to wonderly is that what historians interpret primary source documents left by historical figures from the past from your reading of this does that claim seem true to you if so hold on let's see if that's the only true one or if we have an all the above are true kind of scenario next one historians interpret each other by which he means the claims interpretations and biases of other historians as found in their written work their secondary sources that historians write and in conversation between colleagues so in other words historians interpret each other historians argue with each other um okay let's look at number three historians interpret themselves by which he means that historians as they study history learn about their own material world that they live in and become more aware of how that world shapes their mental world of bias and perspective developing a historical self-consciousness so when historians interpret documents they interpret each other they interpret themselves or all three of these are true first ask yourself do any of those seem right to you and how confident are you maybe you want to confirm your answer or maybe you're just not sure and you need to go back through here's where i'll mention i've set up these exercises so that all of the questions are visible at the same time that enables you to if you want to sort of like put a pin on this one and come back to it that will allow you to go through and answer the questions you think you know or make a note of what kind of information you're going to be looking for as you go back in that way you don't have to go back and re-read the entire document for each question right but when you do go back through and you're going to be looking for according to wonderly who and or what do historians interpret um and you're going to find as you read along that he will give you this answer and i will never give you a question that you cannot find the answer to somewhere it will either be explicitly answered or strongly implied and be something that you should be able to come about as you read the document carefully so i'll give you a clue for this one look to page five there should be a point on page five where it will pop out to you ah he's talking about uh who and or what historians interpret here and you'll find the answer there on page five so you can go back and look you can pause this video at any point if you want to go back and try some of these so uh what can you find on page five that will confirm for you give you some real confidence as to what the answer here is all right i'll move on to question four now what does wonderly mean on page four when he says quote i made up most of that oh this is a wonderful question because it's telling us exactly what part of the text it's referring to and what page it's on so we can go back to page four and we find at the very beginning of the first full paragraph on that page he starts out with the sentence i made up most of that this may be a sentence that jumped out to some of you on your first reading so ask yourself what did he mean when he said that you've got three different options here he didn't find the story in the historical sources very interesting so he changed a lot of the facts to make it entertaining is that what he did he lied about most of hans behind's experience to trick his readers is that what he did he constructed a very plausible narrative to describe events for which the available primary source evidence is lacking did he do that the answer to this one might be obvious to you already having read the document if it's not you know what page to go back to uh find that phrase or that sentence i made up most of that sounds like he's referring to what he just said so go back to what he wrote before that um so that'd be that first page or so of the document and reread that a little more closely asking yourself this question what did he mean when he said that he made most of that up ready for question five again pause at any point as needed question five from whom do we as historians get most of our written information about hans's life so referring to hans behem the subject of wonderly's book here where does wonderly get his information this is one of the big questions that i asked you to think about as you were reading this document right wunderly is saying all the stuff about hans behem and what happened to him in the past how does he know any of this where does that information come from so you've got a few options here first one clergy who had a very positive view of hans because of his intense piety a second option is also clergy but here it characterizes them differently clergy whom hans apparently said should be killed and who saw him as a threat okay so was it clergy from whom we get our information about hans and if so uh did they like hans or did they not like hans see him as a threat what about these other two they both say revolutionary leaders first one who admired hans and sought his leadership for their cause or second one revolutionary leaders who were threatened by hans who feared he would usurp their role as leaders of the common people so was it clergy or was it revolutionary leaders and if so did they have a admiration or a positive view of holland and were they threatened by hans you can go back through the documents if this information isn't already clear to you from what you remember about the document go back through and see if you can find where it talks about where we get this information from and just to give you a little hint um our author here wonderly he's he talks about what we know what we really know about hans and hans's time in history um the time period in which he grew up there are some things we really know and then he says beyond that we know very little except what han's enemies chose to tell us so it is in there seek it out find it and see uh what answer you can find i want to make a note at this point that all of these questions are designed to get you to ask new questions about this document and to think about them none of these questions are arbitrary they're all extremely important let's think about this last one right does it matter whether our sources about a person come from that person's enemies or from people who admired and liked that person does that make a difference and how we read it if a source was extremely critical let's say in this case we find primary sources about hans behem okay we have some information to go by uh in in discovering who this hans behind was why he was important right but we have sources and these sources are extremely well they offer some criticism of hans bahim right if those sources were written by hansa's enemies can we trust those criticisms what if they were written by people who admired hans if we read some criticism from admirers would we read that differently would it under would we understand it differently i think we would um let's look at back at just some of the other questions um no let's not let's move forward to the next one question six uh peasants daily lives were not typically written about why was hans life documented this is a conundrum for historians that look back at these periods is um you can find out a lot about the elites who could read and write who wrote about themselves or were written about but for the vast majority of people who were illiterate in around the 1500s um it's hard to know a lot about them because they couldn't write and there wasn't too often an occasion for anyone else to write about them um so why was hans behind written about you've got three options here hans behind unlike most peasants learn to read and write and record his experiences as a peasant does our document tell us that anywhere option two the life of hans behind became noteworthy because of his visions that he claimed to have had which led to violent revolts and a trial which was written about by people other than himself do we find that information in the document option three hanza's life was not documented every account we have of his life is purely fictional does our reading corroborate that for that question i will let you answer that or go back to the document and ask yourself this question how does the document answer that question for you i think we can move on to question seven there which of the following statements best characterizes wunderly's assessment of hans behem's belief this is an important question hans behem as you read in the story had some experiences um or at least perceived himself to have had some experiences and he talked about those experiences and that elicited a reaction from the people around him and that's how this whole story kind of plays out and what what makes this story interesting enough for hans behem to be written about by those authors who wrote the documents uh the primary sources that us historians have to work with and noteworthy enough for us historians to pay attention to and to want to write about um so hans behem had these beliefs about his world and about the experiences that he had and how does wonderly our author our historian here characterize those beliefs all of these answers potential answers begin the same he describes hans claim that he was visited by the virgin mary this is what happened in the story this is what hans claimed hans claimed he was visited by the virgin mary how does wonderly assess those claims those beliefs the first option says he assumes that this must be what actually happened the virgin mary appeared to hans behem that's one option another option since hans's belief was inconsistent with modern science he must have been lying does wonderly say anywhere in our document here or or indicate anywhere that hans behem was lying was being deliberately dishonest next option he asserts that since hans's belief was inconsistent with modern science we must assume he was mistaken and something else was going on so that's a little different from the earlier one right was hans deliberately lying to people to get them to follow him and and do all the stuff that they did or did hans sincerely believe he saw the virgin mary and was this belief based on uh something that was deceiving him in other words does wonderly say that uh you know wonderly writing in the modern age he's writing in the 20th or 21st century um let's see he's writing in 1992. so in 1992 um does wonderly say well this is 1992. we all know the virgin mary did not really appear to hans by him so but let's give him the benefit of the doubt his beliefs were sincere so something was going on whatever it was he believed it was happening is that what the author says okay so you get the distinction between those two last option he describes han's claim and focuses on the human activity that resulted from those claims not concerning himself with the question of whether such miraculous is excuse me such miraculous appearances actually happen okay so do you get the distinction here between this one and the previous options uh the two options before this uh assume or assert that because hans's claims were inconsistent with modern science the virgin mary didn't really appear to him so we have to decide whether he was lying or just mistaken this last one says that wonderly wasn't really worried about the question of whether or not miraculous appearances like this really happen that simply wasn't the focus of his uh of his analysis right he focuses on the question of uh what human activity resulted from hans's claims right so in other words whether miraculous visions of the virgin mary really happen or not it is is unimportant uh for the purposes of what he's doing as a historian right obviously that question is very important for other reasons but for the purpose of a historian's writing we can sort of set that question aside right for the writing of history we don't need to take a stance on this question of whether or not miraculous appearances happen what we are interested in is hans behem made these claims and we may be interested in whether or not we as historians believe he was lying or sincerely believed these claims that is a historical question which we may or may not be able to find the answer to but we're also just interested in what were the result of these claims right how did people react to them what history unfolded because of the claims that uh hans baham made all of these questions have to do with human activity right these are not theological questions these are historical questions how did people react to hans behem's claims why did he make these claims what were his motives these are all historical questions and this you can probably pick up by the way i'm talking about this that the last answer is the correct one so that's kind of a give me for you but i i bring that up and give that away because i want to stress this point this is a really important point to think about going forward in this class it's important because it means that the discipline of history is something we can all engage in whatever our personal religious uh or other beliefs might be right um in other words uh wonderly as he writes is not asking you to uh believe that hans behem actually saw the virgin mary he's also not asking you to consider that utterly absurd and impossible right wunderly does not really take a stance on that at all and in doing so he allows anyone interested in this topping that he's this topic that he's writing about to continue engaging in this historical inquiry about this human activity of what was hans behem and and this revolt all about um why did this violence occur what were the beliefs that drove that violent whether those beliefs were true or untrue who cares what were the beliefs what was it that people believed and how did they act on those beliefs and how did that impact history how did history play out therefore this is uh i can't overstate the importance of this because this is why i for example as a non-muslim can write history about uh the islamic world this is why i as a non-jew can write the dissertation that i did on the iraqi jewish community in baghdad iraq in the 20th century because i'm not trying to concern myself with whether or not the claims of any of those religions are true or false i'm interested in the human activity so that's what we're doing here that's what wunderly is doing in this document and that's what we're all doing in this course we are all learning the craft of history which deals with human activity and events in the past as they played out over years over the centuries okay um so i gave you that one and by the way i'll make a note of this right now at the end of these exercises once you complete it the answers will all come up and it will have notes after each question that i have given you these are important i want you to actually read over these and see what new information they give you um they will hopefully add a little bit of meaning to the thought process that you've gone through through each one of these and all of this uh is skills training going back to this first question that we skipped these exercises the reason they are so challenging the reason they take such a long time is because i am not just quizzing you on information you should have read right this isn't simply a test i'm not quizzing you on content i'm teaching you an entirely new set of skills a new way of reading that is probably more new for some of you than others but to the extent that it is a new and unfamiliar way to read it will be very challenging and over the course of the semester you will get better at it which means it will get a little easier for you i think and if it's not again always contact me for help i'm happy to give individualized help but this is skills training you are learning new skills so make sure that you put that correct answer in for question one and then let's wrap up our exercise here then um we've got just a couple questions left question eight in creating for his reader some context to help understand hans behind's life wonderly shares some information based on how historians currently understand 15th century german history to illuminate 15th century peasant life which of the following details does he share okay that question's a little bit wordy i realize but what is it what is it asking um in creating for his reader some context to help understands hans behem's life wandery wonderly shares some information so wunderly is writing all about hans behem and what happens to him but in order to understand what happens to hans behind we have to understand the world hans bechem lived in that world was very different from ours not only because it was in europe and most of us taking this class are not in europe right now but more importantly it was 500 years ago the world was an entirely different place 500 years ago living in it was an entirely different kind of experience people thought differently people live differently 99.9 of people living in the world at that time were farmers some of them also craftsmen and all of them were involved in the running of a household as well but the vast majority of people were growing their own food so just think about what a radically different world that is and in your next wonderly reading in the next module we'll be shifting our focus continuing to read about hans behem shifting our focus to familiarizing ourselves with that very different world right but this question has to do with that whole idea right if we're going to look at hans behem we have to give him some context context means his surroundings that world that he lived in what was going on at the time he lived right that's what we mean by context so wunderly is creating some context to help us understand hans behind's life and he does so sharing some information that doesn't necessarily come from documents about hans behind but they come from that time in history so they can help us create his world so we've got hans lived during a cold spell that threatened the livelihoods and lives of many peasants around the world did we get that information in the document in germany as in most of europe peasants were ruled over by both secular and religious authorities was that mentioned in the document deeply held religious and spiritual beliefs including belief in miracles and divine judgment through natural disasters were practically universal among both elites and commoners during this period did we find that in the document there are three more you can read all these and you'll notice another all of the above option at the bottom here all of the above are described by wunderly because they are currently accepted ideas among scholars about 15th century german society so anytime we have this all of the above option there's a strategy that we can use to find the right answer to this or at least to determine if the correct answer is all of the above and this is probably not news to you but if you can be real confident that at least two of these are correct then you can feel safe in going with the all the above option right so read down this list ask yourself can i be can i be satisfied with my level of confidence that at least two of these are right if so go with the all the above if not um then it can only be one of these then we have to figure out which one it is so answering this question may require you to go back into the reading read over it again with the specific questions in mind and again as i mentioned uh you may want to begin by going through these and answering the questions you can and then going back and uh you know making note of what information you need to look for as you go back through and do some closer reading of the document again you may have to read back through parts of this document several times you find the strategy that works for you but expect to dive back into this document and finding these answers and our last question according to the reading exercise introduction video which you are watching how do the exercises in modules 1 and 2 differ from those in later modules i gave you the answer to this earlier but just to clarify these two first exercises are called reading exercises and they are over secondary sources beginning with module three and for the rest of semester they will be called primary source exercises they'll work the same it's the same kind of questions it's designed to send you back into the text for a real close reading but beginning with unit 3 instead of doing that with something written by a historian instead of doing it with a secondary source we'll be doing it with primary sources with documents from medieval china documents from the islamic world in the 19th century right documents from historical periods um so those later exercises will cover primary sources there your third option is your correct one there but again the skills that you're learning in these first two will carry over into those primary source exercises so try to think if i have anything else for you before i sign off please this is my first semester including this instructional video so if you have any feedback on these please let me know was it helpful um is there anything i can do different to make it more helpful and yeah any of that feedback would be welcome i highly encourage you to go back over just double check your answers make sure you've clicked the right one you don't want to lose points for any simple mistakes once you've done all this hard work to think through what the right answers are once you have major selections submit the quiz it's telling me i have unanswered questions and i'll just tell to continue anyway but now it's going to give you the results of your quiz and it will there's no notes on the first one but for most of these it will give you these notes after each question so who is the author even if you've got the question right please read over my notes then my notes will help call attention to what you learned by thinking through this process help you think through and notice what kind of things you will want to remember that will make your future inquiry a little more smoothly it's helping you walk away from this exercise having learned those skills and being aware of what you're learning so please do read over these it will pay off i believe in future exercises and when it comes time for each module to do your discussion many of those discussions will be over the readings that you've done and the exercises understanding the questions and going over those notes the questions will help you understand what to do for the discussions as well by the end of the semester you will write and turn in an essay you see my notes on the rest of these questions here by the end of this semester you will turn in an essay on one of these documents that we've read this semester and if you have paid careful attention during these exercises and looked over my notes at the end of each that will really help you be successful in your essay writing in particular whatever document you choose to write on at the end of the semester i would highly highly recommend that you go back to the primary source exercise from that specific document read over what the questions and answers were and read over my notes from that exercise all of that will help you think through the analysis that you are going to write of that document that's my video guide i hope it's helpful again please let me know shoot me an email if you want and just let me know if this was helpful and what if anything i could change to make it more helpful