I do of course appreciate that I am in a very fortunate (or unfortunate - you decide) position, not having to juggle my time with looking after a young family, and having a wife who also teaches and therefore finds herself equally busy for most of the time. So I got to thinking that it might be nice to share some of the reading I am doing to give others a chance to really target books or sections of books which might push their love of history and change their approach to teaching specific historical topics. Rather than aiming to be a "Spark Notes" of history books however, I hope to discuss lines of argument rather than summarising whole books in note form and make such comments relevant to teaching related subject matter in the classroom.
This new segment, which I am entitling "Building Usable Historical Knowledge through Reading" (BUSK-R), therefore aims to offer some insights into the reading I have been doing. I intend to write segments every few weeks, detailing the book(s) I have been reading; the main lines of argument about specific topics; any interesting stories of personal experiences documented; and my thoughts on how these might be used in the classroom setting. I would also like each of these BUSK-R segments to become a forum for debate as well. I will index all of the BUSK-R posts under "Subject Knowledge". I would be very interested in your thoughts and comments on the segments.
The first BUSK-R piece takes my recent reading on the growth of slavery in the USA in "The half has never been told" by Edward Baptist and will be on the way shortly.