Going Beyond a Biography

Beyond a Biography

In your research so far, I have asked you to become an expert on your topic. To try to learn everything you can about about the leader(s) you are researching.

Now, I want you to take your project "Beyond a Biography." Although its interesting to know where a person's from and when they were born, it's more important for you to focus on the times in their life where they showed leadership and the difference it made in history. How is our world different today because of their leadership? In other words, his/her legacy.

This week your assignment was to narrow down your topic to a specific event or aspect of your topic's life. I want this new, narrowed topic to drive your research going forward.  For example, instead of researching simply the life of Susan B. Anthony, search for sources that will help you better understand Susan B. Anthony's leadership role in the Women's Suffrage Movement. 

Do leaders shape history or does history shape leaders? My answer to that question is...a little bit of both. Leaders change the world in which they live, but they are fundamentally shaped by the world in which they live. This will be our focus next week: historical context.  "Historical context is the political, social, cultural, and economic setting for a particular idea or event" You will need to consider what other events, people, conditions affected your topic.  Also, what were the "norms and values" of the time? I hope you will start to see the connections between your "leader(s)" and the world in which he/she/they lived. This is historical thinking! I want you to start thinking beyond the who? what? where? and when? and start thinking more about how? and why? 

Adapted from 100 Leaders

For your Blog post today, answer the following questions in narrative form.
1. Define historical context in your own words 

2. How does location and time period in which you live affect you?