Teacher Seeks Help

[Vermillion Phoenix]

Could I please ask for help from your online community? I'm a middle school teacher who is developing a curriculum unit that poses the essential question "Why was Alexander 'Great'?" I am looking for the best resources for 6th and 7th grade students (USA) who are 11 or 12 years old. With the volume of books and websites available, I'm at a loss to know what sources are "readable", present a balanced view, but won't get me into hot water with some parents. (i.e. don't focus on his sexuality and/or detail explicit violence). In this day and age, I can't shield them from much, but I don't want to actively promote sources that would startle anyone.
It is remarkable that when viewing any map of Alexander's Empire for the first time, my students gasp out loud at the very idea of Alexander. Therefore I want to give them the opportunity to learn more on their own about his legend, his campaigns, and especially the impact of his empire in the centuries that followed. All of my students have full access to the internet for research, but my students are still reading books!
I would be grateful for suggested "best" sources that are reputable and appropriate.
Thank you so much.
Kay

[marcus]

Could I please ask for help from your online community? I'm a middle school teacher who is developing a curriculum unit that poses the essential question "Why was Alexander 'Great'?" I am looking for the best resources for 6th and 7th grade students (USA) who are 11 or 12 years old. With the volume of books and websites available, I'm at a loss to know what sources are "readable", present a balanced view, but won't get me into hot water with some parents. (i.e. don't focus on his sexuality and/or detail explicit violence). In this day and age, I can't shield them from much, but I don't want to actively promote sources that would startle anyone.
It is remarkable that when viewing any map of Alexander's Empire for the first time, my students gasp out loud at the very idea of Alexander. Therefore I want to give them the opportunity to learn more on their own about his legend, his campaigns, and especially the impact of his empire in the centuries that followed. All of my students have full access to the internet for research, but my students are still reading books!
I would be grateful for suggested "best" sources that are reputable and appropriate.
Thank you so much.
Kay

Hi Kay,

Thank you for the query.

It's a difficult question, because I can't think - off the top of my head - of books that would be appropriate for that age-range. But I shall put my mind to it, and perhaps others can suggest things, as well.

One question for you - how long is your curriculum unit going to be? The length of the unit might make a big difference to what could realistically be covered, which in itself would determine how much depth you could go into with your students.

My initial thought is that you would need to cover:

1. What do the students consider to be "great"? - perhaps thinking about other "great" people they know about.
2. What would ancient societies have considered to be "great"?
3. Alexander's achievements.
4. Alexander's failures (or perceived failures).
5. What happened after his death (which could be examined as a failure or perceived failure.
6. Bearing in mind the students' perceptions of what it means to be "great", and ancient ideas on "greatness", could Alexander therefore be considered as "great".

(With my students of that age, we do a unit on whether Henry VIII was a "great" king, and it takes us about six to eight weeks to cover the ground we need to cover before they can answer the question - that's around nine to twelve hours of teaching.)

All the best

[Taphoi]

Could I please ask for help from your online community? I'm a middle school teacher who is developing a curriculum unit that poses the essential question "Why was Alexander 'Great'?" I am looking for the best resources for 6th and 7th grade students (USA) who are 11 or 12 years old. With the volume of books and websites available, I'm at a loss to know what sources are "readable", present a balanced view, but won't get me into hot water with some parents. (i.e. don't focus on his sexuality and/or detail explicit violence). In this day and age, I can't shield them from much, but I don't want to actively promote sources that would startle anyone.
It is remarkable that when viewing any map of Alexander's Empire for the first time, my students gasp out loud at the very idea of Alexander. Therefore I want to give them the opportunity to learn more on their own about his legend, his campaigns, and especially the impact of his empire in the centuries that followed. All of my students have full access to the internet for research, but my students are still reading books!
I would be grateful for suggested "best" sources that are reputable and appropriate.
Thank you so much.
Kay

Hi Kay,
There is a recent book on Alexander that targets your age-group: "Alexander the Great Rocks the World" by Vicky Alvear Shecter. I supplied about 18 of its copious illustrations from my collection of antique images of Alexander. The rest of my collection is also at your disposal btw, under the Image Library menu at http://www.alexanderstomb.com.
If you really wish to point the brighter ones at an ancient source on Alexander, then Plutarch's Life of Alexander is your obvious recourse. It is available online in English translation here http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/R ... /home.html. I'm not sure that you need worry too much about the moral issues in respect of this translation from 1919, since Plutarch's own slightly allusive language has been further obscured by the morality police. For example, the rape of Pausanias is referred to as him having been "outrageously dealt with"
Best wishes,
Andrew

[marcus]

There is a recent book on Alexander that targets your age-group: "Alexander the Great Rocks the World" by Vicky Alvear Shecter.

I'd forgotten about that book, although I have to admit that I thought it was only "OK". Then again, it is aimed at a younger audience, so it might be a good one - I'd have to look at it again.

If you really wish to point the brighter ones at an ancient source on Alexander, then Plutarch's Life of Alexander is your obvious recourse. It is available online in English translation here http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/R ... /home.html. I'm not sure that you need worry too much about the moral issues in respect of this translation from 1919, since Plutarch's own slightly allusive language has been further obscured by the morality police. For example, the rape of Pausanias is referred to as him having been "outrageously dealt with"

Yes, I suppose Plutarch would be OK for the more able students (we can't say "brighter" any more, Andrew! ). Not sure it gives enough of a balanced view, though?

ATB

[agesilaos]

Maybe I'm being elitist but 11 and 12 year olds should be able to cope with real history books, surely?

So I would suggest,

1) 'King, Commander and Statesman' by N G L Hammond; he is concerned about Alexander' greatness and this is not as eulogistic as his 'Genius of Alexander': it is a good statement of the positive version and does approach questions of source value,
2) Arrian, as the main source for his reign it would be hard not to set him, possibly in gobbet form though he is an easy read.
3)'Conquest and Empire' A B Bosworth; a more critical view of Alexander placing greater emphasis on the so-called 'Vulgate'; not as easy a read as Hammond but a less view.
4)Curtius Rufus, the main extant source for the 'Vulgate' Alexander corrupted by Good Fortune
5) A selection of passages demonstrating Graeco-Roman attitudes to greatness and Alexander, 'The Roman Alexander' by Diana Spencer; this one is definitely NOT for the pupils, graduates struggle with her prose but behind the literary criticism are some sound and interesting ideas on the Roman love-hate relationship with Alexander and convenient quotes from philosophical texts as well as historical ones.

[marcus]

Maybe I'm being elitist but 11 and 12 year olds should be able to cope with real history books, surely?

So I would suggest,

1) 'King, Commander and Statesman' by N G L Hammond; he is concerned about Alexander' greatness and this is not as eulogistic as his 'Genius of Alexander': it is a good statement of the positive version and does approach questions of source value,
2) Arrian, as the main source for his reign it would be hard not to set him, possibly in gobbet form though he is an easy read.
3)'Conquest and Empire' A B Bosworth; a more critical view of Alexander placing greater emphasis on the so-called 'Vulgate'; not as easy a read as Hammond but a less view.
4)Curtius Rufus, the main extant source for the 'Vulgate' Alexander corrupted by Good Fortune
5) A selection of passages demonstrating Graeco-Roman attitudes to greatness and Alexander, 'The Roman Alexander' by Diana Spencer; this one is definitely NOT for the pupils, graduates struggle with her prose but behind the literary criticism are some sound and interesting ideas on the Roman love-hate relationship with Alexander and convenient quotes from philosophical texts as well as historical ones.

I'm afraid not! A high ability 11-12 year old could be expected to manage Arrian, perhaps, and possibly Curtius; but one wouldn't be able to use either in a teaching context (unless one used a few short passages). The Hammond book would be OK for a high ability student perhaps to read at home; but, again, in a classroom environment it is just too much text. And I mean HIGH ABILITY - most students at that age will not find either of the texts accessible in more than small chunks.

One could only use these by drawing out relevant passages - I would be perfectly confident about, say, doing a comparison of Arrian and Curtius on a specific event - although, for example, Curtius' description of the Philotas affair is too long, but one could compare Arrian and Plutarch.

And you are right - there's no way one could expect them to cope with Diana Spencer.

ATB

[agesilaos]

Just goes to show how out of date I am, I suppose they are no longer expected to parse Vergil for pleasure either, O tempora, O mores (I know that's Cicero). I was thinking more of private reading though but I bow to your pedagogic experience. It is just that it is difficult to judge a man's greatness without looking at all of his career; my old University, Lancaster, issues a pamphlet on Alexander by Stoneman it is short and may be concise and accessible I have not read it but I bet someone here has

[marcus]

Just goes to show how out of date I am, I suppose they are no longer expected to parse Vergil for pleasure either, O tempora, O mores (I know that's Cicero). I was thinking more of private reading though but I bow to your pedagogic experience. It is just that it is difficult to judge a man's greatness without looking at all of his career; my old University, Lancaster, issues a pamphlet on Alexander by Stoneman it is short and may be concise and accessible I have not read it but I bet someone here has

"O tempora, o mores" indeed!

But your suggestion of the Stoneman Lancaster pamphlet is good - yes, I would say that would be accessible for 11-12 year olds. They would only be able to read it in spare time, due to the constraints of lesson times ...

I agree that it is difficult to make a "greatness" judgement without looking at all the career. That's why I certainly don't think one could do anything like justice to the topic with less than 10-12 hours' teaching - and even then one could not really cover it properly.

Still, we do what we can!

ATB

[jan]

HI Kay, With so much exposure today through the medium of television and the internet, I don't think that you will be able to prevent your young students from learning anything that they can find on the internet. But you are wanting an answer to why Alexander is great, and that can best be understood that Alexander led all his battles upfront, immersed himself into each aspect of his jobs, whether administrative, city building, military, and cleaning up the wounds, doctoring, nursing, and burying. His greatness stems from his involvement, personal involvement, and thus, his hold and influence on his followers, whether voluntary or taken into his army as a result of his conquering the opponent's military. A superficial look at Alexander will acknowledge only his age and his swiftness in accomplishing deeds that had never before been accomplished nor since have been achieved. So there are many things that are obvious to qualify Alexander as truly great. Victories are one thing, but to have the enemy become one with you is a great achievement after you succeed in training them as well. In a sense, America and Europe achieved that same result after W.W.II when both Germany and Japan surrendered and capitulated. Persians did take to Alexander after his defeat and they accepted his rule as rightful due to his successes. He was able to achieve some success as King of Asia after he fought many battles. The term greatness in Alexander' s sense means larger than life. He was truly larger than life in a great many respects. I suggest that you have your students search and find those areas that confirm this.

[marcus]

HI Kay, With so much exposure today through the medium of television and the internet, I don't think that you will be able to prevent your young students from learning anything that they can find on the internet. But you are wanting an answer to why Alexander is great, and that can best be understood that Alexander led all his battles upfront, immersed himself into each aspect of his jobs, whether administrative, city building, military, and cleaning up the wounds, doctoring, nursing, and burying. His greatness stems from his involvement, personal involvement, and thus, his hold and influence on his followers, whether voluntary or taken into his army as a result of his conquering the opponent's military. A superficial look at Alexander will acknowledge only his age and his swiftness in accomplishing deeds that had never before been accomplished nor since have been achieved. So there are many things that are obvious to qualify Alexander as truly great. Victories are one thing, but to have the enemy become one with you is a great achievement after you succeed in training them as well. In a sense, America and Europe achieved that same result after W.W.II when both Germany and Japan surrendered and capitulated. Persians did take to Alexander after his defeat and they accepted his rule as rightful due to his successes. He was able to achieve some success as King of Asia after he fought many battles. The term greatness in Alexander' s sense means larger than life. He was truly larger than life in a great many respects. I suggest that you have your students search and find those areas that confirm this.

Hi Jan,

I don't know about pedagogical methods in the USA, but generally speaking we don't want our students merely finding evidence to support a posited statement - just asking them to find evidence to confirm the fact that he *was* great panders to a very old-fashioned way of looking at History (and a very propagandised one, as well). That is why, in my initial response, I suggested that students think about what being "great" means - in the UK we would be asking the students to decide what criteria they would use, and then to make a decision based on the evidence and learn to justify their decision. Otherwise they are not actually using any real historical skills, and the exercise is pointless.

One could, of course, take your long list of "great" things that Alexander did, and give students information about them. But, in the interests of rigorous academic study, one would have to give them a list of all the "bad" things, the mistakes, the murders, etc. They would then have to weigh up the two sides of the argument and reach a decision.

Just telling the students that Alexander *was* great and asking them to support that statement would be very poor teaching indeed. So, well-meaning though your thoughts are, I'm afraid I must strongly disagree and say that that is the *last* thing Kay should be doing with her students.

ATB

[marcus]

And, following from my last reply, I should really make a few comments about this:

His greatness stems from his involvement, personal involvement, and thus, his hold and influence on his followers, whether voluntary or taken into his army as a result of his conquering the opponent's military.

This is your opinion, but there are plenty of people who would argue against this. This would be a very poor approach, to indoctrinate students in one's own opinion about *why* he was great, just as much as it is dangerous to start on the assumption that he *was* great.

Victories are one thing, but to have the enemy become one with you is a great achievement after you succeed in training them as well. In a sense, America and Europe achieved that same result after W.W.II when both Germany and Japan surrendered and capitulated.

I don't really understand what you mean by that. Could you elaborate?

Persians did take to Alexander after his defeat and they accepted his rule as rightful due to his successes.

*Some* Persians accepted his rule. I wouldn't say that Bessus, Satibarzanes, Nabarzanes (at first) , Spitamenes, Barzaentes, Dataphernes and Catanes (at first), plus a whole load of Bactrian and Sogdian tribesmen, the Massagetae, and somewhere in the region of a million Indians, submitted meekly to him as the rightful successor to Darius.

The term greatness in Alexander' s sense means larger than life.

In your opinion. That wasn't why the Romans originally called him "great".

He was truly larger than life in a great many respects.

That doesn't make him "great", does it? A very simplistic definition which doesn't really mean anything - and if any student I taught told me that someone was "great" because he was "larger than life", I'm afraid that student would get a very low grade!

I suggest that you have your students search and find those areas that confirm this.

Like I said in my other post - ABSOLUTELY NOT! That is indoctrination, and teaches them that indoctrination is OK. They will become very confused when they start learning about life in Nazi Germany and get told that the Nazi form of education was NOT OK!

ATB

[agesilaos]

Ah, but is it not a modern liberal interpretation that National socialist education was bad? Surely one must judge these things according to the aims of the educators; and all those parents hanged for dissent and the steadfastness of the Hitler Jugend.... I half jest, monstrosity is diminished by time, I love it when JWs knock and try top tell me how evil and twisted man has become I then get to explain all the atrocities the Assyrians committed!

The general point is sound, and i must say difficult, 'greatness' is an out dated concept; I remember a tutorial with my Mediaeval European History lecturer where we were discussing Otto the Great, who defeated the Magyars at the Lechfield. 'There are no english Kings called 'The Great', he declared; 'What about Alfred?' I interceded and he replied, 'But that was a very English sort of greatness.' He meant that like Churchill he was responsible for avoiding defeat rather than seizing victory; 'greatness' can only exist within its cultural context and that makes it thin ice; if the things you say make Alexander Great also apply to Stalin or Hitler.... still, I have yet to meet any one who would exchange prejudice for logic what was wrong in 1942 seems so less wrong in 333BC.

[marcus]

Ah, but is it not a modern liberal interpretation that National socialist education was bad? Surely one must judge these things according to the aims of the educators; and all those parents hanged for dissent and the steadfastness of the Hitler Jugend.... I half jest, monstrosity is diminished by time, I love it when JWs knock and try top tell me how evil and twisted man has become I then get to explain all the atrocities the Assyrians committed!

Even though half in jest, you are of course correct. Then again, we never actually teach that National Socialist education was "bad" - the students usually make their own judgements about that! We just teach about it in order for students to understand why Hitler was able to exercise so much control over the German people - the exam questions never ask them to make a moral judgement about it (it being a history course).

'greatness' can only exist within its cultural context and that makes it thin ice; if the things you say make Alexander Great also apply to Stalin or Hitler.... still, I have yet to meet any one who would exchange prejudice for logic what was wrong in 1942 seems so less wrong in 333BC.

Hence my original suggestion that Kay begin with a discussion with her students about what constitutes "greatness" - because her students will inevitably reach a different conclusion from that of the Romans who originally dubbed Alexander as "great". (That isn't to say that they won't still consider him "great", but I would put money on their conclusion as to why being different from that reached by the Romans, or anyone else before around 1600AD, probably!).

That's why it's such a difficult topic - and why it irritates it when certain academics start pontificating from an ultra-modern democratic liberal POV!

ATB

[jan]

Hello Marcus, Kay said that her students were 6th and 7th graders and while your suggestions may be fine for a college classroom, I find that to suggest that they read any of the classics to determine what greatness means or whether Alexander deserved to be called great a bit too much for that age student. There is a vast difference in discussing Alexander's history with college students versus 6th grade students. I did not respond entirely to this post simply because I am well aware of the many different books that are made available to children in the juvenile section of the library, and I am sure that Kay may be as well. My point of suggestion was to insure that the students are who do the work in finding any attributes that can be considered "great" rather than have the teacher or an author do it for them. I have no quarrel with discussing the issue of "great" as either the Greeks or the Romans considered it to be or as we in America or any other nation consider it to be. It has become a word that is a cliche.

Alexander was more than "larger than life" but that he was...he was considered a god, and that is probably the single most important aspect of his character and personality, the key that seems to drive him, his godly status. Great is certainly an adjective with little impact when considered against godliness.

But for sixth and seventh grade students, I don't think that there would be much interest in his godlike state of being. This century has developed an attitude towards gods and goddesses that is totally different from that of Alexander's time. I have read many books that are in the juvenile fiction and nonfiction department of the library. Most are simplified but always full of great illustrations. One of the things that I find most meaningful in the study of Alexander is the number of creative works by artists and sculptors alike who keep his memory intact.

Great is an arbitrary term but if anything denotes some aspect of his greatness it is the number of artistic creations that are found in museums and even airports and cities in the world today. But again, I think that students should be allowed the privilege of bringing that to the attention of their teacher.

Most young students know how to use the internet very well, and there is no doubt that the internet is loaded with information about Alexander. My point is that the student learns best who finds those materials for himself.

I do not know how debate and argument is taught in England, but in America, we use Robert's Rule of Order and we also learn that for any argument, one must have evidence to support the argument. If one argues that Alexander is great, then one must have evidence to support that argument. However, as the saying goes even on Pothos. I will not do your homework for you.

[jan]

HI Marcus,

In terms of the Romans, I wonder why it is that Caesar is never called Caesar the Great. To me, it is all nomenclature and has little real bearing on the character himself, whether Alexander, Caesar, or whoever. No, HItler will never be called great. Nor will Stalin or Saddam Hussein.

In America, it is usually comedians and actors and athletes who are dubbed great now...Politicians can never achieve greatness....we all know how petty and small they really are.

So for that reason alone, this lesson of greatness may be of changing times, changing ways, and changing terminology.

I did write a response about Germany and Japan which I saved as a draft. It was a second thought that came to mind as I was typing away, and that is why I mentioned it. It had dawned on me a bit at how well Japan and German recovered and imitated the USA to become allies and competitors. I will save that for another time to develop my idea. I had had a penpal as a sixth grader who was Japanese and we corresponded for some time. It was an effort for the children of the war to become friends with one another, and it succeeded a lot.

I had been thinking of how well Alexander had incorporated the Persian children into his army, training them along with the Macedonians to serve in his growing empire. More later...