November 12, 2004

Making the Past Come Alive

To the Editor:

I read Mark C. Carnes's "The Liminal Classroom" (The Chronicle Review, October 8) with great interest. ... As one who has taught a Reacting to the Past seminar, I can testify how enormously successful it has been in bringing students directly into an engagement with historical material and into lively participation in classroom discussions of great ideas. In my 35 years of teaching I have never experienced such a strongly motivated class. ...

The students knew