An Overview of the Articles About the Oregon Trail Free Essay Example

Understanding the Past

During the course of this semester in History 103, I have been exposed to many different sources to help my development and understanding of the past. During the semester we used sources like professional historians, interactive maps, musical theater, magazines, and many more books and journals that expanded my knowledge of our past. Through all these sources some were more helpful than others. Personally, I am more of a visually and auditory learner, rather than a verbal or comprehensive learner.

The sources we used that help me better understand my past are; interactive maps, musical theater, and journal entries.

The source I valued as most helpful in understanding the past was the interactive map.

The Oregon trail interactive map that we used for the class discussion was very helpful. The interactive map was very visual on it had the time and length of the Oregon trail. It also had dots to click on during milestones of the journey. I think the interactive maps are great for a visual learner like me because i was able to use the interactions to better understand how long intense the Oregon trail was.

Although this was the most valuable source for me, I can see how it could make it harder for others to understand. The interactive map does not go into great detail about each stop on the Oregon trail, rather just giving a brief synopsis of the journey. For people who already understand how and what went on during this journey may be disappointed in the briefness of the interactive map. But the one thing that non visual learners may like, as well as I did, was the journal’s day by day of some of the travelers on the Oregon trail.

The second source I found valuable was the journals of the travelers on the Oregon trail. I believe it is easier to fulling engage in learning about the past through first person accounts, rather than third person through a historian. The day by day journals of the travelers on the Oregon trail were very interesting to me. By reading it in first person I was engaged in each journal entry visualising what was going on for that person.