Format: This course follows the seminar format, which combines student-led discussions, presentations and debates with brief lectures by the instructor. Lectures will provide background, key content and problems to consider. However, the most significant aspect of the class will be group discussions of the readings. Readings will come from a wide variety of materials, and emphasize training in how to identify, interpret and assess the use of primary source materials. Students will also learn how to engage the arguments that historians, scholars and others make in the interpretation of the available historical evidence, in order to formulate their own, informed arguments and opinions, and ultimately, develop their own independent research projects.
Participation: Participation starts with the assumption that both students and instructor come to this class as various kinds of experts and beginners, coming from different perspectives and experience, each with the potential to teach and learn from others in the class.
Students are expected to prepare the readings assigned for that day’s class. Assigned reading questions will usually accompany the selected readings to help students prepare for discussion. Students should be able to recall the content of the readings, discuss the historical significance of the source materials, identify historians’ arguments from the secondary literature, assess the usefulness of different theoretical and methodological approaches, and contribute to the advancement of class knowledge in as many of these areas as possible.
Contributions include active listening and note-taking, helping to maintain a respectful and supportive learning environment, asking questions during the lecture or class discussion, leading class in closer readings of assigned materials, offering points for discussion, interpreting and using archival source materials, advancing theoretical, methodological and historical knowledge and/or debating points, and presenting their own research and analysis.
The instructor will keep records of general attendance, participation, contributions and improvement over the course of the semester, but students are also expected to keep track of their own efforts in this class and offer their own assessments at the end of the semester (see notes on self-evaluation portfolios below). If YOU do not know something, by all means please ASK! Asking helps everyone.
Projects: Students will also follow, as well as chronicle current world affairs, take weekly reading quizzes, write in-class essays on questions from class discussions and document-based questions, develop an independent research project (one in the fall and one in the spring), compose a book review on a book chosen from individual research interests, present findings from research to the class, and take a final final exam (more notes to follow). Alternative and/or additional projects will be considered, based upon discussion with the instructor and are subject to his approval (more notes to follow). Students are also expected to submit a final self-evaluation and portfolio at the end of each semester (more notes to follow).
