Tis the season… to grade. But while the pile of essays to grade grows higher and higher, I’ve been distracting myself by planning for my next semester courses. I am thinking of pulling a dramatic audible and restructuring the assignments for the second half of my survey course. And I’d like to do so around…
I apologize for what may be the results of a tryptophan hangover, but I’d like to turn my disgust over Black Friday into a potentially useful discussion. The blogosphere has been filled with dozens of smart, helpful discussions of the history of Thanksgiving, but observers of popular culture, or at least popular media, might get the…
I still remember the feelings of whiplash. As an undergraduate double major in history and education, I struggled to reconcile the wildly different pedagogical styles of my respective fields. I am deeply grateful for the rigorous quality of my undergraduate history courses, but the methods employed therein could not have been more different from the…
The nervous chatter was loud; the silence was louder. I had four U.S. history survey students in my car on Wednesday evening driving back to campus after watching 12 Years a Slave. Some students were animatedly discussing the film, some were wiping tears, some appeared stoic, but all were affected. The movie is powerful, and…
My U.S. history survey class includes an exploration of different genres of historical presentation. The students are reading three autobiographies and then comparing them with works of academic, public, and popular history. In a recent post, I discussed the experience of comparing Cabeza de Vaca’s Chronicle of the Narváez Expedition with Andrés Reséndez’s A Land So Strange: The Epic…
Was America founded as a Christian nation? It’s a staple question for our the survey, and one that my students seem energized to discuss. I have never been able to squeeze John Fea’s excellent book into my syllabi, and until I find a way to do so, I have given up on covering all of…
Two weeks ago, Andy Lang shared with us his frustrations with getting students to engage in critical discussion. This Monday, Michael Hattem shared his experience with generating discussion in the classroom at The Junto, a group blog on early American history. Today, we revisit the topic with a guest post from Ronit Y. Stahl. Ronit…
For nearly ten years Cabeza de Vaca wandered across the North American continent, surviving as a slave to various Indians and then as a trader and spiritual healer. His story is filled with action, drama, and mystery, and provides a gripping narrative of seemingly impossible escapes. My task this fall was to get my survey…
We begin our week with a guest post from Whitney Stewart, PhD candidate at Rice University. Whitney and her colleague John Marks are organizing an upcoming symposium at Rice University that will produce an essential volume for scholars of race in the Atlantic World, but the conference will also prompt important discussion for all of…
A few years ago, I lost track of time while struggling to write a conclusion to a conference paper. When I glanced at the clock, I realized that I was supposed to be in the classroom in two minutes. Running from my office across campus, I started thinking about the relationship between teaching and writing.…
