In Defense of Teaching the XYZ Affair

I just got back from the OAH meeting in Atlanta.  It was a great weekend.  One of the panels that I was most excited to attend was the SHEAR panel on “New Knowledge in Old Containers: How Early Republic Scholars are Changing the Story.”  During the panel, John Larson gathered together four past SHEAR presidents…

Midterm Check-In

We’re back from “spring” break this week, and my students have all gotten their midterms handed back to them.  My inbox and office hours were both accordingly more full than usual.  Some of the students are taking the time to check in, talk about their performance, and think about what they can do to improve…

Teaching Our Research

It’s a classic question of job interviews, isn’t it? How do you combine your teaching and your research? Next week brings my Religion and American Politics course up to the foreign mission movement, and I will find myself talking to my students about a subject that has been the focus of most of my scholarly…

Gaming U.S. History

Last spring I read an interesting article by Ken Owen at The Junto blog on gaming the Revolutionary War as a classroom exercise. While this approach might be a little unconventional for most instructors, using a gaming exercise in an American history class is something I have always wanted to try. This semester, I have the opportunity…

Grading and Measuring Learning

The pile of blue books and final papers that were decorating my office desk have been filed away.  I submitted my grades earlier in the week, and now it comes time to join Ben in thinking about what lies ahead for next semester and reflecting on the one that has just past.  It was my second…

Creative Writing in the History Classroom

I tried something new in my women’s history class this term, and I’m really happy with how it went.  I tend to get students from all over the university in this course, but noticed that there are a good number of education majors who show up.  One of the papers I assigned last year was…

Introductions

Hello there! Like Katie, I am teaching the first half of US Women’s History this fall, and I couldn’t be happier to be doing so.  This is by far my favorite course to teach, and not least because it was in a women’s history college classroom that I myself figured out that I wanted to…