I was lucky enough to be invited to speak at the Newberry Library last week. It was part of their NEH-sponsored program “Out of Many” program, which brought to the Newberry a collection of really fantastic community college teachers from across the nation who were looking to incorporate religion into their American survey or their…
by Nina McCune This summer has been a whirlwind – one rife with new ideas for various parts of the survey. Most recently, I’ve returned from Savannah, GA where I took part in a one-week National Endowment for the Humanities Landmarks Workshop at the Georgia Historical Society. Throughout the week, we revisited themes of race…
I’m revising my textbook once again and I’m struck every time I do it that the chapter on Reconstruction appears in both Volume 1, designed for the first half of the survey, and volume 2, designed for the second. This time, I’m revising the book at the same time I’m freshening up my syllabus for…
I was reading Anthony Grafton’s review of Andrew Delbanco’s new book, College: What it Was, Is, and Should Be, and was thinking about a question that constantly lurks in the back of my mind as I teach: What do I need my students to leave this class with? For example, one morning I read in…
As one of my students just put it, “Throughout American history there have been some themes have occurred.” Indeed. The final assignment that brought out this wonderful sentence was to assess whether or not the United States is more or less religious now that it has been in the past. The results have been fascinating.…
Personally, I love good novels. Who doesn’t? They do, however, present all kinds of problems as teaching devices–authorial perspective, literary affectations, introducing themes you haven’t prepared students for. But when a novel hits, it usually hits hard. I had a banner experience this past week with Harold Frederic’s classic book The Damnation of Theron Ware,…
Just finished a great “webinar” seminar with Ed about blogging and teaching, the take home point of which was this: I’ve got so much to learn! (Thanks Cengage Learning for hosting.) There were 40-50 folks in the webinar and it quickly became a rich forum for exchanging ideas about how to use blogging in the…
I had a teacher once who always tried to tie the theme of that day’s lecture to a current event, hoping it would serve as a hook for us, her students. Sometimes it worked (David Koresh is a memorable example as an entry into the use of violence as a proper or improper form of…
Who here has had any luck teaching students to write? Come on, be honest. And if so, please tell me how you’ve done it. Every semester I start with the best intentions. I’ll go over writing for several days. I’ll let them do re-writes. I’ll painstakingly edit their papers. Every semester the numbers get me…
When I was in graduate school, I TAed for a class on the Civil War. The prof usefully told us that the class would have almost nothing to do with the battles or the military strategy of the war or the generals, and everything to do with the context, the politics, and the ramifications. A…
