Ah, August… Time to remember that we actually have to teach in this profession. Time to reflect on all those things we said we’d get done this summer, and are feverishly writing blog entries instead… Ah, August…. But we also get to write syllabi. My five favorite things about it: Choosing a font. Garamond again? …
So I’ll be posting on Wednesdays for a while… weekly until my classes begin in Sept, then probably every other week. This post is a preview of my history survey syllabus, starting with page 4, the guidelines for the “SkillBuilder” assignment (click on the image to download the page’s PDF). Just what ARE the basic…
I’m pretty sympathetic with Bruce Shulman’s argument from The Seventies, that if we really want to locate the origins of our own current times, we could hardly do better than look at the transitions, left and right, that took place in what I call in my lecture on the subject “the most embarrassing decade.” But…
Following up on Ed’s recent post about balancing a book’s beauty with its gee-whiz visual aesthetics, I wanted to continue the conversation about survey textbooks and formats. I’ve also been thinking about Gail Collins’ article that appeared in the NY Review of Books (which I finally got around to reading using Pocket last week) about…
I’ve been watching The Newsroom during its first three weeks of life and, much as many felt The West Wing was Aaron Sorkin’s tonic during the George W. Bush years, The Newsroom is his tonic for today’s news-as-rating’s-driven-entertainment culture. Why report on important things like the economy when stories about Snooki’s most recent nip slip…
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…
Today’s entry comes from guest blogger Tona Hangen of Worcester State University. Professor Hangen is the author of Redeeming the Dial: Radio, Religion, and Popular Culture in America. She also blogs over at Juvenile Instructor – one of our favorite blogs. Tush.0 has offered her a lucrative contract to join the editorial team here, and…
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…
