a Friday funny
Sure it’s wikipedia, but it’s still funny, and maybe even useful: a list of common misconceptions (historical and otherwise).
Anyone heard of William Dean Howells? –my favorite lecture
While Prof. Blum wisely brings up the absence of medical advances in the survey, I’m worried about another absence that is connected to but not defined by technology and industry: the intellect. Does intellectual history make an appearance in the survey? Should it? Today I gave my favorite lecture, which wins this honor in part…
How did they justify that?
I’ve always had kind of a schoolboy crush on Margaret Sanger. Maybe it was the topic of her life’s work that initially sparked the fire, maybe some of her fetching pictures. Either way, she’s one of a number of people in American history who make me blush a bit. She of course wasn’t perfect, but…
The Populist Get Two or Three Sentences?
This is a direct response to Ed’s post on the Gilded Age (the Guilded Age?). But rather than go at him personally, I think it better serves the broader question of the blog to air it publicly. Just a sentence or two on the Populists? Bryan gets beat up in a minute! The Midwest gets…
On periodization
Because Ed called me out on how I chose to periodize Reconstruction in HIST (and rightly so), I think it’s worth dwelling on the subject of periodization for a moment, especially because all of us who teach the US survey have to draw lines around when a subject begins and when it ends in order…
Historians argue, really! They do!
Introducing the concept of historiography to undergraduates in the survey is not altogether that difficult to do, although not without problems. In my first “real” lecture, on Re-con-struction “(Re-con-struction)”–any Grease fans out there?–I start the class off by asking if any of them have heard of W.E.B. DuBois. Maybe a third of the class raise…
Checking out each other
Ed’s first day of class sounds like mine, only better executed. He actually takes a picture of the kids! In my opening session, I do have them look around at the physical appearance of the classroom, something they have been doing for the previous ten minutes anyway. Then I show them an image of the…
On assessment…
I’ve always wondered about the best way to find out what our students know. How do I know what I know they know they know? Over the course of this blog I hope we’ll talk a lot about assessment. But as I’m putting up my syllabus I’ve decided on a strategy to make sure they…
Greetings
–(I honestly meant to get this posted before Ed posted his second installment, and now I see I am too late. The lesson: never try to be as productive as Ed–it’s too tall a task.)– I’d like to thank Ed for setting up such a useful site, on how we teach the survey. Because I…