Bloggers for Teaching United States History have recently started a good conversation about content coverage and historical literacy. One of the central issues, as dissected by Glen Olson and Kevin Gannon, is how we as teachers define the term historical literacy. Both pieces correctly argue against assuming that being historically literate simply means knowing a…
“There isn’t a right or wrong answer,” I look around the class, “I want to know what you think.” The class sits in silence, like they’re not sure if they believe me. Finally, one of the quieter students speaks up, “Honestly, I thought President Obama was going to get assassinated. I was in the sixth…
I use the term historical literacy more and more to describe the goals of a history class. The rhetoric of “critical thinking skills” always seemed a little flimsy to me, in part because learning any subject has the potential to increase critical thinking. The adjective “historical” at least implies that there is a set of specific…
This month, before I start digging into the details of the formats, structures, and options used in different surveys, I’m reporting the results of the poll that I posted last month. While admittedly unscientific and self-selected, the results provide a sense of the variety of offerings and approaches used by historians to teach the different…
My colleagues and I were joking the other day that academics should get therapy for their undergraduate group work experience because we were always the one who worked the hardest and felt put upon by the group work system. My fear of group work has kept me from assigning a group project these past four…
This semester, I’ve been blogging on my undergrad methods seminar. In the past month since my last post, they’ve begun their research in earnest and our class sessions have turned into research time. If I haven’t been too busy with the class this past month, my students have been extremely busy. I’ve really enjoyed meeting…
I ceaselessly tinker with my courses from semester to semester, and lately I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about my practice with the survey course. In the spirit of full disclosure, I should note that my stance on the survey has always been ambivalent, and there are days where my attitude towards it has…
Students and teachers come to history for many different reasons. My moment was the fourth grade book fair at Hewitt Elementary School, where I bought Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice and E.L. Konigsberg’s A Proud Taste for Scarlet and Miniver. I have Austen to thank for my love of literature (and her writing in her…
One of the perennial challenges of the U.S. history survey is that its classes tend to be large. Here in Texas, for example, all undergraduates, regardless of major, have to take the course to graduate. At UTEP, our smallest classes start at 120 and our largest are 270. Regardless of where things fall along that…
We’ve all known that one group member, the one who doesn’t show up (either physically or mentally) to any of the meetings. We’re also all familiar with that group leader, the one who takes initiative and sometimes takes over. And certainly we’ve all experienced group conflict. Just because you’re in a group with someone doesn’t…
