As promised back in November, I am writing this month about using material culture in the U.S. history classroom. I’m going to use two needlework pieces in the collection at Winterthur Museum, Garden, and Library as examples of how to go about reading objects as historical sources and giving a breakdown of what exactly material…
Several months ago, I wrote about the importance of teaching like we write, that is having class sessions with clear introductions and conclusions. I believe that the same logic extends to the way we think about a semester-long course. As I get ready to begin my courses next week, I am trying to think about…
As I mentioned in an earlier post, I have my students do primary source analysis for homework assignments. They can then use these analyses as the basis for their short papers. For these homework assignments, I require the students to use archives and databases that provide full-page scans of publications. Seeing texts on the page,…
Now that we find ourselves between semesters, with bluebook piles marked up and cleared from our desks, I’d like to start a conversation on a topic about which everybody these days seems to have an opinion: grade inflation. The topic comes up frequently in The Chronicle of Higher Education, the AHA’s Perspectives on History, and…
It’s that time of year… the time when we get our course evaluations back. I’m pleased to say that mine were pretty good this semester. However, something that more than one of my freshmen requested more of in my U.S. history survey courses was that I incorporate more “visual aids” for those who are “visual…
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…
Tis the season… to grade. But while the pile of essays to grade grows higher and higher, I’ve been distracting myself by planning for my next semester courses. I am thinking of pulling a dramatic audible and restructuring the assignments for the second half of my survey course. And I’d like to do so around…
I’m delaying my second post on the needlework picture by Olevia Rebecca Parker until next month because I’d like to continue the conversation from posts by Ben Wright and Andy Lang on the usefulness of the new film 12 Years a Slave in the U.S. history classroom. This semester I’m teaching U.S. women’s history to…
As part of my freshman seminar on Confederate symbols in American life, I required my students to watch and analyze any Hollywood-produced movie about antebellum America, or more especially, the Civil War. The instructions were fairly straightforward: “Watch a movie about the Civil War Era, looking specifically for the ways in which the film attempts to…
I apologize for what may be the results of a tryptophan hangover, but I’d like to turn my disgust over Black Friday into a potentially useful discussion. The blogosphere has been filled with dozens of smart, helpful discussions of the history of Thanksgiving, but observers of popular culture, or at least popular media, might get the…
