In one of the first assignments of the year, I asked my new eleventh grade American Studies students to “write ~2 pages on what America you live in.” The only other guidance I gave them was, “Some things you may think about are your location, citizenship, religion, race, class, gender, etc.” and “There is no…
“Dance is a cry and a celebration.” -Savion Glover I often experiment with how to merge cognition with affect in the classroom. I wrestle with if or how there might be ways to bring students into history through emotion. It is an experience I think many historians have had in archival or on site visits…
Intertwined: History, Disability, and Blues Music by Jonathan Lower (SUNY) Buffalo The classic folk story of American blues music recounts W. C. Handy’s discovery of the blues form while waiting for a train in Tutwiler, Mississippi. In his autobiography Handy, the “Father of the Blues,” remembers, “A lean loose-jointed Negro had commenced plunking a…
Teaching United States History is excited to present Teach My Book, a series of posts where distinguished authors reflect on their work and how instructors might integrate their insights into the classroom. Our thoughts today come from W. Caleb McDaniel, Associate Professor of History at Rice University. Dr. McDaniel is the author of The Problem of…
Over the summer, I had the opportunity to teach a one-week crash course on United States History to a group of university students from China. The students arrived in Utah in late July and stayed for three weeks. They took four college courses which consisted of one and a half hours a day for seven…
On August 15, I tweeted about how relatively few Ph.D. programs in History have in-depth courses on teaching and I offered to send my teaching methods syllabi to anyone who might be interested. I was not prepared for what happened next—over 200 people asked for my syllabi! The overwhelming response for readings about teaching stirred…
Is technology always student centered? How can teachers design online lessons to address students’ needs? In this blog post, I talk about the pros and cons of Zoom—a communications software that allows video conferencing—from the perspective of a student and an instructor. Zoom facilitates communication across continents, and, in this respect, is remarkable. For the…
Are we teaching pessimism in our history surveys?
Teaching Slavery and Southern Identity in the American History Survey Course: Part Two In my last post, I discussed how I use a chapter from Walter Johnson’s book, Soul by Soul: Life Inside the Antebellum Slave Market in my United States history survey course. I also assign an interview with historian Kerri Leigh Merritt recorded…
How will I teach this course next time? What changes will I make? What worked? What flopped? These are the questions that all teachers must ask themselves. As “Witnessing the Sixties” draws to a close, I am reflecting on its second coming, which will occur in January 2020. Demonstrating growth and willingness to improve a…
