I begin our focus on the United States after World War II by putting the students into groups of three and having them list anyone and everything they can name that somehow applies to the years 1945-1965. Then, of course, they share what they’ve got with the class. It helps in two ways: first, I…
Yesterday my department had a lunchtime brownbag discussion about Lendol Calder’s new way of teaching the survey (although, as you’ll see, him calling it “the survey” is a misnomer). The idea, articulated in an influential 2006 JAH piece, is that attempting to cover everything that happens from 1865 to 2011 turns into a plodding along…
The New Deal at War I’m behind, and it happens every semester. This week, we should be discussing the 1950s. I should be scarring them with a McCarthy-like “I know someone cheated on the exam, now everyone write down the name of someone who cheated or I’ll assume that you cheated; if you do not…
an oldie but a goodie
All the feedback from Ed’s post has inspired me to rethink the way I formulate my tests (note to current History 104 students who might be reading this: not for the upcoming test!). I do a few things differently, and a few things the same. My normal dictum, “when in doubt, do what Ed does,”…
The Midterm Examination My Dad gave me lots of good advice, and some terrible. (an example of terrible advice was to “make friends with people who know how to fix things, cause then they can help you out.” This mercenary approach to friendship has never sat well with me and so I abandoned it years…
Perhaps we ourselves should take a bit more care when we teach our own classes, but Don Cheadle puts in a stunning performance as Frederick Douglass playing opposite Will Ferrell’s Abraham Lincoln on this volume of Funny Or Die’s Drunk History.
Music of the Great Depression Amid watching Something Borrowed and finding myself wanting more John Krasinski at every moment (he’s Jim on The Office for those who don’t know second-rate romantic comedy movies), I was struck by how much fun the soundtrack was. It narrated nicely the life and times of the now 30-year-old main…
While I’m sure we all get a bit frustrated at the student on the golf team who has to take the make-up exam because her team is traveling to Winnetka while everyone else is in exam mode, it nevertheless seems clear that we shouldn’t: (1) send an email asking a student who stutters not to…
The Great Depression For a historian, there is a lot that’s great about the Great Depression. We love change over time, and what’s better than the Republican Party going from 58% of the vote in the presidential election to less than 40% in 1932? We love connecting religion to the moment, and what better examples…
