History 249: Revolutions in American Childhood and Family Life
Fall 2010
TTH 9:25-10:40
Professor: April Schultz
Office: CLA 216
Office Hours: MF 9-10, TTH, 11-12, F 12:30-1:30 by appt.
Phone Number: 556-3414
E-mail: (I will answer e-mails during office hours)
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Course Description: No aspect of American life is as shrouded in myths and misconceptions as the history of the family. This course examines childhood and family in American culture from the colonial era to the present, providing historical perspective and understanding regarding these primary institutions of American life. Though the course is roughly chronological, we will compare family structures across both time and space, examining the changing and divergent meanings of motherhood, fatherhood, and childhood through such sources as advice manuals, popular journalism, fiction, art, and film.
Required Reading:
Steven Mintz, Huck’s Raft: A History of American Childhood
Roberta S. Trites, Twain, Alcott, and the Birth of the Adolescent Reform Novel
Nicholas Sammond, Babes in Tomorrowland: Walt Disney and the Making of the American Child, 1930-1960
Readings on Course Homepage: Primary Documents taken from Paula Fass and Mary Ann Mason, ed., Childhood in America
Other Requirements:
Attendance at the Childhood and Globalization Colloquium (see attached schedule)
Films listed on course schedule.
Discussion Questions:
For each day that we have reading assigned (unless otherwise announced), you must bring in at least two questions, observations, or points for discussion about the reading.You will hand these in on a 3 X 5 card at the beginning of class (keeping a copy for yourself in your notebook). I will call on you randomly, so please come prepared to participate.
Grading:
For grading guidelines, please refer to the Illinois Wesleyan Catalogue. In addition to those guidelines, you should know that it will be impossible to receive an "A" in this course without attending class regularly and participating fully in class discussions (some of which will be in small groups).
Evaluation: You will be evaluated on the following criteria:
Two in-class exams: 30% each
Discussion Questions: 10%
Prepared Material on Trites: 10%
Group Project on Sammonds: 20%
If your grade is borderline, I will raise it to the next level if and only if you participate regularly and enthusiastically in class. This is not negotiable.
Attendance:
If you miss more than four classes during the semester (for any reason), your grade will drop one point.
Guidelines:
--All papers and assignments are to be turned in at the beginning of class on the day they are due. NO LATE PAPERS WILL BE ACCEPTED UNLESS WE DISCUSS IT IN ADVANCE. AND THEN ONLY IN SEVERE EXTENUATING CIRCUMSTANCES.
--ALL PAPERS MUST BE TYPED, DOUBLESPACED, AND PROPERLY DOCUMENTED.
--Make-up exams given only in rare circumstances.
--NO CELL PHONES ON IN CLASS EVER!!!
SCHEDULE
WEEK 1
READINGS:
- Mintz, Chapter 1
F & M: Documents 1, 2, 3, 11, 21, 22, 76, 77, 78, 137, 157
CLASS:
8/24: Course Introduction
8/36:The Puritan Family and Children of the Covenant
Reading 1
WEEK 2
READINGS:
- Mintz, Chapter 2
F & M: Documents 62, 63, 64, 94
- Mintz, Chapter 3
F & M: Documents 12, 23, 54, 65, 66, 79
CLASS:
8/31:Family and Race in Colonial America
Reading 1
9/2:Sons and Daughters of Liberty
Reading 2
WEEK 3
READINGS:
- Mintz, Chapter 4
F & M: Documents 24, 25, 26, 27, 55, 56, 57, 126
- E. Anthony Rotundo, “Boy Culture,” Miriam Formanek-Brunell, “The Politics of Dollhood in Nineteenth-Century America”
F & M: Documents 13, 80, 81
CLASS:
9/7:Formation of the Modern Family: Domestic Mothers, Breadwinning Fathers, and Nurtured Children
Reading 1
9/9:Middle-Class Family, con.
Reading 2
WEEK 4
**Check Colloquium Schedule and go to as many sessions as possible. Note that Roberta S. Trites will be presenting at the Monday evening session and I will be presenting on a film we will later see in class on Friday morning.
READINGS:
- Mintz, Chapter 5
F & M: Documents 58, 97, 158
CLASS:
9/14:Go to discussion session of Mintz, 9:30 to 12:00 (stay until at least 10:40) in the Cartwright Room in the Memorial Student Center.
9/16:Families and Slavery
Reading 1
WEEK 5
READINGS:
- Mintz, Chapter 6
F & M: Document 36
- Mintz, Chapter 7
F & M: Documents 67, 68, 98
CLASS:
9/21:Children, Families and the Civil War
Reading 1
9/23: Laboring Children
Reading 2
Hand Out Exam Study Questions
WEEK 6
READINGS:
- On E-reserve: Zelizer, “From Useful to Useless: Moral Conflict over Child Labor”
CLASS:
9/28:Working-Class Families and Child Labor
Reading 1
9/30: Exam #1
WEEK 7
READINGS:
1. Mintz, Chapter 8
F & M: Documents 70, 110, 111, 138, 139, 128
2. Trites, Chapters 1 and 2
CLASS:
10/5:Saving the Child
Reading 1
10/6:See Little Women
10/7: Reading 2
WEEK 8
READINGS:
- Trites, Chapters 3 and 4
- Trites, Chapter 5, 6, and 7
CLASS:
10/12:Reading 1
10/14: Reading 2
WEEK 9
READINGS:
1.Mintz, Chapter 9
F & M: Documents 37, 83, 140, 141, 142
2. Victoria Bissell Brown, Golden Girls: Female Socialization Among the Middle Class of Los Angeles, 1880-1910”
F & M: Documents 128, 159
10/19: Late Victorianism and Children’s Culture
Reading 1
10/21: Late Victorian Girlhood
Reading 2
WEEK 10
READINGS:
- Mintz, Chapter 10
F & M: documents 39, 69, 109, 159, 160, 161, 162
- Mintz, Chapter 11
F & M: Documents 15, 17, 28, 29, 40, 41, 47, 129
Vicki Ruiz, “Star Struck”
CLASS:
10/26:Immigrant Families
Reading 1
10/28:Adolescence in the Early 20th Century
Reading 1
WEEK 11
READINGS:
- Mintz, Chapter 12
F & M: Documents 71, 72, 85, 143, 144
- Mintz, Chapter 13
F & M: Document 73
CLASS:
11/2:Families in Crisis: The Great Depression
Reading 1
11/4:World War II
Reading 2
WEEK 12:
READINGS:
- Mintz, Chapter 14
F & M: Documents 18, 30, 31, 42, 48, 49, 59
2. Lynn Spigel, “Seducing the Innocent”
CLASS:
Monday, 11/8: See Penny Serenade, 7 p.m.
11/9:Family Life and Childhood in Postwar America
Reading 1
Discuss Penny Serenade
11/11:Postwar Family, continued.
Reading 2
WEEK 13
CLASS:
11/16:Group Project on Sammonds
11/18:Group Project on Sammonds
WEEK 14
READINGS:
- Mintz, Chapter 15
F & M: Documents 88, 148, 149, 150
CLASS:
11/23:Youthquake: The 1960s
11/25: Happy Thanksgiving!
WEEK 15
READINGS:
- Mintz, Chapter 16
F & M: Documents 19, 20, 33, 34, 43, 44, 45, 75, 93, 101
- Mintz, Chapter 17
F & M: Documents 103, 104, 105, 176, 177
Barrie Thorne, “Boys and Girls Together. . .But Mostly Apart”
CLASS:
11/30: Reshaping the American Family in the Late 20th Century
Reading 1
Handout out Final Study Questions
12/2: Facing Family Life and Childhood in the 21st Century
Reading 2
Happy Holidays!
NOTE TO CONFERENCE PARTICIPANTS, MOSCOW: The next time I offer this course, it will also count as a Writing Intensive Requirement. Below is a grant proposal, which I received, for revising the course to meet those requirements. I thought this might be of interest.
Curriculum Development Grant Proposal for Revising
History 249:
Revolutions in Childhood and Family in American Life
Writing Intensive Course Designation
Description and Content:
No aspect of American life is as shrouded in myths and misconceptions as the history of the family. This course examines key themes in childhood and family in American culture from the colonial era to the present, providing historical perspective and understanding regarding these primary institutions of American life. Though the course is roughly chronological, we will compare family structures across both time and space, examining the changing and divergent meanings of motherhood, fatherhood, and childhood. The broad chronological information in the course is provided through a historical monograph by Steven Mintz, titled Huck Finn’s Raft: A History of American Childhood. This information will provide the necessary background for discussions emphasizing such primary sources as advice manuals, popular journalism, fiction, art, and film. These materials will provide the basis for short summary assignments, two analytical papers and preparation for one research paper.
Assignments:
Student will write a minimum of two drafts of each of the three writing assignments. The second draft will be commented on by me and/or peers in the class. The first two assignments will be five-page analytical essays based on the monograph and relevant primary documents. These essays are designed to refine students’ ability to summarize succinctly and synthesize coherently. They will also be asked to evaluate the quality of the evidence in the Mintz text, as well as the audience and purpose of the primary documents. For the first essay, I might ask students to analyze differing ideologies of childrearing in the colonial period based on their readings of Mintz and primary documents on Calvinism and the Enlightenment. Part of their analysis will require them to use evidence to speculate about how much (and for whom) those ideologies were practiced in everyday life. For the second essay, students will analyze competing ideas and realities of some aspect of nineteenth century childhood based on our course materials. For example, they might write about the development of romanticized ideas about childhood among the middle class or debates concerning child labor among immigrants later in the century. The skills students develop in these first two assignments will help prepare them to read and evaluate the primary sources they will use in their original research paper for assignment three. This 12-page paper will be based on primary documents that students find on their own following an intensive session with a librarian. Students will be expected to engage in original research of primary documents, artifacts, or other cultural “texts” created during some defined period of the twentieth century, write papers in which they develop a clear argument about their sources, and situate their research in the context of other scholarly interpretations of their topics. These three writing assignments will count for 80% of the course grade. Because such assignments often, unfortunately, lead students to ignore course reading until absolutely necessary, the remaining 20% will be based on a series of short summaries and random quizzes on the readings.
Teaching Approaches:
As in all my courses, class time will be devoted to a mixture of short lectures, class and small-group discussions, films, and other visuals. For a writing intensive course, I will spend class time developing writing and research strategies and peer conference workshops on drafts. In addition, I will have students meet with me individually about their research projects. I will schedule early in the semester a library session with Meg Miner so that they can begin locating primary and secondary sources for the final paper.
For the first analytical essay, the parameters of the assignment will be very specific. We will spend time in class thoroughly discussing the primary sources on Calvinism and the Enlightenment, as well as the evidence in Mintz and in other sources about everyday life in the relevant periods. During this time, I will have students writing ideas, outlines, and discovery drafts, leading up to a thesis workshop in which they share each other’s introductions and thesis statements. When they have completed what I call a conference (penultimate) draft, they will workshop with three other students who have peer-reviewed the draft based on specific instructions from me. This will be the process we use for each assignment. The second essay will have somewhat looser parameters, but in all our discussions or the nineteenth century, I will be asking them to evaluate sources and think about how they will approach this second assignment. For the research paper, students will turn in an introduction and outline four weeks before the due date. When the workshop draft is due, students will work with one other student rather than two, reading each other’s draft and writing a comprehensive narrative critique, which they will present to a larger subset of the class (or, depending on class size, the whole class). This critique will focus on the paper’s strengths and weaknesses, ask questions, and make suggestions for revision. The other students in the group will participate with revision suggestions.
This writing process, which will begin during the first week of class, addresses the goals of the writing-intensive flag as stated in the General Education Handbook. Students will have “significant practice in writing;” focus on the process of writing, from free-writing and outlining, to drafts and revision; learn the conventions of writing in the discipline of history, which often includes engaging other disciplines, such as anthropology and literature; and “use writing as a tool for invention and discovery.” Each writing assignment, with growing degrees of complexity, will ask students to discover what they think in relation to sometimes competing evidence and invent their own historical interpretation in the final research paper.
Differences between the current and revised History 249:
I have found in the last several years that students in my upper-level history courses, whether majors or not, are more and more deficient in their writing skills. It is my goal in revising this course to help ensure that at least some students are better prepared to tackle the work we should be expecting of students at the 300-level.
I have taught this course twice. Both times, we covered an enormous amount of material in reading and class lectures and discussions. The attached syllabus from fall, 2010, shows the narrative content of the course as well as assignments, which included two in-class essay exams, discussion questions turned in by the students each class period, summaries of book chapters, and a group project on a monograph (which includes a fair amount of individual work in preparation). The first time I taught History 249, there was more reading and a short primary document analysis essay based on documents I had assigned in class. This was unsatisfying because students’ writing skills were underdeveloped and I felt that I couldn’t take the time necessary to teach them those skills given all of the course material I “needed” to cover. My answer the second time around was NOT to include a paper and instead have them write summaries of book chapters from a short monograph about Louisa May Alcott and Mark Twain. This was an enlightening assignment because it became clear to me once again that many of our students don’t know how to read carefully for argument and evidence. Furthermore, while the in-class essay exams tested their knowledge and critical thinking, by their very nature, they don’t provide the kinds of writing experience I think the students need. In disciplines like history, we often insist on a great deal of reading, leaving no stone unturned in terms of the topic at hand. This is impossible in a truly writing intensive course.
This particular course, I believe, lends itself well to a writing-intensive revision because many of the themes in childhood and family history cross time and space, meaning that a deep focus on two or three major periods can provide not only important content but tools for evaluating and interpreting sources. The trade-off, one hopes, will be increased critical thinking and writing skills. The revised version will necessarily, then, require less reading and less coverage. I will turn over more class time to explicit discussion of writing strategies, as well as group peer review conferences. In preparing to make these changes, I plan to do a search for material, both primary and secondary, that both covers the necessary history and allows for discussion and argument. The Steven Mintz text, for example, is a terrific narrative history, but it doesn’t lend itself to good discussions beyond filling in blanks in students’ (tremendous) lack of historical knowledge. For that kind of necessary reading, I will develop summary exercises (like the one I tried last fall) to hone their skills recognizing thesis statements and supporting evidence. The students will be responsible for understanding and utilizing that information when appropriate in their essays. In addition, I need to spend time locating for essay assignments primary sources from various periods about which students can develop and sustain an argument. For example, we might spend more time reading about and discussing the differences between Puritan notions of childhood and those coming out of the Enlightenment. Or how different strategies for dealing with poor immigrant children from 1880-1920 reflected alternative visions of Progressive reform. Or we might take the time to compare the cinematic representations of childhood in the 1950s and the 1970s. I can lecture about each of these topics and test students right now; what I need to find, however, are the primary sources and develop the assignments that will best serve the students in developing their writing skills.