History 200 Fall 2008
History 200A
DOING HISTORY: AN INTRODUCTION
MWF 12:00 to 12:50, Wyatt 304
Fall 2008
William Breitenbach Office: Wyatt 141
Office phone: 879-3167 Office hours:
E-mail: MTWThF 1:00 – 2:00
Web: http://www.ups.edu/x6705.xml and by appointment
After taking this course I realize that liking history is very different from being a historian. We almost need two majors—one called “History” and the other called “History for Historians.”
D. Davis, comment in History 200 class (Dec. 4, 2000)
This is a different kind of history course. It is designed to introduce prospective majors and minors to the discipline of history. In it, you will learn what history is and how historians think and work. One goal of the course is to give you training in the methodology of history at the time when it will do you the most good—at the beginning of your career as a history major or minor. Another goal is to provide all history students with some shared expectations, standards, and experiences. History 200 is set up to be a practical course, with emphasis placed on the skills of reading, analyzing, discussing, researching, and writing history. The course will teach you how to do the two things that historians do: develop original interpretations from primary sources and critically evaluate the interpretations advanced by other historians. Paper assignments will allow you to practice the types of historical writing that will be expected of you in upper-division history courses. In the second half of the semester, you’ll have a chance to put together everything you’ve learned as you undertake an independent research project. If all goes as planned, by the end of the course you will be better prepared for success in your chosen discipline and you will be more engaged with and excited about the study of the past.
READINGS
The following required books are available for purchase at the University Bookstore:
Wayne C. Booth, Gregory G. Colomb, and Joseph M. Williams, The Craft of Research, 3rd ed.
Charles Lipson, Doing Honest Work in College: How to Prepare Citations, Avoid Plagiarism, and Achieve Real Academic Success, 2nd ed.
Alan Gevinson, Kelly Schrum, and Roy Rosenzweig, History Matters: A Student Guide to U.S. History Online (companion website at http://www.bedfordstmartins.com/historymatters)
William Breitenbach, History 200 Readings Packet for Fall 2008 (cited in the syllabus as [RP])
The following recommended optional books are also available at the Bookstore:
Michael Harvey, The Nuts and Bolts of College Writing
Gerald Graff and Cathy Birkenstein, They Say/I Say: The Moves that Matter in Academic Writing
Blackboard Website
Readings identified in the syllabus with “[Bb]” may be found online at the Blackboard website for “History 200, Doing History” (course ID: Hist200aF08) at http://blackboard.ups.edu/. I will also place on Blackboard the syllabus, paper assignments, handouts, and some general advice and useful web links. If you have not previously used Blackboard, you can find FAQs and instructions for creating an account at http://projects.ups.edu/blackboard/. The password allowing access to the course site will be provided in class: ______.
PROCEDURES, REQUIREMENTS, AND EXPECTATIONS
Approach
This course will be a seminar and workshop. By enrolling in it, you have indentured yourselves as apprentice historians. Like all apprentices, you will learn the craft by doing it. This kind of practical training requires both close supervision and the chance to try your hand at the job. Accordingly the course is divided into two parts. During the weeks before midterm, I’ll help you learn the tools and rules of the trade. Afterwards, I’ll turn you loose on some raw material and let you fashion some history yourselves.
Class participation
Because History 200 stresses practical training, much of your learning will occur in the classroom as you practice doing history. Taking this course is like learning to drive a car: success depends on the daily accumulation of skill and experience. If you cut a class or skip an assignment, it’s a virtual certainty that you’ll be unprepared for some situation down the road. So show up on time, ready and willing to work, with all assigned readings and exercises completed. Class sessions will be spent working on skills and discussing assignments.
To help you get ready for class, I have provided a “prep” in the syllabus for each session. Sometimes the prep involves a short writing exercise. Other times it simply asks you to think carefully about questions raised by the reading. In either case, you’ll be a better participant if you have completed the prep, thought critically about the reading, and jotted down a few ideas or questions before coming to class. To facilitate your participation in discussions, please bring to class your copies of the assigned readings, along with your notes and written exercises.
Your regular attendance and thoughtful, informed participation will be important factors in determining both the success of the course and the grade that you receive in it. After every class, I’ll evaluate your contribution to other students’ learning. Students who are not in class will receive a 0. Students who attend but contribute little will receive a 2. Those who contribute significantly will receive a 3, and those whose contribution is outstanding will receive a 4. Think of 2’s as roughly equivalent to C’s, 3’s as B’s, and 4’s as A’s. At semester’s end, you will get a participation grade, which will count for 15% of the course grade. At my discretion, the course grade may be adjusted upward for those who made an extraordinary contribution to classmates’ learning or downward for those who impeded the class by often being unprepared or unengaged.
Absences: I expect you to attend all classes or to notify me in advance by e-mail or voice mail if you cannot. Students with more than a few absences should expect to have their course grades lowered; students with excessive absences should expect to be dropped from the course.
Classroom conduct: When you enter the classroom, you should be prepared to remain in it for the entire 50-minute class period. Do not use electronic devices for any purpose other than taking notes on class discussions.
Short writing exercises
In this course, you will do a lot of informal writing. This is not “busy work,” any more than it is “busy work” when infielders practice turning the double play. The aim, in both cases, is to learn by doing. I might ask you to bring a brief written response to assigned readings or, after you’ve begun your research project, written work related to it. Some of the writing exercises will be collected and evaluated; these appear in the syllabus in bold print. A complete list, with due dates, can also be found at the end of this syllabus. Exercises are due at the beginning of class; late exercises, if accepted, will be penalized. Evaluated exercises count for 10% of the course grade.
Formal papers. In addition to the writing exercises, there will be five formal graded papers:
1. Due Monday, September 15: a paper about the Jefferson-Hemings controversy (2-3 pages)
2. Due Monday, September 29: an interpretive essay based on a primary source (3-4 pages).
3. Due Friday, October 31: a review of a scholarly article (3-4 pages).
4. Due Tuesday, November 25: the first draft of a research paper (8-10 pages of text).
5. Due Monday, December 15: the final draft of a research paper (approximately 10 pages of text), along with specified supporting materials.
Writing help
The UPS Center for Writing and Learning is located in Howarth 109. Its mission is to help all writers, whatever their level of ability, to become better writers. To make an appointment with a writing advisor, call 879-3404, email , or drop by Howarth 109.
Harvard University’s Writing Center has an excellent website with useful advice on writing academic essays: http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~wricntr. Click on “Writing Resources.” The site features eighteen online “handouts” and has links to several online writing and reference guides.
Grading
Grades will be calculated on a 100-point scale. Grade ranges are: A (93-100), A- (90-92), B+ (87-89), B (83-86), B- (80-82), C+ (77-79), C (73-76), C- (70-72), D+ (67-69), D (63-66),
D- (60-62), and F (below 60). I will round up to the next letter grade when the numerical score is within 0.2 points of the cut-off (for example, an 89.8 will get an A-).
Weighting of grades: class participation 15%, writing exercises 10%, paper on the Jefferson-Hemings controversy 5%, primary source paper 15%, article review 15%, first draft of research paper 15%, final draft of research paper 20%, and supporting materials for research paper 5%.
Late work, missing work, extensions, and “Incomplete” grades
Normally I do not grant extensions or Incomplete grades, except for weighty reasons like a family emergency or a serious illness. If you are facing these or other circumstances beyond your control that might prevent you from finishing a paper on time, talk to me early. I am more sympathetic before a deadline than after it. Please provide written documentation supporting your request from a medical professional; the Counseling, Health, and Wellness Services (CHAWS); the Academic Advising Office; or the Dean of Students Office.
Late papers should be slipped under my office door at Wyatt 141. (Security Services will let you into the building if it is locked.) Unless I have granted an extension, a late paper will be marked down substantially. It is imperative that you meet the deadline for the first draft of your research project. No late paper will be accepted after 5:00 p.m. on Friday of final examination week. Students who fail to submit all five formal papers will receive a WF for the course.
Other policies
Students who want to withdraw from the course should read the rules governing withdrawal grades, which can be found at http://www.ups.edu/x4727.xml#withdrawal. Monday, September 15 is the last day to drop with an automatic W; thereafter it is much harder to avoid a WF. Students who are dropped for excessive absences or who abandon the course without officially withdrawing will receive a WF.
Students who cheat or plagiarize, help others cheat or plagiarize, mark or steal library materials, or otherwise violate the university’s standards of academic honesty will receive an F for the course and will be reported to the Registrar. If you do not know what counts as academic dishonesty at the University of Puget Sound, read the section on “Academic Honesty” in the Academic Handbook at http://www.ups.edu/x4718.xml. Ignorance of the concept or consequences of plagiarism will not be accepted as an excuse.
In matters not covered by this syllabus, I follow the policies set down in the current Academic Handbook, which is available online at http://www.ups.edu/x4716.xml.
CLASS SCHEDULE
All reading assignments, preps, and exercises are to be completed before class on the day for which they are listed. Bring this syllabus to class along with the readings assigned for the day.
UNIT I: WHAT IS HISTORY, ANYWAY?
Historical thinking, in its deepest forms, is neither a natural process nor something that springs automatically from psychological development. Its achievement, I argue, actually goes against the grain of how we ordinarily think. This is one of the reasons why it is much easier to learn names, dates, and stories than it is to change the fundamental mental structures that we use to grasp the meaning of the past.
Sam Wineburg, “Historical Thinking and Other Unnatural Acts”
Our hardest task as teachers is to keep antiquity accessible while stressing its ineffable strangeness. Such understanding requires not only empathy with the past but awareness of its unbridgeable difference. The past was not only weirder than we realize; it was weirder than we can imagine. However much we strive to know them, past minds remain opaque to us. To link us with precursors while accepting the unlikeness of their worlds, we must somehow convey the past’s mysterious affinity.
David Lowenthal, “Dilemmas and Delights of Learning History”
There is a tendency to freeze the present and project it back upon an unchanging past. If you can get beyond this in a history course—well, you’re on third base!
Lawrence W. Levine, lecture at UPS (March 20, 2001)
The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.
L. P. Hartley, The Go-Between
This introductory unit raises issues and lays down assumptions that are fundamental to the course and to the discipline of history itself. The unit aims to show that history is a craft with a distinctive method, that history is interpretive, that evidence is constructed and not just discovered, and that historians disagree both about the interpretations proposed by their colleagues and about the very nature of historical knowledge. We’ll get at these issues by considering just what distinguishes historical thinking from non-historical thinking about the past. By the end of this unit, you should have a better idea of what is meant by that ugly term “historical-mindedness.”
1. Wed., Sept. 3: Introduction to the Course
Questionnaire (used for History Department assessment purposes)
Eyewitnesses and historical evidence: looking at a poster
“Little Red Riding Hood” (18th-century France): handout