Comments on Progressive Historians: History For Our Future: So About Those Plagerisms . .

I've always felt that students should come out of ...

2008-04-25T05:48:00.000-05:00

I've always felt that students should come out of a survey capable of some kind of master narrative

To to that end, I give my students a list of 20 categories, with 3 terms in each category. The categories are chronological and the terms are very loosely related.

The assignment is to pick one term from each category and construct a chronological narrative history of the US.

I assign this in my Intro to US survey. No page min/max, but I've seen them run upward of 25-30 pages. All history majors, social studies [teaching] majors, and journalism majors have to go through this class.

The idea is to get them to think about US history as an overarching "whole." It's a tremendously difficult assignment for most, since they rarely are asked to think about over-arching narrative in their history classes. They're asked about themes, discrete events, etc.

I've definitely done book reviews (and article rev...

2008-04-24T19:17:00.000-05:00

I've definitely done book reviews (and article reviews) and summaries as ways to keep students focused on the work. I still couldn't justify, as a teacher, replacing some kind of integrated assignment with these summaries.

That said, my final papers and exam questions are notorious for their integrative scope. I've always felt that students should come out of a survey capable of some kind of master narrative and demonstrating the full range of required analytic skills. Most people don't ask quite so much....

Hi gang- I am taking a undergrad 20C US Cultural a...

2008-04-24T10:50:00.000-05:00

Hi gang- I am taking a undergrad 20C US Cultural and Social history class. The 5 articles were from a list 18 I compiled, and several I found were in series. Instructor looked at the list and said I could do any 5 that were discrete. So we have a rollicking melange. But that matches the syllabus.

If anything, this 300-level class has given me a few chances to decide on if I want to specialize on anything. I knew I was drawn to US 20C topics. Law & Court are interesting, but I don't want to really deeply investigate the Court because I ultimately find law arguments tedious. Cultural history - like being an art historian with having to be an art critic - that I find deeply fascinating.

Id, great to have you back!Ahistoricality, I think...

2008-04-24T08:45:00.000-05:00

Id, great to have you back!

Ahistoricality, I think Id is taking an undergraduate course. I have to say that I'm very sensitive to busywork in undergrad courses, and this sounds exactly like busywork to me. I wouldn't ever do something like this. If my students have to write, they should write something meaningful.

That's something I make undergrads do: I would exp...

2008-04-24T02:22:00.000-05:00

That's something I make undergrads do: I would expect graduate students to be doing analytical, critical and comparative pieces, not busy-work. Oh, and as a term paper? No way.

I think Atomic Cafe -- which I've never seen myself -- is a metaphor for the whole assignment.

The only way I could justify this melange would be in a 20c US survey. One with a very distinctive take on modern society....

I understand the usefulness of historiographical e...

2008-04-24T02:09:00.000-05:00

I understand the usefulness of historiographical exercises in learning X field. Or comparing Y topic with many disciplinary lenses. But comparing those articles? Is this "Towards New Histories of Consumer-Legal-Cultural Criticism" or just, here's 5 articles on the Twentieth Century I enjoyed reading once.

Yuck.