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NATIVE NORTH AMERICAN

SOCIETIES & CULTURES

History/Sociology 317x-1, Fall Semester 2008
(4 Credits)

Professor: Douglas Firth Anderson                   Class Period: T/Th, 12:05-1:35 p.m.
Office, Phone, & E-mail: VPH 212, x7054, firth@nwciowa.edu                   Class Location: VPH 204
Office hours: MWF, 2:10 p.m., or by appointment                    
Web page: http://home.nwciowa.edu/firth
Course materials and grades available on Synapse

 

WISDOM FOR JOURNEYING IN THE PAST


I. Why Study History?

A. [W]e intend Northwestern graduates to be persons who

    Engage Ideas

  • Demonstrating competence in navigating and contributing to the world of ideas and information, having learned to listen, read, question, evaluate, [and] write ... with a disciplined imagination.
  • Pursuing truth faithfully in all aspects of life; developing, articulating, and supporting their own beliefs; and seeking meaningful dialog with those holding different convictions.

From the NWC Vision for Learning

B. Life can only be understood backwards ... .

Soren Kierkegaard, as quoted in Laurence J. Peter, ed., Peter's Quotations: Ideas for Our Time (New York: Bantam Books, 1977), 305.

C. [H]istory holds the potential ... of humanizing us in ways offered by few other areas in the school curriculum. ...

The argument I make pivots on a tension that underlies every encounter with the past: the tension between the familiar and the strange, between feelings of proximity and feelings of distance in relation to the people we seek to understand. ...

Sam Wineburg, Historical Thinking and Other Unnatural Acts: Charting the Future of Teaching the Past (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2001), 5.

II. Why Isn't Studying and Understanding History Simple?

A. [H]istory [i]s a web of contingency.  Contingency is about events, choices, and agency. Webs are about structures and processes, which amplify the agency of individual choices in some ways, and constrain them in others.

David Hackett Fischer, "Response to Yerxa, Kersh, Glen, and Morone," Historically Speaking 7 (Sept./Oct. 2005), 25.

B. History-making . . . is a creative enterprise, by means of which we fashion out of fragments of human memory and selected evidence of the past a mental construct of a coherent past world that makes sense to the present.

Gerda Lerner, “The Necessity of History,” in Why History Matters: Life and Thought, idem (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), 117.


 III. Themes in Understanding Native American History:

A. Conquest:

If you place yourself at a distance, there is no clearer fact in American history than the fact of conquest.  In North American, just as in South America, Africa, Asia, and Australia, Europeans invaded a land full occupied by natives.  Sometimes by negotiation and sometimes by warfare, the natives lost ground and the invaders gained it. ...

We live on haunted land, on land that is layers deep in human passion and memory. ...

Patricia Nelson Limerick, "Haunted America," in Something in the Soil: Legacies and Reckonings in the New West (New York: W.W. Norton, 2000), 33, 73.

B. Multiculturalism:

We will dance when our laws command us to dance, we will feast when our hearts desire to feast.  Do we ask the white man, "Do as the Indian does"?  Why then do you ask us, "Do as the white man does"?

Anonymous Kwakiutl (British Columbia), in Native American Testimony: A Chronicle of Indian-White Relations from Prophecy to the Present, 1492-2000, Peter Nabokov, rev. ed. (New York: Penguin Books, 1999), 227.

C. Tribal Sovereignty:

Indian tribes have a legal status unique among America's distinct racial or ethnic groups: They are also sovereign governments who engage in governmental relations with the Congress.  The United States Constitution expressly provides that Congress has power to "regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian tribes." ...

In 1924, Congress bestowed ... American citizenship on all Indian people born in the United States who were not already citizens.  As a result, members of federally recognized Indian tribes exercise rights of citizenship in three distinct political entities--their own tribe, their state of domicile and the United States government.

N. Bruce Duthu, American Indians and the Law (New York: Viking, 2008), xi, 138.

IV. How Might a Christian Perspective Shape Our Understanding of the Past?

Does Micah’s injunction to “do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with your God” (6:8) have any bearing on a Christian’s historical work?  I believe that it does.  We do justice when we give all the historical actors their due, not privileging those who had the most power, or for whom we have more data.  Loving kindness means exercising compassion towards our historical subjects.  They were no more limited by their location and biases than we are.  They were creating their lives as they went; we need to re-create those lives with a minimum of moralizing.  To walk humbly is to recognize that even hindsight is not fully accurate and that our accounts are never definitive.

G. Marcille Frederick, “Doing Justice in History: Using Narrative Frames Responsibly,” in History and the Christian Historian, ed. Ronald A. Wells (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1998), 220.

 

 

COURSE DESCRIPTION:

What is this course? This course seeks to "uncover" the historical development of North American Indian peoples, from before contact with Europeans until the present.  Within this general focus, however, the more specific concentration of the course will be on those peoples in what became the United States of America.  Topics for some attention include pre-contact life; oral literature; Indian accommodation and selective adaptation to Euro-American societies; U.S. Indian policies; Native American religion; Christian mission work among American Indians; activism by and on behalf of American Indians; and reservation life.

What will class meetings be like? The course will meet twice a week. There will be some lectures, but other major components of the course's format will include general discussions, student oral reports, the viewing and discussion of films, and a field trip.

What will be expected in general of each student? The workload of the course reflects its upper division level. Attendance at all class meetings is, of course, expected. Some 2500 pp. of reading, including that for research, will be required. Each student will be expected to research and write a major paper on a relevant topic of their choice.  Two in-class exams will be required. Regular discussion and two oral reports will also be expected.

COURSE OBJECTIVES (what difference this course should make):1

  1. To build familiarity with the historical experience of North American Indian peoples, who could legitimately regard all non-Indians as "illegal immigrants."  Indians have endured and survived much (including conquest, attempted cultural genocide, and persistent stereotyping), all the while actively engaging in varied ways with changing situations.  In short, they are a distinct group of human beings. As such, the study of Native Americans is worth doing if for no other reason than as a way of seeking to better understand some of our neighbors.  From such understanding can come a more informed and humble love for our neighbors as ourselves.
  2. To further develop in connection with reading, writing, and discussion what historian Lendol Calder has termed the "cognitive habits" of questioning, connecting, sourcing, making inferences, considering alternative perspectives, and recognizing limits to one's knowledge, since such liberal arts habits are key tools for learning how, with the Apostle Paul, to "take every thought captive to obey Christ" (2 Cor. 10:5).
  3. To further develop practice of historical method beyond 100-level history courses through attention to such signature historical practices and concepts as research, culture, society, time, context, tradition, modernity, process, causation, moral judgment, narrative, and interpretation while engaged with course material, since historical method can be a tool for living “wise as serpents and innocent as doves” (Mt. 10:16).
  4. To provide tools and opportunity for integrating a historical understanding of Native Americans with a maturing Christian perspective on faith and life, since "in [Christ] all things hold together" (Col. 1:17).

1. For some of the ideas and terminology in these objectives, I am indebted to Lendol Calder, "Uncoverage: Toward a Signature Pedagogy for the History Survey," Journal of American History 92 (March 2006): 1358-1370.

COURSE OUTLINE:

Date (T/Th) In-Class Subjects, Exams, Reports, & Papers Reading Assignments
 (to be done FOR class on the date noted)
Aug. 26 Course Introduction: Syllabus, Terms, & Problems *Mihesuah doc., in Synapse, course content
Aug. 28 First Americans I *Calloway, pp. 1-75
Sept. 2 First Americans II *Mann, pp. ix-133
Sept. 4 First Americans III/LIBRARY RESEARCH ADVICE *Mann, pp. 135-240
Sept. 9, 11 NO CLASS SESSIONS/INSTRUCTOR AVAILABLE FOR ONE-ON-ONE CONSULTATION  
Sat., Sept. 13 PIPESTONE N.M. FIELD TRIP *Mann, pp. 241-358
*Childs doc., in Synapse, course content
Sept. 16 The Invasions of America *Calloway, pp. 76-153
Sept. 18 Indians in Colonial and Revolutionary America *Calloway, pp. 154-217
Sept. 23 American Indians and the New Nation *Calloway, pp. 218-289
Sept. 25 Defending the West *Calloway, pp. 290-370
Sept. 30 "Kill the Indian and Save the Man" *Calloway, pp. 372-437
Oct. 2 Parading through History I *Hoxie, pp. 1-125
Oct. 7 Parading through History II *Hoxie, pp. 126-265
Oct. 9 PRELIMINARY BIBLIOGRAPHY DUE/Haunted America *Limerick doc., in Synapse, course content
Oct. 14 Parading through History III *Hoxie, pp. 266-375
Oct. 16 MIDTERM EXAM  
Oct. 23 From the Great Depression to Self-Determination *Calloway, pp. 438-519
Oct. 28 Indian Metropolis I *LaGrand, pp. 1-129
Oct. 30 Indian Metropolis II *LaGrand, pp. 130-257
Nov. 4 Nations within a Nation *Calloway, pp. 520-613
Nov. 6 BOOK REPORTS I  
Nov. 11 BOOK REPORTS II  
Nov. 13 BOOK REPORTS III  
Nov. 18 Thunder Rides a Black Horse I *Farrer, pp. 1-39
Nov. 20 Thunder Rides a Black Horse II *Farrer, pp. 41-108
Nov. 25 If You Think About It, You Will See That It Is True *Deloria doc., in Synapse, course content
*Charleston doc., in Synapse, course content
Dec. 2 PREVIEW REPORTS I  
Dec. 4 PREVIEW REPORTS II  
Dec. 9 PREVIEW REPORTS III  
Dec. 11 RESEARCH PAPER DUE/Smoke Signals *film
Dec. 16 FINAL EXAM, Tu., 10:30-12:30 p.m., scheduled finals period  

 

COURSE REQUIREMENTS:

1. Reading:

  • Various articles available on Synapse.
  • Calloway, Colin G. First Peoples: A Documentary Survey of American Indian History.  3rd ed.  Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2008.  ISBN 9780312453732
  • Mann, Charles C.  1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus.  New York: Vintage Books, 2005.  ISBN 1400032051
  • Hoxie, Frederick E.  Parading Through History: The Making of the Crow Nation in America, 1805-1933.  Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1995.  ISBN 0521485223
  • LaGrand, James B.  Indian Metropolis: Native Americans in Chicago, 1945-1975.  Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2002.  ISBN 0252072960
  • Farrer, Claire R.  Thunder Rides a Black Horse: Mescalero Apaches and the Mythic Present.  2nd ed.  Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press, 1996.  ISBN 0881338974

2. Recommended Resources:

  • Course Links  <http://home.nwciowa.edu/firth/nnamsclinks>

  • Davis, Mary B., ed.  Native America in the Twentieth Century: An Encyclopedia.  New York: Garland, 1994.  Ref. E 76.2 .N36 1994

  • Phillips, Charles, and Alan Axelrod, eds.  Encyclopedia of the American West.  4 vols.  New York: Macmillan Reference USA, 1996.  Ref. F 591 .E485 1996

  • Sturtevant, William C., ed.  Handbook of North American Indians.  Multiple vols.  Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution, 1978-.  Ref. E 76.2 .H36

  • Waldman, Carl.  Atlas of the North American Indian.  New York: Facts on File, 1985.  Ref. E 77 .W195 1985

  • Washburn, Wilcomb E., ed.  The American Indian and the United States: A Documentary History.  4 vols.  New York: Random House, 1973.  E 93 .W27

3. Assignments:

A. A RESEARCH PAPER will constitute 35% of the course grade.

  1. TOPIC: The paper topic is up to you, provided that 1) it has to do with Native North Americans; 2) a major primary source or set of primary sources is available to use; and 3) the topic is cleared with the instructor. Possible directions the paper could pursue: study of a tribe (in the past, or contemporary); study of an individual Native American (in the past, or contemporary); study of a particular event important in the history of Native North Americans (in the distant or more recent past); study of a particular institution or movement important in the history of Native North Americans (in the distant or more recent past); study of an issue important in the life of Native North Americans (in the past, or contemporary); etc.

  2. TASK: The final product should be a piece that 1) reflects significant research in primary as well as secondary sources and that 2) analyzes and elucidates the significance of the chosen topic (in which one or more primary documents are central, not peripheral) in relation to course readings and/or issues (that is, "so what?" so far as your topic's significance in relation to this course?).

  3. A PRELIMINARY BIBLIOGRAPHY for your research paper is due by class time, Oct. 9.  Failure to submit a statement by the specified due date will mean that the final paper will receive a penalty reduction of a third of a letter grade (e.g., if the paper is graded as an A-, then penalty reduction would be to a B+, if a B, then to a B-, and so forth).

     

    • The bibliography should be typed, with a header with your name, your e-address, the due date, and your topic as the title.  The bibliography should be a minimum of 1 p., and a maximum of 2 pp.

    • It should contain a) a paragraph description of the proposed topic, b) a paragraph summary of a working thesis and question(s) about your topic, and c) a preliminary bibliography for your topic.

    • Parts a) and b) should be typed double spaced.  Part c) should be typed in Chicago-style bibliography format (Microsoft Office 2007 provides Chicago as a formating option; also see the various links for citations at the Course Links page in the Content section of Synapse or at http://home.nwciowa.edu/firth/nnamsclinks.htm).

    • Also, part c) should contain one or more of the following types of sources: article or chapter in a specialized reference work; scholarly article in a peer-reviewed journal; book; online document, map, material object, article, etc.; and, one or more primary document, in whatever form.

    • The bibliography should be sent as a Microsoft Word file (that is, .doc or rtf. files) through Synapse (when in your Synapse account, click on the link to this course, then click on assignments, then click on the appropriate assignment, then, in the drop box, search for your Word file, select it, and send it in).  If you encounter trouble in submitting the paper through Synapse, consult with the folks in the Computer Center, especially Paul Beltman (belt@nwciowa.edu; he oversees Synapse).  A copy will be returned to you by e-mail attachment.

    • The most important factors in evaluating the bibliography include a) do you in fact meet all the formal specifications and stipulations for the assignment under 3.A.3? and b) how clear, coherent, and thoughtful are the two forms of the report, particularly parts a) and b)?

     

  4. A PREVIEW REPORT on your research paper will will be scheduled to be presented in class either Dec. 2, 4, or 9.  It will constitute 5% of the course grade.
     

    • You should prepare a preliminary outline of your research paper to present to the class in two forms, written and oral.  Both forms should address the following (not necessarily in this order): a) what is the topic, what is your focus, and why? b) what thesis or claim are you making about your topic in relation to the history of American Indians? c) what main points, supported by what kind of evidence, from what sort of sources, do you intend to make?

    • The written form should be 1-2 pp., typed single spaced in either outline or narrative format, with a header including your name, the assigned presentation date, your RSC Box #, and the title of your research project.  You should make enough copies for yourself, for each other class member, and for the instructor.  Distribute these at the beginning of your oral presentation.

    • The oral form should be based on the written form that you have distributed.  The oral report should take no longer than 10 minutes to present orally. (The timing is subject to change depending on how many total reports have to be made.)

    • Class members and the instructor will listen carefully, ask questions following your report, and return to you within 24 hours your written report with any questions, advice, or comments. (In other words, this oral presentation is a chance to get feedback before the paper is completed.)

    • I will also include a grade on the written report that I returns to you.  The most important factors in evaluating the report (written and oral) include a) how completely and well are all of the formal specifications stated herein under 3.A.4 met? and b) how clear, coherent, and thoughtful are the two forms of the report, particularly parts b) and c)?
       

  5. THE RESEARCH PAPER IS DUE BY MIDNIGHT, DEC. 11. The final written version constitutes 30% of the course grade.  Each paper should

     

    • be typed double spaced, 15-20 pp., including Chicago-style notes (foot or end) and bibliography (Microsoft Office 2007 provides Chicago as a formating option; also see the various links for citations at the Course Links page in the Content section of Synapse or at http://home.nwciowa.edu/firth/nnamsclinks.htm),

    • have a title page that includes a title for your paper, your name, the course, the due date, and your e-address,

    • be submitted as a Microsoft Word file (i.e., .doc or .rtf) through Synapse (when in your Synapse account, click on the link to this course, then click on assignments, then click on the appropriate paper, then, in the drop box, search for your Word file, select it, and send it in).  Synapse will automatically send your paper through Turnitin.com.  If you encounter trouble in submitting the paper through Synapse, consult with the folks in the Computer Center, especially Paul Beltman (belt@nwciowa.edu; he oversees Synapse).  A graded copy will be returned to you by e-mail attachment.
       

  6. EVALUATION OF THE RESEARCH PAPER will take into account at least the following:

     

    • the consistency and quality with which the formal specifications under 3.A are fulfilled,

    • the thoroughness and thoughtfulness of the research,

    • the accuracy of content,

    • the clarity and coherence of organization, argument, and claims made in the paper,

    • the depth of analysis and interpretation, including the relation of your topic to course readings and/or issues (that is, "so what?" so far as your topic's significance in relation to this course?).

B. TWO IN-CLASS EXAMS will constitute 40% of the course grade.

  1. A midcourse exam will be given in class on Thurs., Oct. 16.  It will constitute 15% of the course grade.
  2. A final exam will be given during the scheduled final period, Tu., Dec. 16, 10:30-12:30 p.m.  Besides the in-class component, it will also include a take-home comprehensive essay, and it will constitute 25% of the course grade.

  3. Each exam will each comprise at least two essay questions to be written in class.  In addition, the comprehensive part of the final exam will consist of a take-home essay question.

  4. For each exam, a study sheet will be distributed a week ahead of the exam.  (The study sheet for the final will also include the take-home essay question).

  5. On exam days, no textbooks or other course material should be used during the exam (on penalty of voiding the entire exam) except for one 8 ½ x 11 inch exam sheet of outlines and notes (typed or handwritten, both sides if necessary).  This exam sheet must be handed in with the exam blue book.
  6. Blue books will be required for each exam.  (These are available in the NWC bookstore.)

C. A BOOK REPORT will constitute 15% of the course grade.

  1. You should select a book-length account by an American Indian (memoir, novel, collected stories or essays, religious reflections, ecology, history, etc.) that provides an Indian "voice."  What you choose could be a potential primary document for your research paper, but such an overlap is not necessary.  What is necessary is that a) your choice represents a Native American "voice" and b) you clear your choice with the course instructor.
  2. After receiving approval of your selection and then reading it, you are to prepare a report on your book.
  3. Not long after the course gets underway, you will be assigned a day for your report: Nov. 6, 11, or 13.
  4. Each report should be prepared in two forms: written and oral.  It is due for the day assigned.
  5. The written report should be 3-4 pp., typed double spaced, with a header containing your name, the due date, your RSC box number, and the title consisting of the full bibliographic citation of your chosen book, e.g., Betzinez, Jason with Wilbur Sturtevant Nye.  I Fought with Geronimo.  Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1987 (orig. ed. 1959).  This written part should be handed in hard copy to the instructor immediately prior to the oral presentation.
  6. Your written report should in general be an analytical and evaluative response to the book in light of course readings and/or issues.  That is, your report should provide: a) an analytical summation of the book's contents (what is the book about, in detail, and how well or not does it do it?) and b) substantive reflection on how the book connects to one or more course issue and/or reading.
  7. Quotations from the book in your written report may be noted parenthetically, e.g.,  blahyaddablah, "Our peaceful days were not to last" (p. 82).
  8. The written report is the basis for your oral report (to be presented on the class day assigned).  The oral report should introduce your chosen book to your peers; adapt your analytical summation and substantive reflection (with any appropriate elaborations, quotations, and illustrations) for your audience.  The total time for each oral report should be around 10 minutes.  (Times are subject to adjustment depending on the number of students in the course.).
  9. Evaluation of the report (written and oral) will include the following factors: 1) how completely and well are all of the formal specifications above met? 2) how accurately, thoroughly, and thoughtfully is the chosen book analyzed and understood? 3) how thoughtfully and insightfully is the chosen book related to one or more course issue and/or reading?

D. CLASS PARTICIPATION will constitute 10% of the course grade.

  1. A FIELD TRIP to Pipestone National Monument will constitute 5% of the course grade.  In addition to journeying on the field trip, a 2 pp. written critical reflection on what you learned about American Indians from the field trip will be required of each student.  The reflection should be typed, double spaced, with a header containing your name, the due date (the next scheduled class following the field trip), and a title suggesting the theme(s) of the reflection.  If you cannot attend the field trip for a legitmate, excusable reason (see Course Miscellany 1.2 below), then the substitute assignment is to read pp. 427-439 in George Catlin's North American Indians, ed. Peter Matthiessen (New York: Penguin Books, 1989) and then write a 3 pp. critical summary and analysis of the scope and character of Catlin's understanding of the significance of the pipestone quarries in southwest Minnesota. 
  2. Beyond the field trip component, class participation is a portion of the grade based on the instructor’s estimation of the integrity of each student’s engagement with the course material and the classroom environment.
  3. Part of the material on which this portion of the grade will be based will be various brief written assignments (e.g., developing questions about or reflecting on course material).  A record of the assignments and their general sufficiency will be kept (i.e., pass/not pass).
  4. Another part of the material on which this portion of the grade will be based will be an assessment of the overall consistency and quality of each student's attentiveness and involvement in the course.  Attentiveness and involvement include discussion, listening, and note-taking.  Talkativeness is not the standard, though, any more than is silence.  Listening and note-taking are important.  Rather, the goal for each student is an overall consistent engagement with the material of the course in class, which, while allowing for differences in personalities and variety in class sessions, could by a reasonable observer at the end of the course be deemed, if exceptional, "excellent" or at least "good."
  5. When appropriate, the instructor is prepared to be flexible with occasional student scheduling problems, but the instructor must be consulted.  “Exceptions” are not an entitlement.

 

COURSE MISCELLANY:

1. Late Written Assignments

  1. All assignments are due as stated in the syllabus or announced in class.
  2. Extensions due to illness, approved field trips, regularly scheduled games or performances, or other reasons outside the control of the student can be made, but it is up to the student to petition the instructor for such legitimate extensions.
  3. Papers: If a paper is handed in late up to a week after it was due and without a legitimate extension, it will normally receive a penalty of at least one full grade down from whatever score the work merits apart from the penalty.  If a paper is over a week late and without a legitimate extension, it will not be accepted.
  4. Finals: Finals can only be rescheduled through application to the Registrar's Office; a Final Exam Change form is linked to the Registrar's Form webpage. Travel plans are not a legitimate reason for rescheduling finals.  All course material must be in to the instructor by the scheduled period; no materials will be accepted thereafter.
    5.

2. Academic Honesty

  1. It is expected that all reading and written work done in and for the course will be done with integrity.  That is, reading and writing as assigned is to be done with honest single-mindedness by each student, without undue reliance on others to do the work and without deceit about the work's timeliness, authorship, and sources.  Integrity of this sort is not easy or convenient; it does not provide shortcuts or guarantee "As."  Yet it is the best path to growth in wisdom, and wisdom is the fruit of education most to be savored.
  2. Academic dishonesty includes cheating and plagiarism, as defined in the Student and Faculty Handbooks.
  3. Cheating in quizzes, plagiarizing in papers, and other forms of academic dishonesty, will, when duly determined, lead to a "0" score for the assignment involved and the filing of a report with the Academic Dean (VPAA), per the Student and Faculty Handbooks.

3. Grading

  1. We the faculty of the History Department do not believe that "grade inflation" is good for you. Jesus admonishes us to "Let your word be 'Yes, Yes' or 'No, No'" (Mt. 5:37); in other words, let grades have integrity as indicators of knowledge and/or competence for a given assignment or course.
  2. Therefore, an A=excellent or outstanding work; B=good work (more than adequate but not excellent); C=sufficient work (the assignment or the course’s requirements have been met, but not with any remarkable quality); D=insufficient work (does not fully meet the assignment); F=failing work.
  3. Grades for assignments and for the course as a whole are based on a 100% scale, as follows:
  A = 90-100 B = 80-89 C = 70-79 D = 60-69 F = 0-59
  1. Within the 100% scale for letter grades, + and - will be given on the following scale (exceptions: no A+ or F + or F-):
    + = x7-x9 - = x0-x2        
  1. Remember--grades are NOT a measure of your personal worth; that is already established by God! Grades are measures of the quality of your work for a given assignment and/or course--nothing more and nothing less.

4. Advice for Doing Well in History Courses

A. READING

  • This course is about texts and contexts of the past.  That is, this course is about attentively reading various primary and secondary texts and thinking about the settings--context--for the relevant pasts.  Thus, reading is central to this course.
  • There are three important things you should do with the reading: Read it all; take notes on it so that you can use it; and draw on all of it that may be relevant for each course assignment.
  • Reading for history courses is not so much about memorizing data, but about seeing the structure, the argument, and the supporting evidence in a reading, and to also think critically about context (e.g., authorship, audience, developments taking place, etc.).  Mark and take notes on these things as you read.  The time you take on making notes as you read will save you time later when you go back to look for material for your writing assignments.
  • We will engage some of the reading in class, but, there is not enough in-class time to go over all the reading.  Pay attention to discussions.  What reading we do go over in class will have to provide you with models for how to deal with all that we cannot deal with directly.  If there is something in the reading you wish to ask about or discuss, please do not hesitate to raise your question or make your observation.

B. WRITING

  • Writing is the primary method by which you will show me that you have read the assigned material and not only considered it thoughtfully, but also considered in-class discussions, films, and other materials.
  • Since this is a history course, grammar, spelling, syntax, and other such things that might well be graded in a writing course are not the focus in your writing here.  Nonetheless, the better you are at writing a clearly worded, coherently ordered essay with an introduction, a thesis or claim, several main points (with supporting evidence from the reading and other course materials), and a summary conclusion, the better the historical substance of your writing will stand out.  For help with writing, please don't hesitate to see history tutors in the Writing/Academic Support Services Center (VP127).

C. THE PACE OF THE CLASS

  • This course may seem "slow" in terms of assignments, but do not take the slowness for lack of rigor in how the main assignments will be graded.
  • As the past itself took time, so this course about the past has to let some things unfold before there can be meaningful interaction with course material.  Writing about the reading means on has to do the reading before one can write about it.  And, the reading and writing are cumulative, that is, you will continue to draw up earlier reading in the latter part of the course.  One implication of this is that more than 50% of the course grade will come with assignments in the second half of the class.
  • So, plan ahead!  All the major due dates are in the syllabus, and the reading assignments are there as well.  A good habit to cultivate is to read ahead, especially for materials that will be the focus of class discussion.

D. TIME IN AND OUT OF CLASS

  • The old wisdom still stands: "you reap what you sow" (Gal. 6:7b).  Sooner or later, what one puts into something is usually directly related to what one receives, whether one is engaging in farming, music, sports, drama, or studying.
  • As noted above, reading is central to this class--and reading takes time.  A rule of thumb for humanities courses (history, literature, philosophy, religion) is that spending 2 hours on the class in addition to every hour in class usually brings better fruit than spending less than that.  That is, for a 3-hour-a-week course, an average of 6 hours per week on the class is a reasonable goal if you wish to do well in the class.
  • If you signed up for this course, I expect you to be in class.  I hope that you are interested in the course (or that I can awaken interest in you for the course), and that you will thus want to come.  I will try hard not to waste your time.  Apart from this, someone is paying lots of money for you to attend here, and presumably you (and whoever else is involved) are interested in getting your money's worth from your investment.  And, the less you are in class, the more you miss opportunities for understanding the course material: discussions; concepts explained; themes noted; issues to ponder; connections to make; additional material presented; explanations of assignments or other things; etc.  On the one hand, I do not formally take class attendance.  On the other hand, if you are often absent, I do tend to notice.  If you are absent a lot, and with no legitimate explanation, then when it comes time for me to total up your work for a course grade, I will have little to no reason to give you any benefit of the doubt.

E. STUDY ADVICE 

  • Rule of thumb: If you wish to do well in history classes, generally plan on two hours of outside work for every in-class hour. Much reading and some writing is involved, and this takes time to do adequately, let alone well.
  • Spirituality: Approach your studies with a prayerful attitude. Pray for discipline, for attentiveness, for discernment and understanding. Christ is Lord of all of life, so he is Lord of our learning. Give him the glory with the mind he has given you. We don't think of playing an instrument or playing basketball without practice; why would anyone think that glorifying God with our minds takes any less time--any less prayer and disciplined action?
  • Reading: READ ATTENTIVELY AND INTELLIGENTLY. For history courses, the point of reading is to gain information AND to put that information within some context, or thesis, or pattern. Your goal in reading for a history course is to watch for all the cues the author gives you as to 1) what facts are more important than others and 2) how the facts are marshaled into larger patterns that "tell a story" or "make a point."
  • Taking notes is always relevant—in and on your reading, on lectures, on discussions, on videos.  (If you have a photographic memory or already know all the material, then of course taking notes would be pointless . . .)
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  • Further Help: You should be able to handle this course with sufficient time and attention. After all, hundreds of other students have. However, if you run into problems, DON'T HESITATE TO ASK FOR HELP: me, my student assistant, folks in the Writing Center.

 

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