US History II

Two clips I will be using in class as we talk about Constitutional amendments 13-19:

Martin Luther King, “I Have a Dream” (1963)

Ken Burns, “Prohibition: The Time is Now”

I have some good news; I was able to get a new copy of the Experience History textbook from the publisher, and I have placed it on course reserve for the benefit of those who don’t yet have access to the book because the bookstore is sold out or for any other reason.

You can ask for it at the library circulation desk as Davidson, Experience History, on reserve for HI 112-01. It can be checked out for 2 hours at a time.

Here’s the slide I showed in class today, explaining how to format a Chicago Style footnote, what to include, and what order to put things in. (Click on it for a larger view)

For further information, see the Diana Hacker guide to Research and Documentation in History in the left hand sidebar.

If you’re curious about why it’s called “Chicago Style,” well… I’ll just say it has nothing to do with pizza.

Note: New tab above, “Exam Advice” – to help you improve your exam skills, based on what I’m seeing from in-class writing exercises

Resources for today’s class:

(Click for larger image)

Web resources:
Custer Battlefield Museum http://www.custermuseum.org/ (note this is a private for-profit museum; the battlefield’s name has changed)
Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument Website http://www.nps.gov/libi/index.htm
The Battle of Little Bighorn on PBS – The West http://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/resources/archives/six/bighorn.htm (resource page from a 2001 PBS series)
Battle of the Little Bighorn on Eyewitness to History http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/custer.htm (a commercial site, note the ads)
Website for groups involved in Little Bighorn Annual Re-enactments http://www.littlebighornreenactment.com/
Little Bighorn Photo Gallery http://www.mohicanpress.com/battles/ba04002.html (an amateur/commerical site, note, site has automatic music)
Friends of the Little Bighorn Battlefield http://www.friendslittlebighorn.com/ (fundraising organization for the monument)
Little Bighorn Associates http://www.thelbha.org/ (scholarly society dedicated to history of the battle)
“How the Battle of Little Bighorn was Won” http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/How-the-Battle-of-Little-Bighorn-Was-Won.html (online article from Smithsonian Magazine)
Gallery of images at History.com http://www.history.com/topics/battle-of-the-little-bighorn/photos (a commercial site)

Online Historical Newspaper/Periodical Archives
Making of America (Cornell University)

Brooklyn Daily Eagle

Colorado Historic Newspaper Collection (1859-1923) – same kind of search engine as the Brooklyn Daily Eagle

Library of Congress “Chronicling America” historic newspapers (1880-1922)

California Digital Newspaper Collection

Quincy, Illinois Historical Newspaper Archive (1835-1919)

The Harvard Crimson (starts in 1873)

Sioux County, Nebraska, Newspaper Archives (1872 to the present)

Wyoming Newspaper Project

Based on the class’s voting last Friday, the syllabus for the rest of the course is now set and will be handed out in class. It has also been added to the electronic versions of the syllabus posted on Blackboard and in the left-hand sidebar of this site. You may also download the new syllabus table as a 2-page PDF document.

This week will be one of the semester’s busiest. Your reading includes parts of 2 chapters for our in-class discussions and work, and 2 others for the online quiz. In addition, your second Skill Builder is due on Friday the 16th. See the new “Skill Builders” tab (above) for more information on that assignment.

The online quiz #1 is now open, until midnight on Friday the 16th. You can take it multiple times. Each time you take it, you will have 20 questions to answer, but each re-take may have different questions since there are more than 20 all together. Total points possible are 22 points. You have 15 minutes for each attempt. At the close of the quiz availability period, Blackboard will automatically record your highest-scoring attempt. The questions are drawn from Chapters 20 and 21 of your textbook. You may use your textbook as a resource for the quiz, but you will still need to study it well before taking the quiz.

The week at a glance:

Mon 9/12 – discussion of the textbook & its resources; introduction to our unit on the American West.

Wed 9/14 – Read Chapter 19 before class. Come prepared to discuss what the US was like in the 1870s: technologically, economically, politically, and culturally.

Fri 9/16 – Skill Builder 2 is due. Recommended topics: either the Dueling Documents on p. 452, or the Historian’s Toolbox on p. 465. Before class, please read Chapter 18, pp. 471-472 (which is a slight correction from the syllabus) and pp. 480-490. Be able to define the term “frontier” and explain what it means in context of the American West in the late 19th century.

Instructions for Skill Builder 1, due Friday Sept 9

The remaining skill builders in this semester will be based on historical evidence from your textbook, but this first one asks you to look at, evaluate, and draw conclusions from a website.

Navigate to: http://www.chicagohistory.org/wetwithblood/

Investigate the different parts of this website.
Consider the evidence presented.

Write a 2-page (no more, no less) double spaced paper that addresses at least some of these questions:

• What is a historical question this website asks? What kind of question is it (a question of fact, of interpretation, or of something else?)
• What kind(s) of evidence does this website discuss?
• In your view, what is a reasonable answer to the historical question?
• What are the methods of historical investigation in this case?
• Examine the references for this website. How well researched is it?
• Discuss the chosen display design (a Flash Player “e-book”) – how well did it fit this topic?
• What did you find most intriguing, interesting, or useful in exploring this website?

Give your paper a title (not “Skill Builder #1)

Cite the website using a footnote with the proper citation format (Chicago Style), as follows:
Author/creator, Title in italics, year, URL, date of access.

e.g.

Chicago Historical Society and the Trustees of Northwestern University, Wet With Blood: The Investigation of Mary Todd Lincoln’s Cloak, 2000, http://www.chicagohistory.org/wetwithblood/ (accessed September 6, 2011).

Welcome to History 112! In this course you will learn United States history from 1877 to the present. The course also serves as an introduction to the scholarly discipline of history–how historians think, work, and approach the past.

How this site works: I use this website each semester for my sections of 112 and I have left the old posts up from previous semesters as reference for my former students. You can safely ignore any post tagged “Spr11” or “Fall 2010.” Yours will be tagged “Fall11” (tags are at the bottom of each new post).

This main Home page is for class news, announcements, instructions and communication. Please check it between classes for any new additions. The easiest way to do this is to subscribe to its RSS feed (use the orange icon in the upper left corner) using email, Google Reader, or another RSS feed service of your choice.

Under the header, you will find links to other pages within the site which contain the course learning outcomes, syllabus, course calendar and ideas for further reading. Once the term begins I will also post detailed guidelines for the quizzes, papers and weekly assignments.

Some specifics about this course you need to know: This is probably going to be unlike any other history course you have taken. By design, it is meant to be hands-on and student-centered. Expect to be busy and participating in every class: asking questions, working in groups, analyzing sources, using learning tools, and occasionally taking notes – but never texting, surfing the web, falling asleep or zoning out.

You’ll write frequently – something is due nearly every week – and so if writing is not a strength of yours, get to know the Writing Center (Sullivan 306, x8112) or come for help during office hours. The textbook (Davidson, Experience History, Volume 2. 7th ed, McGraw-Hill, 2011 – ISBN 9780077368326) is your main learning companion: buy/rent it, read it, get to know it backwards and forwards, but don’t expect that I will repeat or lecture on its contents during class. I am happy to discuss reading and studying strategies during my office hours if you find you need help in that area.

Early on in the course, we will identify five topics you’d like to know better, one for each time period. Each of those will become the focus of a unit for our class sessions. Whatever course content we don’t work with in class will be tested using online quizzes in Blackboard. You can take the quizzes multiple times on your own time in each unit; they will each be open for about a week. In this design, your interests drive what we do in class, and you decide what we will cover in more detail and what we will minimize or leave out. Every history class is selective in what it covers- the difference here is that YOU get to do the selecting.

I look forward to meeting you! Have a wonderful summer, and I will see you in September.

The last exam was curved 12 points for everyone. If you are interested in picking up your exam, let me know and I will arrange for you to get it from me before you leave for summer, or when you come back in the fall.

Thanks, everyone, for a very productive and interesting semester!

One last thing: If anyone would like to donate your copy of Experience History, I would gratefully accept it so I could have a reserve copy for the library in the fall.

Some links for this morning’s class:

Al Jazeera English Livestream http://english.aljazeera.net/watch_now/

Mary Louise Kelly’s profile of Osama Bin Laden (NPR) http://www.npr.org/2011/05/02/135905649/bin-laden-from-millionaires-son-to-most-wanted

Obama’s announcement speech last night at 11:30 via CBS, http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7364586n

In our last four class sessions we are looking at recent history–“the history of now”–and how to make sense of our globalized, media-rich, fast-changing social landscape.

On Monday April 25th we’ll discuss, add to, and work from the wiki we’ve been making: it can be found at http://since1989.wikispaces.com. As on Friday, it will be helpful to bring your laptop and/or your textbook to class.

On Wednesday the 27th we will start our last written project in class – you’ll receive a packet of materials to study a recent event in US history and will begin to evaluate and analyze the contents. That project is due on the last day of class, next Monday May 2nd. You’ll get full guidelines and instructions on Wednesday.

For Friday the 29th, please read an 8-part article series published in Slate.com magazine by Josh Levin, titled “How Is America Going to End?” Although historians aren’t in the business of predicting the future, a historically-informed perspective can help us think through hypothetical scenarios like these. Which seem plausible to you? What kind of evidence would you need, and what kinds of evidence does Levin provide?

On Monday the 2nd, we wrap up the course and plan for the final. Your “History Now” project is due in class on this day. You can submit it early, but not late, and it cannot be submitted in electronic form. This means you will need to print it out, and you can’t use “no printer ink” or “printer not working” as an excuse for not turning in your work. Plan ahead. There are no exceptions.
Bring your textbook to class on Monday May 2nd.

Exam #4 will be given during the final exam slot, on Monday May 9th at 8:30 am in our regular classroom. It covers Chapters 31 and 32 and Levin’s article series.