Listen to an interview with co-authors Nancy Hewitt & Steven Lawson of   Exploring American Histories, 4th Edition as they discuss they believe history is so important for students who are not history majors to take - especially in today’s polarized climate. Macmillan Learning · A talk with Co-Authors Nancy Hewitt and Steven Lawson: Episode 3 ... View more

This past weekend marked the twentieth anniversary of the September 11th terrorist attack. As I reflect on my personal memories of that tragic day, I find myself, again, thinking about the US history survey and how recent history fits (or doesn't fit) into my semester-long sections of "US II." In a previous blog, Up-to-date? Where to End the US Survey (2017) , I discussed the challenge of getting through as much content as possible and my avoidance of teaching topics that I had lived through. One astute reader reminded me back then that just because I witnessed a historical event doesn’t mean that students are familiar with it. So, here I am four years later, and the question still perplexes me. Do I need to get to 9/11 in a course that starts in 1877 and is already bursting at the seams with content? Is it time for me to officially abandon my quest for "coverage"?   As a mom to college-age children it is impossible to escape notice of how dramatically things have changed since 2001. My children have grown up under the cloud of the War on Terror in the same way my youth was influenced by the Cold War. And yet, so much of what I know about the Cold War was learned in adulthood, not as a college student living through the collapse of the Soviet Union. My college history professors ended US II with Watergate and the fall of Saigon, and I’m still ok with their choices. Had they tried in the early 1990s to teach the historical meanings of the Iran Hostage Crisis or Reaganomics, students would have been left with an incomplete understanding of complex topics that had not yet been fully examined by historians.    The longer I teach the more I find myself wedded to the notion that the passage of time enables a deeper, more thoughtful understanding of events. Not without bias, but certainly with additional data and facts to temper extreme partisan perspectives. That being said, while I don’t see myself incorporating study of 9/11 into my US History II sections any time soon, I do believe that providing students with the tools to begin their own study of a recent event or contemporary topic can be helpful. Over the course of a semester they come to rely on their professors as experts. Offering them a starting point for exploration of topics we cannot “fit” into the time frame of our 15-week courses, therefore, makes sense.    The knowledge my students gain about how to study history, I’ve concluded, is more valuable than coverage. Finding new ways to train our students to think as historians -- evaluate sources, look for bias, search for contradictions in the written record -- will prepare the college students of today to both analyze events as they occur around them now  while also enabling them to think critically in the future about what they have experienced. As someone who teaches mostly STEM and health care majors, the process of learning history feels more important than ever.   In 2021, with US History II needing to cover more and more material, how are you training our next generation of historically-aware citizens?    ... View more

Listen to an interview with co-authors Nancy Hewitt & Steven Lawson of   Exploring American Histories, 4th Edition as they discuss challenges they have had in the past when teaching history that influenced their authorial vision. Macmillan Learning · A Talk with Co-Authors Nancy Hewitt & Steven Lawson: Episode 2 ... View more

Listen to an interview with co-authors Nancy Hewitt & Steven Lawson of Exploring American Histories, 4th Edition as they discuss their own histories with teaching.  Macmillan Learning · A Talk with Co-Authors Nancy Hewitt & Steven Lawson: Episode 1 ... View more

Whenever I allow students in my US Women’s History classes to choose their own research topics they automatically default to biographies. In an effort to move away from the kind of history that focuses solely on the accomplishments of individuals, this semester’s research project requires each student to study a social movement in which women were significant participants, if not the leaders. Since my course covers the period 1600-1900, I’ve created a list of suggested topics that includes abolition, temperance, and voting/political rights, as well as mental health, public health, and education. My hope is that students see groups of women as significant actors in the development of our modern-day ideas and institutions, rather than singling out specific women for their individual achievements and ignoring the communities around them. I was inspired to discourage students from writing biographies this semester in part by my spring-semester students’ desires to focus on women with whom they were already familiar. Rosa Parks, for example, immediately came to mind for students when they were assigned a research project for US Women Since 1900. Since I had not made a blanket “no biographies” rule I tried my best to steer students towards women such as Ida Wells and Ella Baker, who were significant as civil rights activists but not staples of middle-school history curriculum. Anyone who remained committed to Rosa Parks as a topic had to study her work aside from the Montgomery Bus Boycott. While at first students were unhappy about my “rules,” ultimately they seemed pleased by semester’s end to have expanded their understanding of Parks’s work or to have learned about women that were previously unknown to them. I’m hopeful that by studying women’s participation in 19th-century social movements students will engage in deeper thought about both the motivations of these women and the challenges they faced forging a space for themselves, and others, in the public sphere. How did their families/communities respond to their desire to be publicly active? Did the women view their work as political, or were they inspired by moral or religious beliefs? Who did they lean on in their public and private lives for support? Students will need to acknowledge the privilege that enabled upper-class white women to work for social causes while servants and enslaved women managed the heavy responsibilities of their masters’/employers’ households. Ultimately, I want the students to see that women’s social activism during this period of our history required more than the desire to make change. While some women wrote abolitionist pamphlets or toured decrepit institutions for the “insane,” the day to day toil of other women in private homes made the work of social pioneers possible. Communities of women made change possible then, as now.  What are you doing to expand your students’ understanding of how the individual fits into the larger picture of our national history? Ideas and suggestions are welcome.    ... View more

In 2007 when I was first hired by the community college where I’m about to start my fifteenth year, the centerpiece of my teaching load was a course called “America’s Experience in Vietnam.” The class was very popular among a specific sub-group of students: recent veterans of combat in Afghanistan and Iraq. Some of them had permanent war-related injuries, while others were open with their classmates about their struggles with PTSD. Still others were physically and emotionally healthy but working incredibly hard to rejoin civilian life after an extended period of time in the armed forces. They added an element of realism to the course discussions that had been absent when I taught a similar course at a private four-year college.   As the years went on, and the turmoil in the Middle East continued to draw on the human and economic resources of our country, the “Vietnam course” as I liked to call it became more and more difficult to teach. Historians had a clearer picture than ever before of the errors in policy made in Southeast Asia and there was plenty of Vietnam-related data for analysis and discussion. My students, however, were beginning to see parallels between the war they were studying and the one in which they had been combatants. It was obvious to me that some were quite troubled by the proverbial notion of “history repeating itself.”   Class discussions became tangled in a question that I couldn’t answer with any authority: would a historian one day be making the argument that US military action in Afghanistan and/or Iraq had been misguided? I admittedly started to have a difficult time keeping the students on track because their concerns about the similarities between US policy in Southeast Asia and the Middle East, though decades apart, were so troubling. It seemed that every conversation about Vietnam ended with thoughts on the Middle East. Eventually I began to believe that a class focused solely on the war in Vietnam no longer made sense for a generation of students who were themselves living through a protracted military engagement overseas and needed broader historical context. I began to encourage student veterans to take general US history courses so that they could better understand how US foreign policy has changed over time in response to diplomatic and economic crises throughout the world.    I’m thinking a lot this week about those students I taught in 2007, 2008, and 2009 who were new to college but veterans of combat. My college is offering additional support to current student veterans feeling stress and anxiety over the situation in Afghanistan, but I know that those young men and women I taught more than ten years ago -- wherever they may be today -- are likely thinking back to our class discussions. It’s unsettling.    What do we say to students when we literally see history repeating itself in front of our eyes? I’m mulling this question as we prepare to start a new school year with the COVID-19 pandemic continuing to wreak havoc on our daily lives. In these immensely challenging times I want to find ways to be truthful in my classroom while also offering hope for the future. Seeking suggestions.    ... View more

Choose a historical figure or event from African American history and tell us how you draw inspiration from him/her/them/it. We are still in uncertain times, but powerful movements to address racial injustice are still going strong. The art of storytelling, as well as paying homage to the leaders and movements that came before us, remains indispensable in our quest to learn from the past. With that in mind, we ask college-level students, instructors, or higher-ed administrators to share their stories! With a photo of the participant and the choice between a short written or short video story, please choose a historical Black person(s) or event and explain how you've drawn inspiration from it/him/her! Three winners from each of the two categories will be selected and awarded with prize amounts ranging from $1000* to $250* in February for Black History Month. Submit Your Story! ... View more

This Day In History: On August 7th, 1964, geographer Donal Rusk Currey cut down a tree. Currey was doing his work on ice age glaciology when he got his tree corer stuck in a bristlecone pine. A park ranger in Wheeler Park, Eastern Nevada, then helped Currey cut this tree down.  What the two men didn’t realize was that the tree they had cut down, named Prometheus , was almost 5,000 years old. At the time, it was the oldest tree ever recorded. Indeed, it was the world’s oldest living recorded organism of the time.  At many levels, this is just the story of an accident. But, cutting down trees is a part of American history, like the myth of George Washington cutting down his father’s cherry tree .  Now, trees and many other parts of Nevada are burning. Ninety percent of the American West is in drought conditions, including Prometheus’ Nevada. The recent Tamarack Fire , now mostly contained, burned almost 70,000 acres of Nevada and California.  I often find it hard to put large numbers and concepts in scope. How should I visualize 70,000 acres, think of 5,000 years, or contextualize historical events in a realistic way? But, this story of Currey and Prometheus helps me in seeing both the forest for the trees as well as the (extremely old) tree within the forest. I hope this day in history meets you wherever you are--impacted by the wildfires or not.  What days in history do you want to learn about next? Have you done “This Day in History” assignments with your students? Share in the comments!  ... View more

This week’s blog is my 101st for the Macmillan Community! While I wish I had a provocative way to remark upon the experience of blogging about teaching history, instead, as I prepare to start a new academic year, I face my annual anxiety about what is to come in the year ahead. So, this week I offer more jumbled thoughts.   First, I’m thinking about how much I miss being on campus and lamenting that I will continue to long for a return to academic normalcy for at least one more semester. Enrollment at my community college is such that demand for online courses is outpacing on-campus offerings. The unknowns of the Delta variant, amongst other factors, means that all of my courses are running this fall as remote, asynchronous once again. I had such high hopes for being back in the traditional classroom that, admittedly, it’s going to take a little extra effort on my part to generate excitement for remaining full online. Are you on campus or online? What challenges are you facing as you prepare for either format or a combination of both?    Second, I’m thinking about the college search process and how overwhelming it can be for students. I’ve spent a good part of this summer prodding my youngest son to look at colleges. Our conversations in the car after campus tours have reminded me that students on the cusp of transitioning from secondary to higher education need our compassion just as much if not more than our content expertise. It has occurred to me several times during these visits that at 17 years old I had absolutely zero plans to be a historian. To paraphrase my son after one presentation: “looking at colleges is really scary.” No doubt! As a parent and professor I’m often just as confused about which college would be best when I leave the information sessions/tours as I was when we arrived on campus. It's no surprise to me that many of my students come to community college after spending time a four-year school that was not the right "fit." There has to be a better way. Ideas? Advice?   Finally, as a historian, I continue to reflect on how best to help my students place themselves within the context of this unprecedented time in American history. Just as we thought society was moving towards a new “normal” we find ourselves again facing mask mandates and engaging in debates about the value of vaccination. No doubt this is a confusing time for students and teachers alike. As always, I encourage fellow teachers to reference times in our history when we’ve faced similar challenges. I recently started listening to the inaugural season of the Intervals podcast released this year by the Organization of American Historians and available free of charge through Spotify . Subjects include yellow fever, smallpox, the influenza outbreak of 1918, and the use of disinfectants during the Gilded Age. It’s easy to get drawn in by the fascinating subjects of this fabulous series. Any one of the episodes could offer an early-semester writing prompt in a history or English class.   As we approach this new academic year, what are you thinking about? What challenges do you anticipate as we move into this new phase of pandemic-era higher education? Please share.     ... View more

What pulled you into teaching history, and eventually, becoming a history textbook author? I grew up with maternal grandparents who spoke German as a first language; my grandmother was born in the US but into a large German-speaking farming family and my grandfather emigrated from Ukraine (at the time we called it the USSR or Russia). This made me curious about European history and languages so I first studied German, then French, and finally ended up in French history because of my interest in the French Revolution. I loved studying history and also teaching it, both in large undergraduate classes and small seminars. It seemed to me then and still seems to me now that studying history gives you a new perspective on yourself, your family, your community and your nation and a sense of belonging to a wider world. Textbooks are essential because they provide an introduction to all the fascinating questions that could be studied in greater depth and they also, when they work well, give a sense of how things fit together, whether it’s different kinds of experience (war, economic change, cultural variations) or developments over time (how much we have inherited from the past). Can you tell us a little bit about the courses you teach/have taught and where you've taught? I began my career at the University of California, Berkeley teaching Western Civ, general European history and French history in particular. I have taught very large lecture classes (many hundreds of students) and small seminars, both undergraduate and graduate, and everything in between. Berkeley was somewhat unusual (aside from the fact that it was Berkeley, the home of radicalism) in that the history department required every major to write a thesis, not just the honors students. This got students involved in original research and writing and was often very rewarding both to students and their professors. After Berkeley I went to the University of Pennsylvania, an Ivy League school, but I still taught the same variety of courses. Then I went to UCLA where I continued to teach a variety of courses. I still teach an online summer version of Western Civ. I loved all the places where I taught and found the students always very engaged (not every single one, of course!), though I also learned that students respond to their professors – if they sense enthusiasm and passion for the subject, they tend to feel the same way themselves. With The Making of the West going into best-selling 7th edition, and a new Achieve platform, what are you most excited about showing your fellow history professors this fall? The online component of teaching is only going to grow, and the most important thing is that that component reflect the same research and analysis that go into textbook writing and the research and writing of history more generally. What I like about the Macmillan platform for the 7 th edition is that it had great input from my co-authors and myself. It reflects our interests and priorities, not some generic template. At the same time, Achieve offers so many choices. No one has to do the same thing as everyone else; the customization possibilities are endless, as I discovered for myself teaching this course with Launchpad over the last few years. What are the biggest themes that you try to convey? What are the organizing principles of The Making of the West? Interconnection above all else: we have tried to bring all the different kinds of history (from military to women’s and gender history) together into a seamless (in so far as that is possible) narrative without privileging any one aspect or region. Interconnection in the sense, too, that Europe is part of a wider world and we would like to think that we were very much in the forefront of emphasizing that aspect of Western Civ. What has been the best "teachable moment" to emerge from teaching in the era of the pandemic? I am not sure that enough has been made of how the online format can actually increase professor-student interactions. If you teach a bricks and mortar version of Western Civ as I have, it is very hard to get to know individual students if you have a class of 150-500 students (except those in your own section if you have one). And it’s very hard to get students to come to office hours because they have busy schedules and are often convinced that no one will be very interested in their problems when there are so many other students. With the move online during the pandemic, students have been more willing to email their professors because it’s the only way to contact them. Yes, in synchronous classes, you can stay and ask a question after the lecture but in asynchronous ones, you cannot. But you can email the professor or attend his or her zoom office hours. Without this, I’m afraid that the pandemic would have been even more disastrous for learning. ... View more

In May I described my plans for a deconstructed research project to be assigned during my six-week summer intensive course in place of a traditional writing assignment. (See “Summer Project: Assignment Reboot” for details.) My goal was to have the students complete the key elements of a research project in structured sections, due over four weeks, rather than handing in a finished product at the conclusion of the course. Having just finished reading spring-semester research projects, I hoped that with this new approach the summer projects would be academically stronger if they were broken up into sections even though the summer students would have less time to complete the project than the spring semester students. Thanks to everyone who wrote to me after the blog was published to share their experiences with deconstructed projects!   So what did I find? Here are some observations from my first experience assigning this project with a class of 24 online students.   First, seasoned students who had completed research projects in other courses were initially confused about “the point.” I had a handful ask if they could “just write the whole paper” instead of breaking down the projects into my four step process. Although some students clearly already knew how to complete a research project, I explained that all students could benefit from slowing down the process. Part One of the project asked students to explain their topic and identify three secondary sources in MLA citation form. Right away some students hit a roadblock because they did not know where/how to locate secondary sources and/or they were unfamiliar with MLA. Since they had only seven days to complete the assignment, however, there was no time to procrastinate. Anyone who needed assistance with the sources had to immediately schedule time with our reference librarian, and the majority of students did just that.   Having students focus Part Three of the assignment on primary sources provided an opportunity to once again offer help. Part Two asked students to summarize the basics: who/what/where/when/how. Part Three required them to find primary sources to illustrate the details. In semester-long research projects I have consistently seen students ignore the differences between primary and secondary sources as they rush to complete a project in the crunch of a deadline. In the deconstructed project the students had seven days to identify three primary sources. For most students, successful completion of this part of the project meant brushing up on what a primary source is -- I provided links to several online resources as well as a sample of my own work for students to mirror. Again, I reminded students of the short window of time and encouraged them to ask for help. I was pleasantly surprised to see so many students booking virtual appointments with our college librarians and the college Writing Center.   Finally, Part Four required students to submit two paragraphs on the historical significance of their topic along with a final Works Cited page in MLA format. I provided several prompts to help the students to think more broadly about their topics and to draw connections to contemporary issues when possible. Once more the students had seven days to complete this part of the project. No time to procrastinate.   Ultimately, my trial run with a (time-sensitive) deconstructed research project was a success. The vast majority of  students completed all four parts of the assignment on time and I was pleased with the effort put forth. It’s difficult to judge whether the results will be the same during a semester-long course because in my experience students who take summer-intensive courses are extra motivated by the need to earn those last few credits that will allow them to graduate and/or transfer. I’ll try the project in a semester-long format this fall and am considering whether or not to maintain the same four-week plan. I’m curious to see if the four-week approach reduces the amount of procrastination that tends to seep into semester-long research projects.   Thoughts? Suggestions? ... View more

As I’m thinking about the start of the new school year I’m brainstorming the return to campus. At my community college, a return to campus in September will mean students in the physical classrooms after nearly eighteen months of remote learning. I’m wondering how to help students reconnect in that physical space after working independently for so long. Usually the first day of classes is spent discussing the syllabus and course expectations. While these tasks will still be part of my plan, I’ve decided to also have students group-share on that first day to discuss how their working lives have changed as a result of the pandemic.    Here are some of the questions I will have students address in small groups:    Did you work before the pandemic began? If so, what did you do?  How did the earliest months of the pandemic impact your personal work life or the experiences of those with whom you live? Did you change jobs during the pandemic? If so, why/why not? What was your experience seeking work during the pandemic? How could a historian document your pandemic work experience? What artifacts may exist that could help tell the story of your experience in the future? What do you want students one hundred years from now to know about your pandemic-era work experiences?   I’m inspired to start the semester with this discussion because I believe that the majority of my students or their families will have experienced some significant work-related changes during the pandemic era. We spend a great deal of time in my US history classes studying the changes that came about during the First and Second World Wars in regards to work. The most recognizable icon to students on the first day of US History II is always “Rosie the Riveter” -- even if they cannot explain her significance they are able to link her to World War II. I’m hoping to help students to see that their experiences during the pandemic will one day be the subject of study in history classes.   In addition, I’m hoping that by focusing on work rather than health issues during the pandemic I can help the students connect to each other without delving too deeply into painful personal experiences/losses that may have occurred as a result of COVID-19. I want the students, from the very first day back together in the classroom, to be reminded of their shared experiences as a society over the past eighteen months.    Do you have any plans for re-integrating students into the physical classroom this fall? Please share. ... View more

Vice President Kamala Harris faced criticism this week for telling Guatemalans not to come to the US/Mexican border  seeking entry without first following other pathways to citizenship. Whether or not we concur with the White House’s stance on undocumented people and conditions at the US/Mexican border, as historians we can agree that our students know more about the political mud-slinging that goes on in relation to immigration policy than they do about the countries that are the birthplaces of millions of people who desire economic opportunity and security here in the United States.    I am acutely aware of the students’ frustration with this lack of knowledge because I teach at a community college with a large population of students whose families are from the Caribbean and Latin America. In most cases, the students themselves were either born in the United States or were brought to this country at such a young age that they do not remember the living conditions that led to their families’ migrations. Often they will say they know only that their families were “extremely poor” or that one or both of their parents sought political asylum in the United States. Family members, the students tell their professors, are often reluctant to discuss the conditions that led to the immensely difficult decision to leave their homeland.    It’s time for us, as historians, to help these young people understand their families’ origin stories.   At my college we hope to start this process by hiring an historian who can teach courses specifically related to Latin America and the Caribbean, while also helping us to create a more globally-based survey course. None of this may sound groundbreaking to those of you who teach at universities with dozens of fields of specialization. However, those who teach at community colleges across the United States have long faced the challenge of teaching outside of our fields of expertise so that we can offer as many courses as possible. For an increasingly diverse student population, we must do better.   Consider, for example, that the American Association of Community Colleges reported in 2019 that approximately 41% of all undergraduates in the US are enrolled at community colleges. When we look at statistics for Native American, Hispanic, and Black college students those numbers increase to 56%, 53%, and 43% respectively. It’s well past time, then, for community colleges to commit to more diversity in their history curriculum and to offer content beyond the traditional US history and Western Civilization courses that have typically transferred seamlessly to four-year colleges. If students of color are taking their first college history courses at community colleges, those courses need to not only educate them about important historical events but also help them to see where they -- as people -- fit into the narrative of world history. For first-generation Americans and first-generation college students this need is especially great.   To my fellow community college faculty, a question: what courses is your department offering outside of the traditional US and Western Civilization surveys? How have students responded to the offerings? Is enrollment strong or struggling? I’d love to hear from Macmillan Community faculty grappling with this important challenge.  ... View more

Macmillan Learning author Mia Bay joins Radio Times to discuss her book Traveling Black: A Story of Race and Resistance.  Bay sits down with the WHYY production team and tells the story of the rise in travel segregation and the fight for equality on the road and in courts. Bay is also one of the three authors of the third edition of Freedom on My Mind,  a narrative that follows African American’s quest for freedom as the central theme and situates that quest in the context of American history.  ... View more

This past semester a kind of remote-learning fatigue seemed to set in amongst my students. Coupled with my own remote-teaching fatigue, final projects were less ambitious than in previous years and took me much longer to grade. I’ve decided that summer is a good time for a reboot of the semester-long research project to re-energize my instruction and help students to focus on the quality of each individual part of their research project.    I’m teaching a six-week intensive Black History course this summer and instead of assigning the research project at the start and then waiting to see the results at the end of the session, I’m breaking the assignment into four parts that will be submitted separately. The goal of the project is for students to research an aspect of Black History that we will not cover in detail as a class but relates directly to the larger themes and content. Together the four parts will comprise a research project, but students will be graded on each individual section as it is completed rather than on one document at the course’s end.    Here is my work-in-progress plan for what will be submitted in each part of the project during the six-week course:   Part One (due Week Two) Topic with thesis statement and defined parameters. Example: a study of the life/work of Martin Luther King, Jr., would be too broad for this project but a study of the significance of MLK’s work in Montgomery in 1955 or Birmingham in 1963 would work well. Draft Works Cited: three secondary sources in MLA format. Sources will be articles retrieved from College Library’s databases; students will receive support from a reference librarian.   Part Two (due Week Three) In 2-3 detailed paragraphs, explain the who/what/where/when/how of the topic. Use in-text citations (MLA format) to identify sources used.   Part Three (due Week Four) Three annotated primary sources providing examples to support information presented in Part Two and illustrate key aspects of the topic.  Examples: images of subject/events, newspaper/magazine articles from period, segments of speeches/letters/writings from period. Each source should have a 1-2 sentence annotation to explain its relevance to the topic. Primary sources may come from academic databases or from the general web.  Sources must be cited in MLA format.   Part Four (due Week Five) Two paragraph conclusion that addresses historical significance Where does the topic fit within the wider framework of our course? What was the long-term impact of the topic on the history of the era we are studying? Final version of Works Cited page   It is my hope that by deconstructing this research assignment my students will experience the value of producing quality components that together create a well thought-out project. I would love to hear from anyone who has tried this kind of piece-by-piece assignment and whether they were satisfied with the results. Any pitfalls I need to be prepared for?  Suggestions welcome!  ... View more