As Winter Break draws to a close I find myself revisiting the theme about which I wrote my very first blog for Macmillan Community: how to address a divisive political issue within the context of the undergraduate history classroom. Recently the national debate about immigration was accelerated by controversial comments attributed to the President. I’m anticipating that my students will raise questions about the history of immigration when we resume classes next week so I’d like to share several web-based resources that faculty might use in class or offer to students as a way to talk politics with historical context. These three websites offer sources for both primary and secondary examination of immigration to the United States. The Population Reference Bureau, in particular, is a fabulous resource for statistical information about the waves of immigration that have occurred over the past two-hundred years. Library of Congress Immigration: Challenges for New Americans Harvard University Library Open Collections Program: Immigration to the United States, 1789-1930   Population Reference Bureau “Trends in Migration to the United States” Once students have a better sense of how important immigration has been to our nation’s history and development, it is critical for them to understand that current attitudes towards immigration are not historically unique. Comparing political cartoons from past eras to what students may find in contemporary news sources is one interesting way to place the debate in context. These two websites share visual examples and resources: Historical Society of Pennsylvania Anti-Immigration Attitudes “Analyzing Anti-Immigrant Attitudes in Political Cartoons”   There has been no shortage of opinion or “perspective” pieces on the topic published in the last several months including Hidetaka Hirota in the Washington Post (January 16, 2018) and Kevin D. Williamson in the National Review (August 6, 2017). I recommend that faculty seek out a variety of perspectives and then allow students to use their developing skills as historians to discuss and analyze. Time permitting, it is also worthwhile for students examine the homelands of people who came to this country in earlier waves of immigration to compare social, economic and political conditions. Ask students to research conditions in Ireland, Italy, Germany or other nations from which large numbers of men and women entered the United States in the nineteenth century and then compare those conditions to the modern-day regions from which immigrants seek to enter the United States. Then, provide students with resources that consider the impact of immigrants on the communities they join. Historians Marilynn Johnson and Deborah Levenson at Boston College have created Global Boston, a website that offers insight into the history of immigrants in Boston, for example, and shares concrete examples of neighborhoods that have been dramatically influenced by the large immigrant population. Finally, Reimagining Migration contains web-based sources to help educators work with students who have their own migration stories to share.            Remember, above all, that while immigration is an important historical topic, it is one that may be deeply personal to students. In a typical classroom at my community college, for example, I have a diverse mix of first and second generation Americans seated side-by-side with American-born students whose beliefs about the need for immigration reform have been influenced by their families’ economic insecurities. As humanities faculty we are uniquely positioned to help students on both sides of the debate to see the importance of their shared humanity and their connection to both the past and the future. ... View more

The fall semester ended in a flurry of research projects and final exams. Now that the new year has begun I’m reevaluating my fall courses and contemplating changes for the upcoming semester. My teaching load is 5-5 with three course preparations each semester. The only constant in my schedule is that each semester I teach one section of Black History. I reevaluate this course every August and January to assess what did/did not work in the previous semester. For this first blog of the New Year I thought I would share some of my thought process with the Macmillan Community. As always, suggestions welcome!    During the summer of 2017 there was a marked increase in national debate on the future of Confederate monuments (see my blog from Summer 2017 A Monumental Debate). For fall semester, therefore, I decided to incorporate weekly discussions of articles from the collection Slavery and Public History: The Tough Stuff of American Memory (edited by James O. Horton and Lois E. Horton) with the idea that students would have the opportunity to talk about the current debate over Confederate monuments while also considering how the institution of slavery has been memorialized in the United States. I was able to locate several short videos from local television news coverage to provide students with examples of how communities around the country were grappling with the issue. Students were very open to discussing the topic of memorials as both a current event and an important component of understanding how Americans reflect upon our national history.       Also on the list of “positives” or “keeps” for this past semester was our class discussion of James Weldon Johnson’s The Autobiography of an Ex-Coloured Man. We used this novel as the focal point of a series of discussions that began with the ideologies and activism of Booker T. Washington, W.E.B. DuBois, and Ida B. Wells and transitioned into a brief study of the Harlem Renaissance. Students were fascinated by Johnson’s fictionalization of a man “passing,” but also shared personal experiences and observations about whether this concept still holds weight in the twenty-first century.     On the last day of classes I asked the students for feedback to help me plan for the spring semester. Without hesitation students told me that they wished we had more time in class to focus on the civil rights movement of the post-World War II era. My semester-long plan for the fall had centered around an independent study on a twentieth-century civil rights topic of their choice, which culminated in a final research project. Although the students seemed genuinely excited to focus on a topic of personal interest related to civil rights, the specific requirements of the assignment kept us from the kind of detailed discussion of the 1950s and 1960s that I usually undertake with the students in class. In other words, my assignment required a lot of outside reading that took away from the time they had to focus on meeting-specific content.     For the spring semester, therefore, I’m scaling back the independent research project and adding to our syllabus Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and the Civil Rights Struggle of the 1950s and 1960s A Brief History with Documents edited by David Howard-Pitney. I chose this text in large part because 3 of 15 students in the class chose to study Malcolm X for their independent projects, and 2 chose King. As much as I want to engage students in a greater understanding of the lesser-known men and women who built the civil rights movement, they remain fascinated by these two enormous figures. I welcome the opportunity to use Howard-Pitney’s work to ground their interest in primary sources.     As I plan for the end of January I would love to hear from other faculty about the kinds of reflection they undertake when a semester ends. Are you making incremental changes or tossing out the syllabus to start fresh? Please share. Happy New Year!     ... View more

Recently I attended a conference session where a moderator asked audience members to share suggestions for documentary films that have worked particularly well in humanities classes. The lively conversation that followed got me thinking about what I use and why. A cursory look through my syllabi reveals that I really like showing films. Truth be told, I have a difficult time limiting the amount of class time I allot to film viewing because there are so many fabulous documentaries available. A great story, told effectively through documentary film, can move even a quiet student to participate in discussion  This week I thought I would offer suggestions of films I use in my United States History to 1877 course in hopes that other history professors will share their favorites as well. Slavery and the Making of America (PBS) This four-part series chronicles the history of slavery in the United States from seventeenth-century Dutch New Amsterdam until the era of Reconstruction. I introduce my students to slavery by showing Episode 1: The Downward Spiral early in the semester in conjunction with a discussion of the Atlantic slave trade during which we use primary sources from the web site The Atlantic Slave Trade and Slave Life in the Americas: A Visual Record. The film is particularly effective in helping the students to see the way in which the institution of slavery evolved over time and how regional concerns (weather, soil, crops, etc) influenced the characteristics of slavery in different parts of the colonies. Students are particularly struck by the story of John Punch and remember it long after we have moved on from discussing the colonial era. We Shall Remain: America Through Native Eyes (PBS) is a five-part series that examines the history of the United States through the perspectives of people native to North America. Although each episode is lengthy (approximately 90 minutes) I have shown segments of the film with great success. In particular I use Episode 2: Tecumseh’s Vision to examine the grave challenges faced by native people in the wake of the American victory in the Revolutionary War. This film forces students to consider the consequences of the war for people on the frontier and to evaluate the condition of native tribes at the start of the nineteenth century. For an historian such as myself with no formal training in Native American history, the series is extremely valuable as a supplement to lectures and discussion. African-American Lives (PBS)  This Henry Louis Gates, Jr., series originally aired in 2006 and was expanded in subsequent iterations. I like the 2006 episodes in particular because they demonstrate the historical process. In the episode Searching for Our Names students are introduced to the concepts of genealogical and archival research. They learn about “slave schedules” and the role that wills, marriage, birth and death records can play in helping us to recover history. Concrete examples of human beings as property are profoundly illustrated as the series’ subjects (Oprah Winfrey and astronaut Mae Jemison, among others) learn of their families’ direct connections to slavery. I have show segments of many other documentary films in United States to 1877 but these are the three films that I feel add the greatest value to my teaching of the first-half of the survey. What are you showing your students? What has worked and why?   ... View more

   The final three weeks of the semester following Thanksgiving Break are harried, to say the least. Even though I try to plan accordingly I am inevitably swamped with grading over Thanksgiving and, subsequently, I flail into the final exam period barely keeping my head above water. I know I’m not the only academic who struggles with this problem. Having taught college students for fifteen years now I have accepted that I will be overwhelmed as the semester is coming to a close so I embrace the chaos: I listen to music, get to an extra power yoga class, or go for a long walk to re-set. I cannot, however, quickly or easily deal with my students’ stress. Here is the scenario I have imagined over and over in my mind: students spend the holidays with well-meaning family members asking how their classes are going. For some of the students there is a horrible realization during those conversations that their history class is not, in fact, going well at all. My office hours the week after Thanksgiving are subsequently spent fielding breathless questions: What can I do to pass? Can I complete an extra credit assignment? What grade do I need on the final exam to earn a C? Generally by the time these stressed-out students come to meet with me they know how grim the situation is. With digital grade books available for every class the students’ current course grade is not a surprise to them as they prepare for final exams. The challenge for me, then, is figuring out what to say to help them learn from the predicament so that the next semester is more successful. These conversations are sometimes difficult. I’m not a proponent of “extra credit” assignments unless they are used as a device to get students to do something they would not otherwise do -- attend a public lecture by a visiting scholar outside of class time, for example -- so the hopeful request of a failing student to do additional work leads only to more disappointment when I tell him/her extra credit is not an option. The sad reality is that by the end of November the majority of the grades that my students will receive for the course have been earned and there is not a lot of room for dramatic improvement. As I write this blog, for example, my US History I students have only two quizzes and the final exam left in the semester. Nonetheless, it is not until after Thanksgiving that students who are struggling generally come to discuss their grades with me. It’s also at this time of the semester when I inevitably am faced with at least one case of plagiarism. I cannot recall a single semester in the last ten years of teaching when this problem has not surfaced. A sense of disgust and disappointment that a student handed in work that was not his/her own is mixed with my frustration that in spite of how many times I implored students to come to me for help with their writing or studying, one or two instead chose the route of academic dishonesty. Did I not make myself accessible enough? Did they procrastinate and then panic? So these are the unpleasant realities that I’m dealing with as the semester comes to an end. As in years past, I find myself wondering how to get students in academic distress to engage with me earlier than the week after Thanksgiving. This week I would love to hear from fellow faculty who have forged successful efforts to get students to send out an academic SOS prior to Thanksgiving. Mandatory meetings at office hours? Anonymous student surveys? What have you done to make the last few weeks of the semester less stressful? ... View more

Last week I attended the national conference of the Community College Humanities Association (CCHA). Hosted by the Community College of Baltimore County and sponsored in part by Macmillan, the event included more than one hundred panels with faculty representing community colleges nationwide. If you teach at a community college and are not familiar with CCHA, I encourage you check it out. Nearly any discipline taught at a community college that can connect itself in a meaningful way to the humanities is welcome. As a result, the national conference offers an opportunity for an historian like myself to explore a multitude of interdisciplinary perspectives. I was inspired by much of what I heard and saw so this week I want to share just a tiny sample.    Dr. Sheri Parks (University of Maryland) opened the conference by chronicling efforts by humanities scholars in Baltimore to document public reaction to the uprising in that city following the April 2015 death of Freddie Gray. Emphasizing the importance of listening to the voices of the people, Dr. Parks shared the process that the program Baltimore Stories (funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities) has undertaken to document the experiences of Baltimore’s citizens. Keynote speaker and Baltimore resident D. Watkins followed with anecdotes from his own neighborhood to project the message that individual actions can lead to significant social change. To the audience of community college faculty this message truly resonated. Amidst the day-to-day struggles of teaching an often under-prepared student population, faculty welcomed the reminder that education has an enormous impact on individuals, neighborhoods, and communities. Watkins’s own successful career as a writer and activist are shining examples of what can happen when an otherwise disinterested student is turned on to reading and critical inquiry.    Professors Carolyn Perry (Collin County Community College/TX) and Guillermo Gibens (Community College of Baltimore County) shared the often-overlooked roles of LGBTQ and Latin American characters respectively in American films from the first half of the twentieth century. Their panel, “Forgotten Hollywood,” showcased the fascinating ways that Hollywood films can act as primary sources by providing windows into how previous generations of Americans have depicted everything from relationships to minority groups to foreign cultures. As someone who has never taken a film class, I was inspired to find ways to incorporate this genre into my US history classes.     Finally, Mark Lamoureaux, a poet and English professor at Housatonic Community College (CT), presented “Watching the Detectives: Using Genre Fiction to Teach Composition.” My favorite part of Professor Lamoureaux’s presentation was his discussion of how he employs the card game Whist to enliven students’ understanding of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Murders in Rue Morgue” by asking them to consider questions such as “what kind of thinking does the game encourage?” and “what kind of observations are helpful in playing the game?” By playing the game in class, students are asked to reflect on why Poe might have chosen to have characters play the game in the story. I love the way in which this lesson asked students to think critically about an author’s motives while also introducing them to an unfamiliar piece of cultural history.       It’s been my habit in the past to attend conferences organized by/for historians (like myself) and to therefore continue thinking like an historian about the field of history. The work of each of these humanities scholars, however, reminds me how important it is for us as teachers to continue to learn -- to expose ourselves to other fields of inquiry and pedagogical practices for the sake of enhancing the experience and knowledge of our students.     Is there something that you’ve read, seen, or heard recently -- an article, podcast, film or lecture -- that inspired you to learn something new? Please share!     ... View more

I spend the first three or four minutes of every class meeting discussing things I know very little about with my students. When I read the Sunday newspaper I purposely look for articles that might provide some tidbit of information to make me appear knowledgeable about the things that my students care about. To me this is a small but important part of class preparation. At the start of the semester the majority of students don’t know what to think when I engage them in this pre-class banter. And yet, I persist for this reason: if they will not talk to me about LeBron James, the World Series, or “The Walking Dead,” how can I expect to interest them in discussion of topics that really matter in my classroom?    I never gave much thought to the five minutes before class starts until I started teaching at a community college. At the four-year residential colleges where I taught previously, the students came to class in small groups from the dining halls or the dorms. At a non-residential college, however, teaching faculty are the direct link between the students and the college. Sure students visit the bursar’s and registrar’s offices at various times in the semester. They use the library and computing center services, and work with academic tutors. But the people they see regularly are us: their professors.      The concept of making small-talk with students so that they will be more engaged during class time may sound simplistic and, to some, even silly. It goes without saying that I did not invent this “strategy,” if I may call it one. I am simply stating the obvious: if our students believe we are interested in who they are, they are more likely to be interested in what we are teaching. Further, my hope always is that the students will come to me for academic assistance because they believe I care about them as people and because they have connected to me and their classmates in a meaningful way.    And so it is that the five minutes before my classes begin consists of me setting up classroom technology while also purposely engaging whoever is in the room at the moment in conversation. I’m not going to lie: the first couple weeks of chit-chat with a new group of students can at times feel like a trip to the dentist’s office. More than a few times I’ve seen students look around as if I cannot possibly be talking to them or reach for something in their backpack to avoid eye contact with me during these painful few minutes. In time, however, students warm to the pre-class, non-academic discussion and even initiate it.      After a few weeks of a new semester I have a pretty good feel for my students’ interests: hockey or football fans, television-junkies, or weekend movie-goers. We’ve talked about topics that range from favorite pizza toppings (argued heatedly, for example, whether lettuce belongs in the “toppings” category) to professional sports preferences to national and international news stories. Somehow, we’ve transitioned every random subject into that day’s academic focus – not seamlessly, but successfully. It’s my job, of course, to make sure that we do transition and often this requires ending a lively discussion about pop culture for the sake of starting class.    Often I will overhear students resuming the pre-class discussion when our time expires. It’s in these five minutes before class that students realize what they have in common with each other and start to make the social connections that are sometimes difficult for non-residential students to forge but that are significant for students to be successful in college. Maybe they don’t have a dorm assignment in common, but they might quickly realize that they work retail in the same shopping mall, or that there are other waiters taking the class, or that they share the same television or sports interests. These strangers become the classmates that students turn to when they miss class notes or if they need to do group study for exams.    What strategies could you share that have enabled you to forge more meaningful connections with your students? ... View more

In my survey class this semester, I am experimenting with a variation on the traditional term paper.  Instead of posing a research question, I created an Image/Object Gallery that includes several dozen images from the period covered in the class.  The images and objects are varied; they include historical maps, portraits, engravings, photographs, objects including a teapot, a pipe tomahawk, and a lukasa (or Congolese memory board), and the like.  This took a little while, but it was fun and took on a momentum of its own. Once the images and objects were assembled into a single PDF, with a link for each that would lead students to its source and provide some bare-bones information about it, I asked them to choose one--or alternatively, propose an image or object of their own choosing--and research it.  Here is the instruction I provided:  "In general, you should begin with the following questions: What type of image or object is it?  Who produced it?  Who was the intended audience?  In what context was it created, and for what purpose?  How have scholars interpreted it?  Considering the materials we have covered in class, what larger meanings or interpretations can you ascribe to this image or object?" Students will write a traditional essay about their image/object, but they will also prepare a visual presentation for the class on the subject.  These are short--no more than five minutes--and I have asked them to use Adobe Spark, which is currently free to users, though it would also work to use presentation software like PowerPoint or Prezi.  My purpose in this aspect of the assignment is, first, to give students a chance to share what they've learned (which most students love to do), and second, to encourage them to find other images or objects that accompany the one they've researched, and do a presentation that is as much visual as textual. I'm excited to see the results.  Any other alternatives to a traditional term paper out there? ... View more

Blatantly ignoring the students’ eye-rolls and sighs, I assign one or two full-length novels or memoirs per semester in my introductory-level history courses. This week I would like to offer suggestions for books that have worked particularly well in my classes even when students’ initial reactions have been lukewarm at best. Here are my top three: Our Nig: Sketches from the Life of a Free Black by Harriet Wilson This novel never disappoints as a centerpiece for class discussion in United States History I and could also be used in a Black History or Women’s History course. Wilson’s semi-autobiographical work, first published in 1859, describes her life in the service of a brutal white mistress in mid-nineteenth-century New Hampshire. On its own the book provides students an opportunity to contemplate the state of being free, black, and female in the antebellum North. The novel also works well paired with Harriet Jacobs’s seminal memoir Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl to engage students with comparative perspectives of black women’s lives before the Civil War. Finally, as the bookstore staff at my college can attest, the title on its own provokes immediate discussion. Ragged Dick; or Street Life in New York by Horatio Alger     The story of an orphaned shoe-shine boy, Ragged Dick is a light read with no shortage of opportunities for critical thinking and discussion in a United States History II class. In recent semesters my students have used the story to examine the mythology of the American dream in post-Civil War America. Did this “dream” ever truly exist? Was it the same for everyone? How can we interpret the “dream” in today’s twenty-first-century society? Recent immigrants to the United States have found the story particularly interesting. Last spring, for example, two young men in my class compared the protagonist’s experiences surviving on the streets of New York in the nineteenth century with conditions they had faced in their native countries and as recent immigrants to the United States. I assign Ragged Dick at the start of the semester as our first small group discussion. The Autobiography of an Ex-Coloured Man by James Weldon Johnson     The moral ambiguity of a black man “passing” for white in early twentieth-century America captivates students. I’ve used this book in US History II and Black History with similarly enthusiastic responses from students. The son of a black mother and white father, the story’s narrator chronicles his lifelong struggle to carve an independent path with his musical talent amidst a backdrop of segregation and violence. Students are never collectively satisfied with the story’s conclusion, which to me only adds to the value of Johnson’s work.       As a student I loved the way that literature offered avenues through which I could explore historical narrative beyond the course textbook. Now, as a teacher, I seek opportunities to draw connections between history and literature with my students. What book-length reading assignments -- fiction or nonfiction -- have worked well in your classes? Do you have a favorite book that you use every semester? Or, Is there something that you assigned with mixed results in the past that you would like to try again? ... View more

“It’s easier to impeach than invoke the 25th Amendment,” Rosen added, “which is why no president has ever been removed under the disability provision of the 25th Amendment.”   Are your students asking about the 25th amendment?  Will they have to Google it along with most of America? The answers are complicated. Here is an interesting talk piece for the classroom: What is the 25th Amendment and why does it matter for Trump? | McClatchy Washington Bureau  ... View more

Late last school year a group of students on our campus asked if we history professors could find ways to incorporate LGBTQ history into our courses. The request made a lot of sense and yet I was initially at a loss about how to respond: see, I am the only full-time Americanist on my campus and I have no academic training in LGBTQ history. I could recall having read only one book in graduate school that even remotely related to the topic (for the curious: the book was George Chauncey’s Gay New York). Short term I decided the best way to begin addressing the students’ concerns would be to bring in some experts so I consulted the Membership Directory for my professional organization, the Organization of American Historians. In a matter of minutes I had a short list of credentialed historians teaching and researching in the field. After narrowing the list down to those within driving distance of my college (funding is, of course, limited), I started writing emails to introduce myself as a fellow historian in search of speakers to help my students better understand a field in which I personally have no training. Working with the college’s Gender Equity Center, in September we hosted Dr. Jen Manion of Amherst College. Jen is not only a brilliant historian but hands down the most genuinely approachable guest speaker to ever visit our campus. After spending time with faculty, staff and students discussing her work at an informal lunch-time gathering, Jen delivered a public lecture attended by more than one-hundred members of our college community. Jen’s talk focused on research related to a work-in-progress titled Born in the Wrong Time: Transgender Archives & the History of Possibility, 1770-1870. The response was overwhelmingly positive. Some of the student attendees were members of LGBTQ organizations on campus but many more were students brought to the talk by their English, history, and sociology professors, as well as many who felt personally compelled to attend the lecture out of curiosity for the subject matter. While many of our students asked intelligent questions what was more informative to me through this experience were the conversations I had with students in my classes in the days that followed Jen’s presentation. I discovered, for example, that many of my students were genuinely surprised to learn that there are academics studying LGBTQ history. One student quite innocently commented that he assumed that being gay or lesbian had “only just developed” in the twentieth century. When pressed he said he did not have any specific reason for this perspective, only the observation that he had never been asked to think about LGBTQ issues as “history.” When I think about the implications of Jen’s presentation for this student’s worldview it is staggering to imagine how much his perspective might be changed. In the simplest terms, this student is now able to contradict anyone who callously claims that being gay is “a choice” with his knowledge that gay, lesbian and transgender people have been around as long as humans have walked the earth. The potential for empathy and understanding grow exponentially with his recognition. Second, I was forced to reflect on how insulated and isolated we become at our home institutions. I have been a member of the OAH for more than twenty years and this experience was the first time I had ever used the organization to bring fresh ideas into my classroom in human form. While I have shared articles and essays from OAH publications, I had never thought to supplement my limited knowledge with that of the amazing scholars who work in fields outside of my own. Having an expert introduce appropriate language and complex ideas to my students, I believe, was far more meaningful than would have been their experience had I fumbled through material with which I’m completely unfamiliar. And finally, I was (again) reminded of how much work we historians need to do. Those of us who teach the survey to first and second year college students, especially, must work to make our narrative as inclusive as possible. It dawned on me during Jen’s talk, for example, that there were students in that room who had never been able to connect themselves or their personal stories to any lesson taught in their history classes. This realization is particularly troubling as it is those personal connections to our past that often excite students and engage them to want to learn more. We historians must do a better job of enlarging the framework of the survey to be more inclusive so that all of our students can see themselves as part of a truly American history. ... View more

Trying to break the ice on the first day of classes I ask enthusiastically, “Read any good books over the summer?” Silence. After some prodding they admit the truth: the majority of students in my introductory-level US history class did not read a single book during summer break. I’m not sure why but I initially found this revelation startling. Getting undergraduates to complete weekly reading during the semester is an often frustrating undertaking. Perhaps in my academic fantasy world those same students who ignore the assigned course readings are secretly pouring through tattered copies of Lord of the Flies and The Great Gatsby during their summer vacations. Who am I kidding? I would have been happy if they told me they had read comic books or Danielle Steele’s entire catalog during summer break. Reading is one of those areas in which faculty are the worst possible judges of students’ habits. We chose to be teachers and researchers in part because we love to read. It’s difficult for us to imagine a life without books constantly stimulating new ideas. Many, if not most, of our students do not share that passion.     Researchers have long argued that reading for pleasure has a significant impact on school performance in grades K-12. (See, for example, “Independent Reading and School Achievement”) It stands to reason that the same theory would apply to college students. By the time students arrive at college, however, incentivizing reading is no longer a viable option. Instead we need the students to see for themselves how exercising their brains through reading can translate into academic success (ie, better grades). How, then, do we persuade them that so-called “pleasure” reading will help them be more successful in their college courses?          Think of it this way, I suggested to my students: a friend tells you that although he is committed to playing for the college soccer team in the fall he has decided not to workout during the summer. Would you think this was a good idea? Would you expect him to have a successful soccer season? While some students laughed at my analogy, a few light bulbs turned on as well. So how do we convince our college students that they need to prepare for success in the classroom by exercising their brains during summer break? While writing this blog I googled the phrase “preparing for college success.” Search results were overwhelmingly related to choosing rigorous high school courses and prepping for dorm life. US News & World Report’s “15 Good Things to Do the Summer Before College” tucked in “Improve Your Mind” at #5 (between “Get Some Furnishings” and “Brush Up on a Language”). The answer to my question, I’ve concluded, is that I probably cannot do much of anything to get students to better prepare ahead of time for their four short months with me. It may be that all we can do as history faculty is challenge our students during the semester with assignments that sharpen their reading and critical thinking skills while encouraging them to leave our classrooms with an enhanced desire to explore on their own. Have you had any success preparing students before they started a course with you? Summer reading? Summer research? Please share! ... View more

Recently while an audience member at a professional conference I found myself morphing into one of my students. I was supposed to be paying attention but in a moment of boredom or disinterest I had noticed a colleague on the other side of the auditorium with her phone on the desk in front of her. I couldn’t resist the urge to send her a text. I’d like to say that I was ashamed to have resorted to the behavior of an indifferent student. More than that, however, I was struck by how easily distracted I am. Why couldn’t I pay attention when I knew the information being conveyed was important? Is there something in this experience that can inform my own teaching and help me prevent students from tuning me out in the same way I tuned out the conference speaker? When I think about that presentation now I cannot recall any of the key components even though it was in my field and relevant to the work that I do as community college faculty. The sad truth is that the speaker did a poor job of communicating his message and my smart-phone was an easy distraction. The relevance for me as a history professor who often talks incessantly at the front of the classroom is profound: with every lecture I write or presentation I prepare, I need to continuously ask myself what do I want the students to know and, perhaps even more importantly, are my methods delivering that information to my audience? As I’ve prepared for the start of the semester over the last few weeks I’ve come face to face with a reality: I need to do a better job conveying information to students in a way that is succinct, clear and meaningful. I’m not saying that my presentations need to be more flashy or incorporate more technology or “entertain” the students, but they could undoubtedly be better organized. I need to ensure that the students can see relevance in what I am lecturing about and how it connects to the larger themes of the course. Like most faculty, I imagine, I rarely evaluate my lectures and presentations immediately after they are delivered. I certainly notice bored and distracted students in the moment, but as I'm grumbling in the aftermath I seldom consider what I could be doing to better connect those students to the lecture itself. The challenge, of course, is how to accomplish this task. What can we as teachers do (short of quizzing and testing) to gauge our students’ understanding of what we are presenting? My experience as a delinquent conference attendee has led me to think more critically about my own presentation style and what I may be doing to foster lethargy and boredom among my audience. So what’s going on in your classroom? Are you using a classroom response system (“clicker”)? Are you showing short film clips or using music to invigorate your lectures? Have you developed some instrument of self-reflection or evaluation? What is working and not working with your lectures?    ... View more

Originally posted on August 17th, 2017 on Flipboard.com. With the debate on how to approach Confederate history growing, W. Fitzhugh Brundage discusses what he believes to be the best course of action. You might also like A Monumental Debate by Sue McCormack. ... View more

As much as I would like to think that my students are reading a reputable news source each day and paying attention to world events while on summer break, it is more realistic to assume that many have paid only cursory attention to the political comings and goings in Washington. I expect, nonetheless, that students will return to campus the first week of September with lots of questions about the violence that occurred in Charlottesville, Virginia, the weekend of August 12th. In addition to my usual pre-semester preparation this year, therefore, I’m giving a lot of thought to how I can help the students to contextualize the historical topics that have become the focus of public debate in recent weeks. I teach at a community college in Rhode Island, the smallest state in the Union and home to zero monuments honoring the Confederacy. Travel about an hour northward, however, and find the sole Confederate monument in New England: erected in 1963 by the United Daughters of the Confederacy it memorializes thirteen Confederate soldiers who died as Union prisoners at Fort Warren, Georges Island, Massachusetts. Today the monument is boarded up as the state decides its fate. [See Why Boston has a Confederate Monument -- And Why You Can’t See it Right Now] For the great majority of my students, then, the Confederate monument debate does not resonate the way it does for students who have lived their entire lives in communities where the men who fought to preserve slavery are memorialized. How then do I help my students understand the significance of the debate that is taking place across the United States?     There are a number of ways that we as historians and teachers can tackle this topic in class discussion. First, if students have not previously studied the Civil War, it makes sense to ensure that they know the basics: who were the Confederates? What were they fighting for? What were the consequences of their actions and ideology for the nation? A good source to share with students is History By Era on the web site of The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. Especially for students who will not be covering the Civil War within the content of their course, this site provides a starting point for understanding the politics of the war and includes a discussion of slavery and emancipation. Second, suggest that students read up on the origins of the statues themselves. How Statues of Robert E. Lee and Other Confederates Got into the U.S. Capitol (Gillian Brockell, The Washington Post) and How the U.S. Got So Many Confederate Monuments (Becky Little, history.com) are brief and provide students context from which they may begin to ask further questions. Encourage students to find articles that advocate for the preservation of these monuments such as Why We Should Keep the Confederate Monuments Right Where they Are (John Daniel Davidson, thefederalist.com). Finally, ask your college librarians to fuel the discussion with a topical exhibit. It’s likely that your college library has something in its collection that examines the history of monuments. Ask the library faculty to display what they have prominently to encourage students to (subconsciously?) make connections between what is being discussed on television news and the work of professional historians. Three sources to look for are: Monuments: America’s History in Art & Memory  (Judith Dupre; Random House), Memorial Mania (Erika Doss; University of Chicago Press), and Slavery & Public History: The Tough Stuff of American Memory (James O. Horton and Lois E. Horton, editors; University of North Carolina Press). An unlimited supply of discussion questions can emerge from the debate on Confederate monuments, no matter where your college sits geographically. Ask your students to consider who is memorialized in the community where they live and to reflect on what such memorials teach outsiders about the values that their community holds dear. You might also like to read the original post by W. Fitzhugh Brundage on Flipboard.com. ... View more

I recently brought home Black Mass: Whitey Bulger, the FBI, and a Devil’s Deal from my public library (click here for a New York Times’ review). The book, written by two Boston Globe reporters, examines a period that intersects closely with my time on earth so far. I grew up south of Boston, Massachusetts, so James “Whitey” Bulger’s criminal history has been a local news topic for all of my adult life. Whitey, for those not familiar with the story, spent nearly two decades as (simultaneously) a criminal and FBI informant, and then many years on the run before being tried and convicted in 2013. Reading the book made me realize how little I actually know about Boston in the 1970s and 1980s. When my students ask why my sections of the second half of the United States survey end in the early 1970s instead of going to “the present,” I respond with a smile: “If I lived it, it’s not history!” As I think more about this question, however, I am forced to face reality: I am uncomfortable teaching about events that I can remember. This is particularly true when it comes to political events in the 1980s because I can vividly recall watching the evening news with my parents. When I read about events from this era it’s always with a faint recognition of what I had seen or heard as a teen.             With each passing year in the classroom, however, will come the inevitable need to expand time frame of the US survey for the sake of my students, many of whom were not yet born when I graduated from college. They don’t remember the politically-charged Olympic Games of the Cold War era, Bill Clinton’s denials of infidelity, or even September 11th. So how do we as historians decide what is “history” -- i.e., included in the survey and other courses -- and what is current events? Does my “If I lived it ....” litmus test have any credibility? Probably not. And yet I remain perplexed by the enormity of what stays and what goes content-wise if I teach beyond the year of my birth. In an earlier blog I admitted that I’m already overwhelmed by my perceived need to cover a ton of content in US I (see TMI: Overloading the US Survey). I’ve resolved this academic year to revise my US II syllabus and bring my students to 1980 and the election of Ronald Reagan. Now what? What stays and what goes? Or, what if I let the students determine the content of our last two weeks of the semester? What if I tweak my syllabus to the point that I reach my usually stopping point (the war in Vietnam) with time to spare, which I would then dedicate to specific topics about which the students are curious? Have you or one of your colleagues in another field tried this approach? I would love to hear from anyone who has experimented with course content in this way. In particular, how did you determine the topics to be covered? How did students respond to the experience? And would you do it again? ... View more