Last October in a blog titled [My] Research Seminar I introduced the Macmillan Community to the research project I am working on during my semester-long sabbatical -- a study of care of the mentally ill in Massachusetts and Rhode Island during the first half of the twentieth century. Last fall as I wrote that blog I was trying to imagine what a semester of research would feel like after eleven years of teaching full-time at a community college. Preparation for spring semester usually starts something like this for me: I take some time to look the the materials I will be using in my spring courses. I go through my notes, studying the syllabi from previous semesters, to make sure that I remember to implement necessary changes. Often I will do some additional secondary source reading to add new content. I find myself now in uncharted January waters: Where do I start? It’s time for me to listen to the advice I’ve long given my students about conducting research: plan carefully and ask for help. My research has been on the periphery of my teaching for three years now, which means I’ve accumulated a significant amount of stuff: books, articles, emails, and notes-to-self about various ideas and leads. As much as I want to immediately get started in the archives, I have instead spent the last few days organizing everything that I gathered in the planning stages of this project. Through this seemingly mundane task I have been able to start a list of questions about potential sources and research materials. As I’ve become more “organized,” however, I have grown increasingly overwhelmed by the sheer volume of material that exists on my topic. My typical advice to students about narrowing their topic to something manageable echos in the back of my mind. At this point, however, it is too early for narrowing: I need to visit the archives before I can take that important step. For the time being, therefore, I need to tread water in this sea of names, dates, places, theories, diagnoses, and treatments. In hopes of making sense of all that is ahead of me I’m turning to the experts for guidance. Over the past two weeks I’ve sent dozens of emails to librarians and archivists seeking advice about collections. I’ve also spent a good deal of time comparing early-twentieth-century diagnosis terminology with modern-day terms. I’m hopeful that all of this prep-work will help me to be more efficient in the archives. What advice do you give to students as they are beginning a research project? Are there things that you personally do to keep from being overwhelmed by a large amount of material? Any new apps for keeping archival research organized? Please share! ... View more

The topic for this week’s blog came to me in a dream: I was handing out a 10-page exam to students in US History II when I realized I did not have enough copies for the entire class. I ran back to my office to print more but could not find the file on my thumb drive. Gone. Lost forever. I was left with a terrifying question: how would I assess those students for whom I had no copy of the exam? A sweat-inducing panic swept over me and I woke feeling utterly overwhelmed. Last year at this time I blogged about the challenges of dealing with student stress prior to finals. This year, as I’m preparing for a semester-long research sabbatical, I’m feeling more end-of-the-term stress than usual. In addition to grading students’ work and computing final grades, I’m planning my spring research trips. In spite of all of my list-making and organizational efforts, I am stressed out! This week’s blog, then, is more a collection of my rambling thoughts than a succinct discussion of a teaching topic. In the past I’ve thought about changing my syllabi and having fewer assignments due at the end of the term. I’ve agonized over final exams: do they have any real value as assessment tools or are they simply something I do because everyone else is doing them? I’ve read articles and blogs arguing their merits: see, for example, “A Final Round of Advice for Final Exams” (The Chronicle of Higher Education) and “Final Exams Fail at Giving Students Anything of Value” (The Daily Campus). In my upper-level courses I long ago replaced the final exam with projects. Students complete weekly content-based online assessments and then spend the end of the semester researching and writing. So in spite of having already made some of the many expert-recommended changes to alleviate end-of-semester-chaos, after fifteen-plus years of college teaching, I am still feeling the stress…deeply. A student came to my office this week for what I assumed was help preparing for her history final exam. I was surprised to discover that she had come to talk to me about another class. She was at a loss at how to prepare for a science exam and was completely overwhelmed by the volume of material. My disconnect from the subject matter enabled me to help her organize and make a plan. Although she left my office without an enhanced understanding of the key biology concepts, she nonetheless left with a smile: voicing her concerns about the exam had helped and in that moment talking was enough. I guess my point with this week’s blog, then, is not to solve the problem of end-of-the-semester stress but instead to simply vent it. I feel better already. ... View more

I grew up in Plymouth, Massachusetts. As a child there in the 1970s and 1980s I was bombarded with colonial history. So much so that when I chose history as my undergraduate major I stayed far, far away from courses on Colonial America and focused instead on those that covered post-Civil War society and politics. I took only one class in colonial history at college and one required seminar in Early America as a graduate student. Nowadays, as a professor at a community college, I teach aspects of Colonial America every semester in US History, Women’s History and Black History. As an historian I’m often distressed when I reflect on the history I learned as a child. I’m keenly aware that my students, many of whom also went to grade-school in New England, were taught a sanitized version of colonial history in which pilgrims and Indians feasted together through long, cold winters. As a result, I’m constantly looking for new ways to help my students develop a more sophisticated understanding of the history they were introduced to as children. The month of November is a particularly good time to ask students to reconsider the historical lessons learned in elementary school. For those of you, like myself, who are not experts in the field of colonial or Native American history, a great way to expand students’ understandings of the myths and historical misrepresentations wrapped up in our yearly Thanksgiving celebrations is to bring in an expert. Earlier this month our college invited representatives of the Tomaquag Museum to speak to students at two of our four campuses. Tomaquag is the only museum in the state of Rhode Island dedicated specifically to the history of native people. In addition to bringing numerous artifacts to share with students, museum educator Silvermoon LaRose offered an alternative historical narrative that helped students to break down some of the common misconceptions they have about native life in Rhode Island. I was struck during the presentation by how little my students knew about their own communities. In my US History I course, for example, students study Tecumseh and his movement to unify native people in the early nineteenth century. We study Indian Removal in the southeast and the Trail of Tears. My choice of topics on native people in those periods has stemmed, in part, on a need to cover a geographically diverse history of the United States. As I listened to educators from the Tomaquag, however, I realized that in my efforts to look at life in Ohio, Indiana, Georgia and other places not New England, I had inadvertently missed the opportunity for students to learn more about the ethnic diversity of their own communities. My initial thought was to make changes to the content of my course for next time around. When I considered what the students told me that they gained from the visit from the Tomaquag Museum educators, what I realized is that students relish the opportunity to hear native voices. Talking with students after the visit, for example, yielded discussion of their interest in the musical instrument one of the visitors played and the artifacts that the indigenous historians had shared with the students. My students were enthusiastic about having heard authentic native voices telling the stories of their history. Instead of changing next fall’s plans for readings and lectures, therefore, I’m in search of other potential classroom visitors who can provide my students with diverse voices and historical narratives. Suggestions welcome. ... View more

As our country considers the fallout of this week’s midterm elections, I find myself engaged in an internal dialogue about what goes on in my classroom day-to-day. Prior to November 6th my students appeared to be of two minds: either they were committed to voting OR they were completely disinterested. Admittedly, the latter perspective has driven me a bit crazy over the last couple weeks. While one of my on-campus classes was anxious to discuss the “caravan” of refugees moving north through Mexico, the other two could not have been less interested. I did my best to remain non-partisan and encourage them to vote. “Which day?” one of them asked innocently. On the other hand, over the last couple weeks if I were to bring up the World Series, the score of the most recent New England Patriots game, or a local performance by a big-name entertainer my students were full of energy and deep analysis. Even the students who are generally quiet in class could cite statistics on Red Sox pitchers or Tom Brady’s passing numbers. I cannot help but wonder why it is that when these same students are asked to answer essay questions on an exam their answers lacks detail and specificity. I know they are capable of remembering all kinds of minutia and yet when it comes time for them to apply that skill to the material they learn in my class, most fall short. Engagement is undoubtedly a key to success whether we are talking about student learning in the classroom or convincing an electorate to vote. This observation is nothing new or groundbreaking. When they are engaged with something they enjoy -- popular culture, sports, etc -- my students demonstrate an enormous capacity for both memorization and analysis of factual material. They read websites and newspapers, and listen to music or to sports radio. The information they hear becomes embedded in their minds without any effort. When citizens believe that voting will matter (ie, have an impact on their personal lives), they vote. How do I replicate this phenomenon in class? How do I convince my students that engagement with the material in our class will have a significant and lasting impact on their success as students? I feel particularly compelled to wrestle with this question as we are now past midterm exams and entering what I see as the toughest part of the semester: that period between midterms and Thanksgiving Break when, in my experience, many students stop attending classes regularly and start to miss important deadlines for assignments. Engagement at this stage of the semester may be more critical than at any other point because students have invested a great deal of time in the course and are close completion. So that’s this week’s big question: what are you doing in class right now to help your students stay engaged? ... View more

Next semester I will be on sabbatical. Instead of teaching five classes, I will dive headfirst into a research project that has been taking shape for three years now. A new research project is a great big unknown, which is a little bit terrifying. This week’s blog will be the first in an occasional series that focuses on historical research and writing. The last major research project I undertook was my doctoral dissertation. While dissertations in themselves are fraught with anxiety and roadblocks, completing my degree was enough to motivate me to push through the challenges. This time around the experience will be completely different: no academic advisor, no semester-based deadlines, and the flexibility to follow the questions and evidence wherever they may lead. I’m hoping that if I use this blog as my one-woman Research Seminar I will keep my project on a forward-moving track the way Dissertation Seminar helped me through my dissertation all those years ago. So this week I’ll start at the beginning: My project -- broadly conceived -- is a study of care of the mentally ill in Massachusetts and Rhode Island in the early twentieth century. In the aftermath of my own medical crisis in 2004 I became increasingly curious about the history of women’s healthcare. I began to search for narratives to satisfy my curiosities and was introduced to the works of Gerald Grob and others whose studies examined the way that mental illness was addressed by American society as far back as the colonial period. For nearly two years, while teaching full time, I read everything I could find on care of the mentally ill in the US. In addition to narratives histories that encompassed expansive periods of time and documented the evolving roles of asylums and hospitals, doctors and psychiatrists, I also read regional histories about places like Boston’s famed McLean Hospital and New York’s Willard Psychiatric Center. These studies evaluated the specific challenges addressed by patients, families, community organizations and state legislatures. They shed light on the value of local history in the study of healthcare. Ultimately what I discovered is that I’m most interested in the period from the turn of the century until the start of World War II. And, I want to specifically learn about the communities in which I live and teach. I want to be able to share stories of local people and institutions with my students when my sabbatical concludes. I’m hopeful that the archival work I will begin this January will uncover the lives of women who struggled with mental health problems in this era and lead me to some bigger questions. Laws protecting the privacy of patients in state hospitals will likely have a major on my work and the stories that are available. I’m excited, nonetheless, to engage in the detective work necessary to bring these stories to life. Stay tuned! ... View more

Instead of class discussions, lectures, or assignments, this week I’m thinking a lot about students and time management. We are five weeks into our fall semester and several of my classes are currently working on short (4-6 page) research papers. For many of my students this assignment is the first time they have conducted research at a college library. Some arrived in September well-prepared for the challenge while others are finding the assignment quite overwhelming. In a previous blog I described the short assignment I developed for my US I and II students as an introduction to secondary-source research. Thanks in part to the fabulous librarians at my college, I’ve had great success with this assignment. Students learn to use the articles and journals databases at the library, they critically analyze an historic image and they consider what it means for something to be “in historical context.” After ten years of tweaking, the assignment is a well-oiled machine. The students get started with two class periods in the library classroom and have three weeks to complete the their work. After eighteen years of college teaching, however, I still cannot figure out how to convey to my students the absolute necessity of managing their time effectively. I know I’m not the only college professor who struggles against her students’ habit of procrastination. It’s a human quality that nearly all of us possess on some level. When I have a stack of exams to grade and the sun is shining brightly I too engage in an internal struggle over what needs to be done versus what I would like to be doing. Hats off to those super humans who can procrastinate and then do amazing work. The time-management stakes are high for students. On average they are taking three to five courses concurrently, which means they have a lot of work to complete. At the community college where I teach students are acutely aware that maintaining a strong GPA will make the transfer process easier. Unlike myself who can plan course syllabi so that all of my grading does not have to be done at the same time, students have no say as to when assignments are due. On top of academics they are often juggling family and work responsibilities. Time management, then, is of the utmost importance. And yet, I have no idea how to “teach” this life skill. I’m not convinced that it is even my responsibility to do so. Each time I assign a research project I implore my students: “make a plan,” “come to my office hours for help,” “bring a draft to the Writing Center.” And I hear crickets. As much as I have tried to impress upon them that I’m willing and available to help, almost no one asks me a single question until we are within 48 hours of the due date. How do I convince them that waiting till the last possible moment to start a research project is a recipe for disaster? Are there techniques that I could incorporate into my assignments that would force students to be better planners? And, how much time can I afford to spend away from content if I decide that time management must be a learning outcome for US History I or II? Is a lousy grade the most effective remedy for students who need to stop procrastinating? I’m tossing these questions out to the Macmillan Community this week because I’m quite certain that everyone of us who teaches has spent considerable time thinking about how to solve the problem of student procrastination. Thoughts? Suggestions? No crickets, please. ... View more

Google “the American Dream” and you will be met with links to countless articles offering perspectives on what constitutes success in the United States today. When I ask students in my US History II courses to define the “American dream” the first response is almost always “rags to riches.” As they flesh out the the definition, however, the students include the opportunity to be educated, to own a home, or obtain citizenship. Teaching at a community college since 2007 has afforded me the opportunity to witness many families’ “American dreams” in progress. In the classroom, we use Horatio Alger’s story Ragged Dick as our centerpiece for discussing the concept in the context of (post-Civil War) nineteenth-century American life. I like the simplicity of the plot of Ragged Dick, in particular the way that the story offers readers a glimpse of urban life and child labor, albeit through fiction aimed at young readers. I’ve been told by students over the years that following the well-intentioned -- and very lucky -- protagonist through his adventures as a New York City bootblack is “fun” compared with the more complex readings assigned by their college professors. I’m ok with this analysis: we cover some really heavy topics in US History II so I’ll take “fun” where I can find it! We discuss the story during the second week of classes, which forces the students to jump quickly into reading for my course. The story is easily accessible through a free online download, which makes it a great choice for the start of the semester when students may be having challenges figuring out the bookstore or with financial aid. I include a link to Project Gutenberg on our learning management system so that students can get started with the reading without delay. My class meets twice a week for seventy-five minutes and students need to have the reading completed by our fourth class meeting. When they arrive at class they take a ten-question multiple choice quiz on the plot and then we break into discussion groups of 4-6 students. I lecture for 10-15 minutes to provide students with some historical context about Horatio Alger and remind them what was going on nationally when the book was published in 1868. The first couple chapters in their textbook reading have supplied them with background as well. The students then brainstorm the following questions (posted on the board) with their groups: Define the “American dream” in 2018 Define the “American dream” as portrayed by Alger’s story How has the “dream” changed since Alger’s writing of the book? What does this story teach us about childhood in the mid-late nineteenth century? I ask the students to first think about what the “American dream” means today because it is often the topic that gets them the most excited during the discussion. I’ve found that the rest of the discussion builds on that energy and enthusiasm. I also provide the students with a recent analysis of current economic conditions in the United States to offer some comparative perspective to what they have been reading in their textbook about the nineteenth century. This semester, for example, I shared the article “Unbalanced: Seven Notes on Our Gilded Age” (Boston College Magazine), which offers a succinct analysis of earnings and wealth that students can skim quickly as part of their group discussion. After the students have been working with their group members for 10-15 minutes, I add these questions to the list: Who is missing from Alger’s story? How do race and gender impact the formulation of one’s “American dream”? With these last questions I want the students to focus in on the fact Ragged Dick is a story about white males. I ask them in our discussion to imagine New York City in this era through the eyes of a person of color, an immigrant, or a female of Dick’s age. We spend the last 10-15 minutes of class time sharing each groups’ answers to the questions. In particular, I want them to draw some larger conclusions about the “American dream” that will set us on a path for discussion of turn-of-the-century topics such as immigration and expansion. Is there a short story or novel that you are using in a history course that inspires energetic and meaningful class discussion?  Please share! ... View more

Some of the most thought-provoking primary sources I use in United States II are videos available to us all via the world wide web. I feel fortunate to teach in a time when so many great resources are available for us to share in our classrooms. Here are a few that have provided my students with visual records of the past while stimulating quality class discussion. Japanese Relocation 1942 and Manpower 1943     If you’re examining the home front during World War II these two short films are a great way to supplement lecture materials on the internment policy and the need for workforce mobilization during the war. My students have been particularly fascinated by the depiction of the Japanese as helpful and happy during their forced migration, and by how the audience may have reacted to the contents of this short film. Women and African-American men are the focus of Manpower, which explains the government’s need for full employment during wartime, especially the goal of placing people in jobs where their pre-war skills could be best utilized. Each of these sources runs less than 10 minutes. Duck and Cover - Bert the Turtle (1951) and Survival Under Atomic Attack (1951) No class discussion of the Cold War is complete without at least one of these short civil defense films, which help students better understand the way in which American society was trained to respond to the threat of nuclear weapons. Both films seek to reassure the public that preparedness is key. Students in my classes have raised questions about the scientific foundations on which these films were based and compared modern-day propaganda seeking similar objectives. Each of these films also runs less than 10 minutes. Crisis in Levittown (1957)     At nearly 30 minutes in length, Crisis in Levittown requires more class time but is time well spent. In this rare documentary , a sociologist’s analysis of Levittown, Pennsylvania, residents’ responses to the arrival of the neighborhood’s first black family is interspersed with footage of interviews with the residents. This film is a great way to connect discussion of 1950s’ suburban life with the civil rights movement. The fact that it took place in a northern state adds layers to the discussion. I’m constantly seeking new ways to inject energy and enthusiasm into class meetings by supplementing. If you have suggestions for short, primary source videos t on the United States in the 1920s and 1930s, please share! ... View more

     In an editorial for the Washington Post published earlier this week former First Lady Laura Bush compared images of children being separated from their parents by the Department of Homeland Security to scenes from the home front during World War II: “These images are eerily reminiscent of the internment camps for U.S. citizens and noncitizens of Japanese descent during World War II, now considered to have been one of the most shameful episodes in U.S. history.” Her reference reiterates the importance of helping our students to understand historical time and place. As we witness the public outcry over the current administration’s policies towards families seeking to enter the United States, it is a meaningful moment to consider ways in which we can connect students’ thinking about current events to the historical eras we cover in class. Engaging them in discussion of public opinion, past and present, is a great way to stimulate conversation. Here are just a few examples of ways in which the home front of the World War II era offers fruitful connections to current events.   National Interests versus Human Rights Ask students to think about the United States’ role as a world leader and military power during the Second World War: did our leadership require that our nation hold itself to a higher standard of morals? What responsibility did our leaders have to the nation’s citizens and did that responsibility eclipse responsibilities to the men and women of other nations? How did economic debates factor into political decisions? Ask students to apply those same questions to modern-day political issues.   Students can think about these questions through the historical lens of Jewish refugees fleeing the Holocaust and through the contemporary example of how the United States is responding to refugees from Syria and other war-ravaged nations. On the web, ask students to visit The Jewish Virtual Library to learn about the Wagner-Rogers Bill. The excellent, though somewhat dated, PBS series The Great Depression (see Episode 6 “To Be Somebody”) contains a short segment on how public opinion influenced President Roosevelt’s decision to not support an expanded refugee program in 1939, which can easily be shared in class through YouTube. Internment The debate over immigration will likely continue to rage into the fall semester. Ask students to think about how their opinions are being shaped by both the news media and the government. What sources do they find credible? How might they seek out additional sources to challenge their long-held beliefs? Milton Eisenhower, head of the War Relocation Authority (WRA), narrated the short-film “Japanese Relocation” which was presented to the public in 1943 to explain internment. I use this 9 minute piece as a staple of my discussion of World War II. Eisenhower offered viewers a succinct explanation for government policy broadcast over images of relocation in progess. As they watch, ask students to weigh the pros/cons of Eisenhower’s argument. Today’s students --  comfortable with questioning government policies and pronouncements -- are able to poke holes into Eisenhower’s justification of Executive Order 9066 with surprisingly little background information. My students have expressed particular interest in Eisenhower’s argument that the US Government was “protecting” those of Japanese descent. Use this short film in conjunction with the National Archives site “Japanese Relocation and Internment” which provides images and lesson plans. Political Cartoons In virtually every print or web-based news source today we can find visual analysis of current events.  “Daily Cartoon” (New Yorker) and townhall.com are good places to start for opposing (liberal v. conservative) viewpoints. Most daily newspapers contain at least one editorial cartoon. Ask students to bring cartoons of interest to class and allocate the first five minutes to sharing. My students have enthusiastically studied the World War II-era cartoons of Theodore Geisel (aka, Dr. Seuss) using the web collection Dr. Seuss Went to War  (University of California at San Diego). The site is indexed both chronologically and thematically making it accessible for discussion of nearly any topic for the period 1941 to 1943. Ask students to consider Geisel’s depictions of the Japanese versus those of Germans and Italians. How do modern-day cartoonists depict people of color or people who are not American? These are just a few ideas I’ve been thinking about as I watched and read the news over the past week. If you have additional ideas to link current events to any historical era or topic, please share! ... View more

As of June 5 the music video for “This is America” by Childish Gambino (aka, Donald Glover) has been viewed more than 239 million times on YouTube. The New York Times, NPR, Variety, Vanity Fair, The Atlantic and Rolling Stone, among others, have dedicated web and/or air space to discussion of the artist’s vision of race relations in twenty-first-century America. As politically-charged music/popular culture released in 2018, the reach of “This is America” is unparalleled. Had this video been released earlier in the semester I have no doubt that my students would have discussed it in class as it offers a great starting point for a discussion of modern-day politics, including race relations and the debate over gun culture. The wide reach of Glover’s work should make all classroom teachers pause a moment to think about the mediums we use in our classrooms and whether they are truly reaching our students. Over the last twenty years of college teaching I have accumulated hundreds of images to use with classroom lectures and as assignment prompts. I’ve shown documentary films and video clips of varying lengths. I have not, however, successfully integrated music into my courses. I have not yet figured out how to effectively utilize music (including music videos) as a teaching tool. Inspired by the public's fascination with “This is America" (and a conversation with my wonderful officemate, a sociologist), I spent some time recently searching the web for college-level assignments that utilize protest music.  Since my courses are a mix of social and political history we spend a lot of time examining public response to political debate, economics, and international events. Music would seem to be a natural addition to these discussions. The lack-luster results of my web search were not a total surprise to me: the overwhelming majority of politically-themed, music-based assignments shared on the web are for middle and high school students. Either college faculty are not sharing or we do not know where to start. If, like me, you do not know where to start, here are a couple resources that I will utilize as I plan some new lecture and discussion material for the fall semester: Lesson Plan: Teaching with Protest Music  Published on the web as part of “The Learning Network: Teaching & Learning with the New York Times” this site offers teachers some background history on musical responses to political events since the early 20th century. Most helpful to a novice like myself, the authors include a thematically-organized list of songs that work well in student assignments. Protest Music of the Vietnam War is a site developed by Historians for Peace and Democracy in concert with the Peace History Society. The site offers helpful analysis to someone (like myself) new to examining song lyrics and an extensive list of Vietnam War-era music. Finally, if you have an interesting college-level assignment that involves music (protest or otherwise), I invite you to share it here! ... View more

I require students to complete library-based research in all of my history courses. In the past I’ve blogged about a successful project that I assign in US History I and II, which involves historical images and requires students to use a book-length narrative history as well as academic journals to explain historical context (See “Picture This”). Over the years I’ve been very pleased with students’ responses to the project. Based on the students’ submissions I believe that they are learning valuable skills that will be applicable to subsequent college-level research. This week I’d like to share an assignment that I’ve had less-than-fabulous success with and ask for feedback and suggestions from you, the Macmillan Community. This is an assignment that I use in varying forms in both US Women’s History and in Black History, both of which are 2000-level courses at my college, which means students should have taken at least US I or II before enrolling. For the purpose of this week’s discussion, I will focus on how the project has worked/not worked with students in Black History. Click here to read my instructions to the students. I’ll start with the positive. Students have embraced the opportunity to research something of interest in the civil rights movement. Many female students have chosen to study lesser-known female activists. This past semester one of the best submissions was a project on Daisy Bates and her work with the Little Rock Nine. Another student who had briefly visited Selma on a school trip researched the 1965 actions there. Others chose Malcolm X, Stokely Carmichael, and the Black Panther Party for their topics. Since they have so many options for their topic choices, all of the students start the project with a lot of energy and enthusiasm. We spend seventy-five minutes of class time in the college library getting started with the research by working with a reference librarian. The students are re-introduced to the library’s academic databases (they use the same databases earlier in the semester) and have a refresher demonstration in their use. This time is especially helpful for students who are having a difficult time narrowing down their topic. At the end of this class meeting students commit (in writing) to a topic after which I send them on their way. They have a full month to pull together sources and complete the project on their own, knowing that if they require assistance both myself and our reference librarian are available. What happens next? In my experience over the last two years of assigning this project about half of the students meet the general criteria I have set forth for the project with a satisfactory or better result. They understand the difference between primary and secondary sources, make a good effort at proper citations (this assignment is not the first to require citations in this course), and try to make an effective argument about the overall significance of their topic. The other half, however, fall short of the mark in some significant way. The most profound problem I’ve faced has been the students’ choice of sources. Even with the time in the library and in spite of the instruction that general web materials (Wikipedia and history.com, for example) are not acceptable sources, a handful of students in each class will completely ignore my warnings and use only those unacceptable sources. Even students who have otherwise done well in the course to this point will sacrifice their overall grade by ignoring source requirements. Next time around, therefore, I’m trying a new approach: I’m requiring students to turn in a draft of their Works Cited page before they write the essay. My hope is that I will catch (and correct) those students using the wrong kinds of sources before they write the research paper. It’s my way of staging an academic intervention. While I’m hopeful that this new requirement will help, I’m also frustrated that so many students are not grasping the value of academic sources. What are you doing to ensure that all of your students are using appropriate academic sources? Are you experiencing the same kind of struggle I am? Help wanted. Suggestions welcome. ... View more

As we enter Final Exams Week I’m already starting to think about what did/did not work this past semester. My efforts to increase content coverage in the US History since 1877 (US II) survey, for example, had mixed results and I’ll be evaluating the syllabus this summer, again, to find space for additional material. This semester I changed from having three in-class exams in US II to only two. I’ll have a better sense of whether that decision was prudent when I grade exams later this week. Once again this semester my hybrid Black History course ran out of time without a tidy endpoint. We were just starting to cover black power and black nationalism when the semester ended. Current events are often detrimental to content coverage in this course. It never fails that something happens in the outside world that students will connect to a theme or topic from the course. I am always willing to let our discussion stray (at least briefly) from the course topic to some domestic or world event related to Black History. As interesting as those conversations were, now that the semester is over I’m wishing I had managed some of that discussion time differently. In my courses that are fully online I make regular use of discussion board. I like the way that online discussion provides a space for each student to have a voice. It allows me to get to know the students’ perspectives and provides short samples of their writing before they submit their research projects. Since my hybrid class has one weekly meeting, I’ve had the students focus their independent/online work on learning content so that our in-class time could be used for face-to-face discussion.   I’m of two minds when it comes to using discussion board in my hybrid course. On the one hand, because the students do see each other in class I want to take advantage of our time together for face-to-face discussion. In previous semesters I have intentionally not used the online discussion board with my hybrid students because I thought it would take away from the quality of in-class discussions. Students might be reluctant to say something because they have already “said” it in the online portion of the course. Or, conversely, they might simply restate ideas that were already addressed in discussion board. After several semesters of teaching the course this way, however, I’m beginning to wonder if the face-to-face discussions would, in fact, be improved by use of the discussion board. Would it make sense to start discussion of a particular topic online and continue it in class (or vice versa)? In the past I have assigned students films to watch between our meetings with the plan being a group discussion of the film when we are face-to-face. Admittedly, this assignment has not been a success. On a typical day, a handful of students come to class having watched the film while the rest sit quietly and avoid making eye contact during the discussion. Would moving this discussion online as a graded assignment significantly change the dynamic? Currently our class meeting time for this hybrid course is split evenly between lecture and discussion. Would it make sense for me to increase the amount of lecture for the sake of coverage? As more courses at our college move to hybrid delivery we are grappling with questions about what makes sense in the brick-and-mortar classroom versus online. I’d love for readers to weigh in: how do you breakdown your hybrid courses? What assignments are online and what absolutely must happen in-person in the classroom? ... View more

As we sprint towards the end of the semester I find myself trying to cover as much post-World War II history as possible. I’ve written previously about the challenges of coverage and this semester is no different. Back in January I revised my syllabus for US History II with the intent of cutting back on certain topics to create more space for others. I have succeeded in some areas and failed miserably in others. Take, for example, the Great Depression: last spring I spent four classes (5 classroom hours) covering the period 1920-1939. Believing this content could be condensed I planned for three class meetings this semester … and then, much to my dismay, I used four. Now that I’ve (very quickly) covered the Second World War I find myself in another time crunch: how much of the Cold War can I cover without oversimplifying a topic so central to the role of the United States in twentieth-century world history? Since my survey weighs heavily toward social history I need to find a way to provide the students with a succinct introduction to cold war-politics and then shift quickly into a discussion of how the political conditions impacted the home front. In this week’s blog I will share my recent efforts to tackle these challenges. The first assignment in my abbreviated Cold War study required students to read a textbook chapter and complete an online quiz before coming to class. The multiple-choice quiz was open-book and intended to provide an introduction to key people and terminology. Next, at our class meeting (75 minutes), we spent the first thirty minutes watching and discussing a dense section of educational film titled “The Cold War Part I: 1945-1961.” My college subscribes to both Kanopy and Films on Demand, which grant faculty and students access to thousands of films. In this case, the first 16 minutes of the film provided visual evidence of the “Big Three” at Yalta and the end of World War II in the Pacific, plus maps explaining the division of Germany and the development of the Marshall Plan. Students listened to brief segments of speeches by Harry Truman, Winston Churchill, and Joseph Stalin. To facilitate discussion of the film segment I distributed a handout with key terms (See McCormack Handout Cold War) and two images: a European-made poster celebrating the Marshall Plan (“All Colours to the Mast”) and Rube Goldberg’s cartoon “Peace Today” (1948). In post-film discussion I asked the students to come up with definitions of the terms and then to consider Goldberg’s audience and intent. The uncomplicated seesaw metaphor enables a smooth transition from world politics to a consideration of how all of these international tensions impacted day-to-day family life. Finally, for the last thirty-minutes of class we watched “Red Nightmare” (produced by Warner Bros. in conjunction with the Department of Defense). The Jack Webb-narrated picture introduced to students the concept of how American society was conditioned to fear communism. For my purposes, the idyllic image of suburban family life portrayed by the fictional family was a great transition into our next-meeting’s discussion of gender roles in this era. I relied more heavily than usual on video for my introduction to the Cold War in part because my recent coverage of the Great Depression has me feeling as if perhaps I need to say less and cover more. One of the greatest challenges of teaching history is that it is easy to get excited about sharing content and forget that -- at least in my case -- the goal is an introduction to subject matter and not exhaustive coverage. What about you? How do you whittle down the Cold War to a day or two of class time? Please share! ... View more

One of my favorite assignments to do with my US Women’s History students offers them a hands-on experience with primary sources in a research library. I started doing this assignment after attending a professional conference where an historical society director lamented that college history professors very rarely engage their students with local historical organizations. I returned to my institution determined to find a way for my students to learn more about the work of our state’s largest historical organization, the Rhode Island Historical Society. To start I contacted the RIHS director who connected myself and a colleague with the organization’s educational outreach coordinator. Together the three of us  brainstormed ways that CCRI students could explore the RIHS collections. We needed to be realistic: our US Women’s History course is a second-year history course that many students take to fill an elective and not because they want to be historians. Professionally I recognized that I could not allow my students to invade the RIHS research room without a clear plan of action. In spite of all the questions I had about whether this idea could work, I was guided by my belief that the research skills that we gain as students of history can be utilized in nearly any occupation.  With the thoughtful guidance of the RIHS staff we developed a list of topics that would enable students to interact with primary sources in a short period of time. Our goal was that each student would spend approximately two-hours at the RIHS research library (ie, one visit). RIHS sent a representative to meet with our students in the classroom on the day I assigned the project and she was able to introduce them to the policies and procedures of their visit (ie, use of pencils, the need for a picture identification, etc). Here is the assignment we developed: Click here to read the assignment. Every local historical institution is unique. At RIHS there exists a large collection of women’s diaries that suited the needs of this assignment. Wherever you may be teaching, however, there is likely an organization holding a collection of sources that could provide an introduction to library-based primary source research -- maps, letters, newspapers, speeches, etc. The archivist will be able to determine what makes the most sense. While students were initially resistant to the logistics of doing research at an off-campus location, the RIHS is easily reached via public transportation and was, therefore, accessible to all students. Our students were not charged a fee for use of the archives so there were no financial impediments to their conducting research. These are important factors to consider when identifying a partner organization. As much as I enjoyed reading the students’ final papers, even more exciting (and useful) was their engaged discussion of the process. Sending my students off campus to do archival research opened their eyes to the work that historians do in a way that in-class coverage of textbook content cannot. If you’re looking for an adventure in research with your students, give this assignment a try! ... View more

      President Trump’s derogatory references to Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) as “Pocahontas” are a provocative topic for class discussion. Since it is March -- Women’s History Month -- it’s a great time to think about how we can incorporate more women’s history into our survey courses. The Pocahontas/Warren/Trump controversy offers a space for discussion of gender in an historical context, and a starting point for students to consider what they know and don’t know about native women. When I asked my United States History I students to explain the most recent Pocahontas reference they knew it had something to do with Warren’s controversial claim to Native American heritage, which has been widely criticized. Their knowledge of Pocahontas, however, was limited to the Walt Disney-version. The reality is that for many students in a survey-level US history course Pocahontas is the only Native American women about whom they think they know anything. Their knowledge, in turn, is largely based on Englishman John Smith’s version of events. When the president used her name to attack a political foe he offered another example of a white male claiming ownership of Pocahontas’s story. We can begin to demystify the story of Pocahontas -- and other Native American women -- by encouraging students to learn some basic facts. The National Women’s History Museum offers a brief introduction to Pocahontas that sets straight some of the commonly-held myths about her brief life and suggests resources for learning more. Asking students to compare recent documentary films such as Pocahontas: Beyond the Myth (Smithsonian Channel) to the popular culture interpretations can be an informative way to evaluate sources while considering how our public understanding of native women in our nation’s history, including Pocahontas, has been shaped by cultural misinterpretations. Once the students have a better sense of who historians believe she was, ask them to weigh the strengths and weaknesses of a modern-day politician invoking her name in public discourse. Suggest to students that they continue to look for women’s history in the news. While it is difficult to incorporate every topic of interest into our US history survey each semester, the daily newspaper can provide prompts for informal discussion that can be quite fruitful. Discussing the Pocahontas reference in class helped to provoke the natural curiosity of some of these students who told me later that they had spent considerable time after class trying to better understand her historical significance. Inevitably their informal research led them to the stories of other native women with whom they were previously unfamiliar. Most importantly, the students were forced to grapple with how twenty-first-century historians can tell accurate stories of seventeenth-century native women’s lives and how politicians can shape those stories to fit their needs. In this era of “fake news,” encouraging student engagement with women’s history may be more meaningful than ever before. ... View more