This 300-level history course will require careful and sustained effort throughout the entire semester. Students are expected to complete all assigned readings, in class lab exercises, digital projects, and research and writing assignments by the dates indicated on the schedule.
Class Participation (35% of course grade)
It is simple, really. Do the readings. Come to class and be prepared to participate in discussions, labs, and practical work.
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React to Readings and Reaction Paper (15% of course grade)
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In-Class Labs and participation (15% of course grade)
- Metadata Analysis (5%)
- Visualization /Infographics (5%)
- Video Game Pitch (5%)
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Class Participation (up to 5% extra credit)
Digital Projects (65% of course grade)
All successful digital projects created in the course will be available to the public.
1. Mahwah Newspapers Metadata Project (Omeka) (5% of course grade)
Goal: Learn about digitization and descriptive metadata by digitizing and describing newspaper clippings from the Mahwah Museum. Use the Omeka digital archive platform to create a searchable, indexed website of primary sources.
Type: Individual
Platforms: Omeka for creating Dublin Core metadata and web publishing the archive.
Products:
- 5 digitized and fully described newspaper clippings mounted and published in an Omeka digital archive, with transcribed text and links to people, organizations, and topics.
2. Crowdsourcing Project (5% of grade)
Goals: Research and join a history-based crowdsourcing project and report on it.
Type: Individual
Platforms: Various; Google Slides, or Digital video tools
Products:
- Presentation on a crowdsourcing project
3. Mapping Historiography (10% of grade)
Goal: Demonstrate how historical interpretation changes over time by building a StoryMap that explores one key issue. Students will research secondary resources, contextualize them, and present them in digital format.
Type: Short-term Group
Platforms: Basecamp for planning and research, StoryMap for creating and presenting the findings.
Products:
- A series of geo-tagged images that illustrate changes in historical interpretation and summaries of historical arguments.
- Group presentation to the class.
4. 1919 Blog Posts (25% of grade)
Goal: Research three events from 1919 using relevant 1919 newspapers, primary sources, and scholarly secondary sources. Write descriptions and analysis in blog format with a bibliography and visuals.
Type: Individual
Platforms: Basecamp for planning and research; WordPress.com, for the website, Timeline JS and Google Maps.
Products:
- Each student will research and draft 3 events for the Discovering 1919 website.
- Students will comment on each other’s drafts
- Students will revise entries for final submission.
5. Building the Discovering 1919 Site (10% of grade)
Goal: As a class, students will identify, assign, and complete enhancements to the Discovering 1919 Site to make it more user-friendly, cover more topics, or provide better interpretive links.
Type: Individual and some group work.
Platforms: Basecamp and WordPress, possibly others.
Products:
- Class will develop a list of enhancements
- Content-based
- Interpretive
- Illustrations/video
- Visualizations
- About the Site
- Students will create the assigned enhancements