SENIOR SEMINAR/ SENIOR ESSAY   History 410-20 Blocks 3-4 2012-13       Carol Neel

                                                      WHAT DO THESE TWO IMAGES SUGGEST ABOUT EUROPEAN FAMILIES OF EARLY MODERNITY OR 20TH-CENTURYAMERICAN FAMILIES?

COURSE DESCRIPTION

History 410-20 constitutes the exit-level sequence of Colorado College's History Department.  It follows the Junior Seminar, HY 399, and offers students the opportunity to exercise their research skills and knowledge of historical methodologies by crafting a substantial essay bringing together primary resource materials and scholarly perspectives in a fresh interpretation of a topic of individual interest. HY 410 (Senior Seminar) thus assumes that students have extensive prior historical and historiographical experience and are beginning to consider the topics and materials in which they will respectively fashion their final research projects for the major.  HY 420 (Senior Essay), a linked block's study, provides a context for completion of the article-length projects with which majors conclude their undergraduate work in the department.  After critiquing established historians' views and each others' approaches in History 410, majors are able confidently to frame, research and present problems of particular interest to them in History 420.  Some students may opt to expand their senior essays in a further block of thesis work (HY 430), but they must have so petitioned by teh end of the prior academic year..

In this instance, History 410 cast as "Families in the Past" will explore the variety of sources for and recent critical approaches to the history of families throughout historical times.  Although HY 410-20's emphasis will be on the European and American pasts as the widest common ground for class participants, comparison with family history in other world regiosn will be a welcome perspective if students' interest extends to other world cultures.  History 420 will offer senior students the opportunity, using a parallel array of methodological models, to investigate their respective senior essay topics.

REQUIREMENTS AND ASSESSMENT

During HY 410 (Block 3), students will meet regularly to discuss common readings and films, and will complete four writing assignments:

• a book or film review of a common reading or screening (10% of final grade)
• a comparative book review of another common reading, seen in the context of related non-assigned works (15%)
• a literature review on the senior essay topic (20%)
• a research prospectus for the essay topic to be developed in HY 420 (25%)

Because HY 410 is a seminar in which students' growth depends heavily on their interaction, assessment will be based on both discussion participation and written assignments, 30% of final assessment will be based on contribution to discussion and one collaborative task:

• a resource guide for students at Colorado College entitled "Investigating Families of the Past"

In HY 420, the final grade will be assigned by the student's senior essay adviser with the consultation of the Block 4 instructor.  An IP (grade of In Progress) will be recorded at the end of the first semester in expectation that, by final essay submission at the end fo Block 7 and presentation among the Block 5 History Day sessions for conference-style representations of senior essya and thesis work, substantial revisions according to that adviser's counsel will have been accomplished.  

COURSE MATERIALS

The following works are available for purchase in the Colorado College Bookstore.  Because the seminar format will require constant reference to texts--and because most students will want to mark important passages in their own copies--students should use their own copies of each work. 

                     Andrew Wallace-Hadrill, Houses and Society in Pompeii and Herculaneium (Princeton: Princeton UP, 1994).

Steven Ozment, The Buergermeister's Daughter: Scandal in a Sixteenth-Cneutyr German Town (New York: HarperPerennial, 1997).

Anne F. Hyde, Empires, Nations, and Families: A New History of the North American West, 1800-1860 (New York: Ecco-Harper, 2012).

Jenny L. Presnell, The Information-Literate Historian: A Guide to Research for History Students (New York and Oxford: Oxford UP, 2007).

The following film will be screened during the first week of Block 3, and will be an option as material for the first review assignment:

                      Mark Jonathan Harris, Into the Arms of Stranger: Stories of the Kindertransport (2000)

One further common reading will be accessible of the course's PROWL resource site"

                       David Herlihy, "Family," American Historical Review 96 (1991): 1-16.

SCHEDULE OF CLASS DISCUSSIONS AND WRITTEN ASSIGNMENTS

Unless otherwise announced, class will meet at 9:30am in Palmer 217.  The instructor will introduce common readings, suggest appropriate study questions, and identify text sections for especially focused consideration at the meeting before respective texts are addressed.  Discussions will then be led by small teams of students.  Project presentations will require that each class member distribute photocopied prospectus materials.    

BLOCK 3

WEEK 1 (October 29)

Monday               10:30 START AFTER FIRST MONDAY

                            Introduction   

Tuesday               Herlihy discussion (see PROWL)

Wednesday          Wallace-Hadrill discussion I

Thursday             8:30 BREAKFAST AND A  MOVIE: Into the Arms of Strangers

Friday                  BIBLIOGRAPHICAL INSTRUCTION 9:30 TLC I

WEEK 2 (November 5)

Monday                Wallace-Hadrill discussion II

                             BOOK OR FILM REVIEW DUE (2 PP.)

Tuesday                Ozment discussion I

Wednesday           Ozment discussion II

Thursday              INDIVIDUAL CONFERENCES WITH INSTRUCTOR

Friday                   COLLABORATIVE RESOURCE GUIDE WORKSHOP

                             RESEARCH PROJECT LITERATURE REVIEW DUE (4 PP.)

WEEK 3 (November 12)

Monday                Hyde discussion I 

Tuesday                Hyde discussion II

Wednesday          BIBLIOGRAPHICAL SESSION 9:30 TLC1

                            COLLABORATIVE RESOURCE GUIDE DUE

Thursday              SENIOR ESSAY PRIMARY SOURCE REVIEW DUE FOR EXCHANGE

                             GROUP CRITIQUE OF PRIMARY MATERIALS REVIEWS

Friday                   INDIVIDUAL CONFERENCES WITH INSTRUCTORS       

WEEK 4 (November 17)

Monday                INDIVIDUAL RESEARCH PRESENTATIONS AT CLASS BREAKFAST

                             SENIOR ESSAY PROSPECTUS DUE FOR EXCHANGE (5 pp. plus annotated bibliography)

Tuesday                PROSPECTUS WORKSHOPS               

Wednesday           REVISED PROSPECTUS DUE

BLOCK 4

Throughout the block, students will be responsible for scheduling meetings with their primary (or, in cases when Carol Neel is primary reader, secondary) departmental readers and extra-departmental consultants.  Class will meet as a group less frequently, as indicated here.

WEEK 1 (November 26)

Monday                  FIRST MONDAY LECTURE BY ANNE HYDE: ARMSTRONG HALL 11:15--"Love, Gold, and Blood"

                               CLASS MEETS IN PALMER 217 AT 10:45 TO WALK OVER TOGETHER

Tuesday                  Discussion of First Monday lecture, progress reports on senior essay work

Wednesday             INDIVIDUAL CONFERENCES WITH INSTRUCTOR

Thursday                 WORK DAY

Friday                     SOURCE USAGE WORKSHOPS

                               INDIVIDUAL PRESENTATIONS OF SPECIFIC SOURCE ANALYSES

WEEK 2 (December 3)

Monday                    WORK DAY

Tuesday                   PARTIAL DRAFT DUE 3PM: FIRST TEN PAGES

Wednesday               GROUP DRAFT CRITIQUES

Thursday                  INDIVIDUAL CONFERENCES WITH INSTRUCTOR

Friday                       WORK DAY

THE CLASS SCHEDULE FOR BLOCK 4, HISTORY 420, IS UNDER CONSTRUCTION AND WILL BE APPENDED BEFORE THANKSGIVING.