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HIS 4203 |
Harvey J. Graff |
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Fall 2003 |
HSS 4.04.20 |
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TR |
458-7353; hgraff@utsa.edu |
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Office hours: TR |
Topic for Fall 2003
Did childhood exist in the past, or is it a modern invention? Are childhood (and children) and adolescence (and adolescents), as we have known them, disappearing as some claim,? Are they biological or "natural" and universal stages of human development, or at least in part the products of society and culture and history? Do childhood and children have a future? How different from today was growing up in the past? How did the young mature in past times, and what relationships to current patterns does that past have?
This course asks a number of important questions about the changing experiences and meanings of growing up--childhood, adolescence, youth, "coming of age." In contrast to most contemporary views, it looks seriously at the past, at the history of growing up, as a comparison to the present and as the specific context from which today's patterns and problems developed. History thus provides a rich laboratory in which current notions about growing up--for example, from psychology, anthropology, sociology, human developmental studies, the arts and letters, and related areas--may be explored and tested. The relevance, usefulness, and accuracy of theories that relate to growing up will be examined in historical context and probed over a broad expanse of time.
A wide variety of sources, including films and novels and memoirs, and a number of different research traditions and approaches are considered. In addition, we will evaluate family, child, and youth policy as it has developed over time, and its functions today, and as it provides options for tomorrow. A new, broad, rich, and interdisciplinary understanding of growing up and its challenges is the course goal.
·
Learning to
analyze and critically evaluate ideas, arguments, and points of view.
·
gaining new information and understanding of
Assignments include both individual and group activities. Some activities and assignments will count toward the group portion of grades. Evaluation of fellow members of your group will also figure in the final grades. We will form activity groups by the end of the first week of classes.
Attendance, preparation, participation, discussion group activities 25%
Attend regularly. Do each week’s required reading as early as possible each week. The lectures, discussions (including group work), films, and the readings themselves will inform each other and promote clearer, smoother, and better work, class sessions, and grades—for all of us. You will also be ready for occasional quizzes on the reading.
Discussion and oral project groups are an important
part of the work in this course. Groups will be
formed early in the semester. Discussion group work includes reviewing
material; discussing readings,
films, lectures, and other questions; and preparing group oral reports.
The classroom is not always the best physical environment for working in groups, but the benefits are greater than the logistical problems we will work to resolve as easily as possible.
"Reaction/evaluation" papers……………... …………………………………………….20%
Participation in a activity or learning group will include the preparation of an oral report for presentation to the class before the end of the term. Oral reports will be based on library and perhaps also electronic research.
Each report will aim to give historical and perhaps also conceptual or policy perspective to a contemporary question or problem, for example, single-parent families, homeless families or children, runaway or latchkey kids, family changes like divorce or remarriage, adolescent sex or pregnancy, institutionalization, public policy, etc. The list is almost limitless.
Groups will be formed on the basis of common interests. Reports of approximinately 15-20 minutes will take place during final 3 weeks of the semester. Further instructions will be provided. Class time will be provided for project work.
Groups. In general,
groups will discuss reading and assignments; generate questions for class discussion; brainstorm on projects; help to
plan research; share sources and other “finds.” I suggest that they also read and critique drafts of each
other’s papers.
At the end of the semester, each student will evaluate all members of her or his group. You will have the opportunity to distinguish between the contributions of different members of your group who added more or less to the group’s work and performance.
Each student will write a 10-12-page paper, using course ideas and materials to interpret a set of primary sources on growing up, selected from either materials on students' own families if you have source materials that include more than 2 generations of your family, or from such books as Eve Merriam, ed., Growing Up Female in America: Ten Lives; Chris Mayfield, ed., Growing Up Southern; Hamilton Holt, ed., The Life Stories of Undistinguished Americans as Told by Themselves; Mary Frosch, ed., Coming of Age in America; or Harold Augenbraum and Ilan Stavans, eds., Growing Up Latino; Tiffany Lopez, ed., Growing Up Chicana/o. Avon, 1995
Detailed information will be provided in class. Papers will be due at the final class meeting
During regular class meetings, we will take up a variety of activities and projects. These may include taking quizzes, participating in exercises, screening films, exploring different perspectives and skills, discussing assignments or assigned readings, listening to guest speakers, presenting individual or group work, and related activities. Come to class on time, prepared for the session by completing any assigned work or other preparation; bringing paper, pens, pencils, and other items announced in preceding meetings or the syllabus.
All work that is turned in for evaluation or grading should be typed, usually double-spaced, with margins of 1-1 ½ inches on all sides; printed in 12 point font, in a legible type face. Be sure that your printer ribbon or toner allows you to produce clear copies. Follow page or word limits and meet deadlines. No covers please. Follow any specific assignment requirements (formatting or endnotes or bibliography, for example). Your writing should be gender neutral as well as clear and to the point. If you have a problem, see me, if at all possible, in advance of due dates. Unacceptable work will be returned, ungraded, to you. There will be penalties for work submitted late without excuse.
Final grades are based on each student’s performance on all
required activities listed above. Significant improvement in students’
work over the course of the semester will be rewarded. Group work is a part of
the course and its grade. Students will have an opportunity to evaluate the
contribution of the members of their group. Students should keep track of their
scores and their progress in the course. Because of confidentiality laws,
neither the History Department office nor I can report grades by email or
telephone.
Attendance is essential for successful participation in this course. Each student is responsible for all material presented, discussions, and group activities. I will note absences. More than two or three unexcused absences may lead to deductions from your grade. If you have an emergency or are ill, contact me as soon as possible. Late assignments will be penalized five points for each day late. If you wish to drop the course, you should contact me. I cannot drop students automatically. Take note of UTSA deadlines and procedures. Please discuss with me as soon as possible any problems you have with the course.
Mutual respect and cooperation, during the time we spend together each week and the time you work on group assignments, are the basis for successful conduct of this course. The class is a learning community that depends on respect, cooperation, and communication among all of us. This includes coming to class on time, prepared for each day’s work: reading and assignments completed, focusing on main classroom activity, and participating. This is even more important on quiz and exam days. It also includes polite and respectful expression of agreement or disagreement—with support for your point of view and arguments--with other students and with the professor. It does not include arriving late or leaving early, or behavior or talking that distracts other students. Please turn off all telephones, beepers, CD or MP3 players, and other electronic devices. Please remove ear- or headphones.
Scholastic honesty is
expected and required. It is a major part of university life, and contributes
to the value of your university degree. All work submitted for this class must
be your own. Copying or representing the work of anyone else (in print or from
another student) is plagiarism and cheating. This is unacceptable in this class
and also prohibited by the University. The minimum penalty will be an “F” for
that assignment. Information on scholastic dishonesty, including plagiarism, is
provided in the Student Code of Conduct, Section 203 “Scholastic
Dishonesty.” The Undergraduate Catalogue offers this definition: “Scholastic dishonesty
includes, but is not limited to: cheating on a test or other class work;
plagiarism (the appropriation of another’s work and the unauthorized
incorporation of it in one’s own written work offered for credit); and
collusion (the authorized collaboration with another person in preparing
college work offered for credit.” When in doubt, consult the instructor.
I expect all students whose
names appear on each group report and on group quizzes to have contributed to
the work that led to the preparation of that item.
To receive support
services, students with disabilities must register with the Office of
Disability Services (MS 2.03.18; 458-4157-voice; 458-4981-TTY)
The department office is located in HSS 4.04.06 and is open M-F 8-5:00. Ms. Sherrie McDonald, Administrative Assistant, and Dr. Wing Chung Ng, Chair, are available at 458-4033 or at history@utsa.edu and will be happy to tell you more about the department’s programs and answer questions. Ms. Sylvia Man sour (smansour@utsa.edu; 458-4900) is the undergraduate student advisor, and Dr. Killeen Guy (kguy@utsa.edu; 458-4371; HSS 4.04.16) is the Graduate Advisor of Record. The department website is at the following URL: http://colfa.utsa.edu/colfa/HIST/home. HTM
Note: All dates and related matters in
syllabus are subject to change
Everyone:
N. Ray Hiner and Joseph M. Hawes,
eds., Growing Up in America: Children in Historical Perspective. Univ. of
Illinois, 1985
Anzia Yezierska, The Bread Givers. Persea,
1975 [1925]
J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye. [1951]
W. Norton Grubb and Marvin Lazerson, Broken
Promises: How Americans Fail
Their
Children. Univ. of Chicago
Press, 1988 [1982] (used copies if available)
Choose one of each grouping:
Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life. . .
an American Slave. New American
Library,
1968 [1845] OR
Lucy Larcom, A New England Girlhood.
Northeastern U.P., 1986 [1889]
Edward Eggleston, The Hoosier Schoolmaster.
Indiana U.P., 1984 [1871] OR
Stephen Crane, Maggie, A Girl of the Streets.
Fawcett, 1960 [1893]
Richard Wright, Black Boy. Perennial
Classic, 1966 [1937] OR
E.L. Doctorow, World's Fair. Random House,
1985 OR
Americo
Paredes, George Washington Gomez. Arte Publico, 1990
Sandra Cisneros, The House on Mango Street.
Vintage, 1991 [1984] OR
Alix Kates
Shulman, Memoirs of an Ex-Prom Queen. Bantam, 1973
For essays (choose one):
Eve Merriam, ed., Growing Up in Female in
America: Ten Lives. Beacon, 1987
[1971]
Chris Mayfield, ed., Growing Up Southern:
Southern Exposure Looks at Childhood
Then
and Now. Pantheon, 1981 [This
book is out of print; copies are
available
at used book stores]
Hamilton Holt, ed., The Life Stories of
Undistinguished Americans as Told by
Themselves, ed. Werner Sollers. Routledge, 1990 [1906]
Mary Frosch, ed., Coming of Age in America: A
Multicultural Anthology. New
Press,
1994
Harold Augenbraum and and Ilan Stavans, eds., Growing
Up Latino: Memoirs and
Stories. Houghton Mifflin, 1993
Tiffany Lopez, ed., Growing Up Chicana/o. Avon, 1995
* Library Reserve
HIS 4203 Harvey
J. Graff
Fall, 2003
Syllabus
Read for Weeks 1-2:
*Alan Prout and Allison James, “A New Paradigm for the Sociology of Childhood?” in
Constructing and Reconstructing Childhood: Contemporary Issues in the Sociological Study of Childhood, ed. James and Prout (Falmer, 1990), 7-34
*Rayna Rapp, Ellen Ross, and Renate Bridenthal, “Examining Family History,” Feminist Studies 5 (1979) 174-200
*Mary P Ryan, “The Explosion of Family History,” Reviews in American History, 10 (1982), 181-195
*Stephanie Coontz, The Way We Never Were: American Families and the Nostalga Trap. Basic 1991, Introduction, 1-22
Film:
"Lord of the Flies" (90)
Read:
see Week 1; and
*Keith
Thomas, "Children in Early Modern England," in Children and their
Books,
ed.
Gillian Avery and Julia Briggs (Oxford Univ. Press, 1989), 45-77
articles
listed in Week 1
Film:
"The Return of Martin Guerre" (111)
Week 3.
(9/9 & 11)
Seventeenth-Century Beginnings of Growing Up in America: Change
and
Continuity, Variations on Themes
Read:
N. Ray Hiner and Joseph
M. Hawes, eds., Growing Up in America: Children in Historical
Perspective [H&H] (Univ. of Illinois, 1985), 1, 2, 3 (Beales,
Slater, D.B. Smith)
Read:
H&H 2,3 (Slater,
D.B. Smith)
Film:
"The Wild Child" (85)
Week 5.
(9/23& 25) Diversity and
Early Transformations: Commercialization, Migration,
Urbanization.
Family Change and Growing Up Change, c. 1780s-1840s
Read: H&H, 4, 5, 6, 10, 11 (Wells, McLoughlin, Gilje, Wiggins, Scott)
and
choose one of:
Frederick Douglass, Autobiography or
Lucy Larcom, A New England Girlhood
Films from the American Social History Project: "Daughters of Free Men," "The Five Points," "Doing All They Can" (75)
Week 6. (9/30 & 10/2) Early Modernity:
Remaking Growing Up in Nineteenth-Century America
Read: H&H, 5, 7 (McLoughlin, Rodgers)
Douglass or Larcom
Film: "The Molders of Troy" (90)
Week 7.
(10/7 & 9) Slouching toward
the Modern Ways: Contradictions and Irregu-
larity
in the Transformations toward Modern Paths of Growing Up.
Race,
Sex/Gender, Social Class, Ethnicity, Geography
Read:
H&H, 8, 9, 12
(Clement, Campbell, Szasz)
and
choose one of:
Edward
Eggleston, The Hoosier Schoolmaster OR
Stephen
Crane, Maggie, Girl of the Streets
Slides from Canada's Visual Past series
Week 8.
(10/14 & 16) Change and
Continuity: The Incomplete Revolution Among the
Young. Policy, Institutions, the State, and the
Family
Read:
H&H, 8, 9, 12
(Clement, Campbell, Szasz)
Week 9.
(10/21 & 23) Turning the
Century: A Progressive Synthesis? Reforming the
Young
(Again?)
Read:
H&H, 8, 9, 12
(Clement, Campbell, Szasz)
Anzia
Yezierska, The Bread Givers
Film:
"My Brilliant Career"
(101)
Oct. 24 Last day to drop course or withdraw with automatic grade of “W”
Read:
H&H, 14, 16
(Williams, Uhlenberg, Clark)
and
choose one of:
Richard
Wright, Black Boy or
E.L.
Doctorow, World's Fair or
Americo
Parades, George Washington Gomez
Film:
"Rebel Without a Cause" (111)
Read:
H&H, 13, 14, 15,
16 17 (Williams, Uhlenberg, Finkelstein, Clark, Weiss)
J.D.
Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye
Film:
"High School" (75)
Read:
H&H, 17 (Weiss)
and
choose one of:
Sandra
Cisneros, The House on Mango Street or
Alix Kates Shulman, Memoirs of
an Ex-Prom Queen. Bantam, 1973
optional: *Vicki Ruiz, "'Star Struck':
Acculturation, Adolescence, and the Mexican American Woman, 1920-1950," in Building
With Our Own Hands: New Directions in
Chicana Studies, ed. Adela de la Torre and Beatriz M. Pesquera (University
of California
Press, 1993), 109-129,
*Ruiz,
"Oral History and La Mujer: The Rosa Gerrero Story," in Women on
the U.S.- Mexico
Border: Responses to Change, ed. Ruiz and Susan Tiano (Allen & Unwin,
1987),
219-231
group
oral reports
Film: "Street Wise" (92) & “Dirty Laundry” (15)
Week 13.
(11/18 & 20) All Fall Down?
The Rise and Fall of the Cult of Childhood
and
Adolescence
Read:
*Gary
Alan Fine and Jay Mechling, “Minor Difficulties: Changing Children in the Late Twentieth
Century,” in America at Century’s End, ed. Alan Wolfe (California, 1991), 58-78
*Robert L. Hampel, “A Generation in
Crisis?” Daedalus 127, 4 (Fall 1998) 67-88
*Sherry
B. Ortner, “Generation X: Anthropology in a Media-Saturated World,” in Critical
Anthropology Now, ed. George E Marcus (School of American
Research Press, 1999)
55-87
group
oral reports
Film:
“Switchblade Sisters” (90)
Week 14.
(11/25 &12/2)
Today?/Tomorrow? Is There a Future for Growing Up in the
Age
of "the childlike adult and the adultlike child"? Yesterday,
Read:
*W. Norton Grubb and Marvin Lazerson, Broken Promises: How Americans Fail Their Children,
esp. Part I
Optional:
*Andrew J. Cherlin, ed., The Changing American Family and Public Policy (Urban
Institute, 1988)
*Gary
Alan Fine and Jay Mechling, “Minor Difficulties: Changing Children in the Late Twentieth
Century,” in America at Century’s End, ed. Alan Wolfe (California, 1991), 58-78
*Robert
L. Hampel, “A Generation in Crisis?” Daedalus 127, 4 (Fall 1998) 67-88
group
oral reports
Film:
"Heathers" (102)
*Library Reserve reading
HIS 4203 Harvey
J. Graff
Growing
Up in America
Assignments
As noted in the syllabus, in addition to
preparation and participation in class sessions, there are three other formal
course requirements: "reactions/evaluation" papers (5); group
research-oral reports; and an essay. This handout provides further information
on them.
Each paper should focus on one topic and
one or more readings or films from one week (and for comparisons,
preceding weeks’ reading, visual material, or discussion). Present, clearly and
to the point, your intellectual response to the topic and the reading and/or
visual material related to it for the week you have chosen. You may offer
constructive criticism, further ideas or reflections, questions, connections to
other aspects of the course or other courses or your own experience. Do not
make this task more difficult than it needs to be--it should not occupy a great
deal of your time. Keeping up with reading and class work make this kind of
writing much easier!
Group research/oral reports: During the early weeks of the semester, and
following your own interests, we will form groups of 3 or 4 members. All groups
will focus on one subject of their choice among the many significant
aspects of growing up--childhood, adolescence, youth--that attract attention
today. These may range from daycare, latchkey children, child and family abuse,
to teen suicide, adolescent pregnancy, one-parent families and single mothers,
gifted youth, etc. There is no limit to the topics. In accordance with your own
interests, you will join a group whose purpose is to research the topic historically,
that is, to provide necessary perspectives on today's discussions through
longer-term views, comparisons, background, alternative formulations or
viewpoints, etc. Each group will ask: what difference(s) does a historical
perspective make? A moderate (but not excessive) amount of library research is
expected; the instructor will provide bibliographic and other advice and some
class time will be allocated for group work. During the final 3 weeks of the
semester, each group will report orally (approx. 15-20 minutes) the results of
its research and respond to questions from the class. A plan of work, activity
log, bibliography of sources, outline of the presentation, and evaluation are
due at the time of the report.
Note:
the number and size of the groups depend in part on the size of the class.
Additional information will be provided in class.]
Essays:
due at the end of the semester--at the time of last class session--are
essays of approx. 10 pages with footnotes and bibliography as needed [prepared
according to an accepted academic style sheet: Turabian or University of
Chicago, APA, for example].. Papers may take one of two forms.
Using one of the collections of life
histories available in the bookstore (Growing Up Female; Growing Up
Southern; The Life Stories of Undistinguished Americans; Coming of Age in
America; Growing Up Latino; Growing Up Chicana/o), as your research
material, write an essay on those aspects of the history of growing up that
these first-person sources open to your reading, questions, and interpretation.
These may take the form of comparisons across time and space; change and/or
continuity over time; comparisons across persons growing up at more or less the
same historical moment or different moments, among a wide range of possible
topics, issues, and questions. That choice is yours to make. You are expected
to use the ideas, concepts, interpretations, approaches, methods,
materials, etc., presented and discussed in the course (from readings, films,
discussion, lectures) in forming your own approach to discussing and
interpreting the primary sources collected in each of the anthologies. Consider
them to be your primary archive; without them, your task would be much more
difficult.
The second option is writing a history of growing
up in your own family history. To select
this option, you will need the approval of the instructor. Doing such a project depends on the availability
of research materials for your use (including oral history/interview material
that you collect yourself) at least part of which are written and preserved. It
also requires information on at least two or more generations ending with your
own (if you wish). As with the other option, the choice of topics, issues,
questions, etc., is yours and you are expected to use course materials and
ideas in developing the project.
In working toward your paper, each of you will: 1) define the topic, develop questions and approaches; 2) plan your overall work, divide it into specific tasks, and allocate your time and labor; 3) identify relevant and appropriate primary and secondary sources and evaluate their usefulness and their limits; 4) conduct library, archival, field research if necessary; 5) study the evidence gathered in relationship to your questions, conception and plan of research, and expectations about what you are likely to discover (and why); 6) make conclusions on the basis of your analysis of the evidence in with respect to the questions and problems with which you began and as they change as you do your work.
Each paper should have an introduction and a conclusion; endnotes as necessary; bibliography of sources; tables or illustrations if needed or useful.
Note:
1)plagiarism results in failure; 2)please use non-sexist, gender-neutral
language (in discussions and reports, too); 3)staple papers in the upper-left
corner before turning them in. No folders or covers, no fancy cover sheets.
Indicate on the top of the first page
your name and section. Number each page; 4) papers should be double-spaced,
with normal 1-1½ inch margins, and printed in 12 point font; 5)be sure the
ribbon or toner of your printer is relatively new and the printed copy is
legible; otherwise the paper will be returned to you unread and ungraded; 6)if
you need special assistance, in addition to the instructor, there is the
university's writing lab and many reference and guide materials; 7)if you would
like your paper to be returned at the end of the semester, please provide a
stamped, self-addressed envelope when you turn in your final essay.
Good
Luck!!!
HIS 4203 Harvey
J. Graff
Growing
Up in America
Group Oral Reports
Goal and Focus: To ask and begin to answer "the question of history." Through library and perhaps electronic research (and course materials as relevant), each group of 3-4 students will ask: how does our view and understanding of the topic we have selected (say, teenage pregnancy, high schools, single parents) change when we examine it through the perspective of history? Does a longer time span change the way we see matters? Are today's issues long-standing ones or new concerns, with or without precedents? What alternative views are possible? and related questions. Various possible answers to such questions can be developed through a careful but not overly-long search in library sources. We are not seeking either complete or final responses but rather tentative ones and "working" ideas.
The groups: During the early weeks of the semester, class members will generate a list of topics of possible interest and then form groups (3-4 students per group) to work on them.
Each group will:
--develop a plan to research and bring together the results of that research in the form of a 15-20 minute oral report to the class (or a part of the class);
--central to the plan is defining, focussing, and narrowing the topic into a manageable issue or set of issues, and dividing the labor of group members for its study. For most topics, groups will need to be selective, and not attempt to cover their subjects in either too much breadth or depth. Group efforts should aim to strike a balance;
--the instructor will provide "starter" historical references, and will be available for consultation and advice as requested;
--when possible, class time will be allocated for project work;
--group planning will aim at defining the general topic and then dividing it into a selection of major elements or subtopics that individual members can research in the UTSA or other libraries, and then integrate the results of that research into a coherent oral presentation;
--groups should consult reference librarians for help in identifying appropriate and useful historical and contemporary source materials
--a wide range of research materials is available, although specific sources will vary from topic to topic and focus to focus. Among the usual kinds of materials that prove helpful are: government reports, often with a statistic or numerical basis; articles in academic journals and periodicals; reports in major newspapers and magazines; book-length studies including case studies of specific places, times, or groups; anthologies or collections of studies on a specific topic; reports of various social service and volunteer groups. Some groups have interviewed persons engaged in relevant activities and professional experts in the San Antonio metropolitan area. There are many other possible sources too. Use the on-line catalogue of UTSA and San Antonio-area library holdings, and search there and in relevant indexes and databases for your topic and its related elements. Exercise caution in Internet searches: all website are not created equal or trustworthy. Ask reference librarian to help you find relevant guides, indexes, and databases;
--keep in mind that your goal is to locate and sample a range of relevant information and points of views that helps you to survey selectively your topic and allows the kind of interim or tentative findings and conclusions suitable for a brief presentation to the class. No complete, exhaustive, or final conclusions are expected, or are even possible. Brief reports that focus relatively closely and clearly on major issues are the target.
Groups needing copies of handouts to be
duplicated and/or audio/visual equipment for their presentations should
coordinate with the instructor 1-2 weeks in advance of the time of their
presentation
At the time of presentation, each group will turn
in one copy of:
--their plan of work, including the
division of labor and definition of the topics and their tasks in dealing with
it;
--a bibliography of the reference sources
(primary and secondary) that they have consulted (length by itself is no virtue);
--a log that outlines each member's work
on the project: tasks done and time spent on them--what was accomplished, when
and where work done, etc. (no more than 1-2 pages);
--a general outline of the oral
presentation (1 page);
--an anecdotal evaluation of the group's
work with a recommendation for the group's grade for the overall
project. This statement of no more than 2
pages should address problems that arose and the steps taken to solve them
as well as problems that remained unsolved.
It should be serious and constructively critical, asking, for example,
what alternative plans or steps might have been taken, how as a result of this
effort might a new plan differ from the first, what steps worked well and what
steps did not (and why), etc.
Evaluation: the peer, self-evaluation of each group will make up approximately
33% of the group's grade for this assignment (oral reports make up about
25% of overall course grades). It is very important that the anecdotal
evaluation (supplemented by the plan of work, bibliography, and log) and the
recommended grade support each other (especially since I don't expect many
groups to recommend low grades for themselves). Except in very exceptional
situations, all members of each group will get the same grade for the project
Evaluation--by both each group and the instructor--is based on:
--the quality of the plan of work and its degree
of success in meeting the overall assignment;
--that success includes defining and narrowing
the topic, dividing the labor, the quality (not just the length) of the
bibliography, the research, and the results of that definition and research as
presented in the form of an oral report;
--the development of the oral presentation that
selects, integrates and interrelates, and synthesizes the research;
--the presentation itself (as evaluated by
instructor)
Good
Luck!!!
Harvey J. Graff
HON 3213
Monday, 2:00-4:45 pm
Growing Up in America: Past, Present, Future
Fall, 1998
Description of Course
Did childhood exist in the past, or is it a
modern invention? Are childhood and adolescence, as we have known them, and as
some claim, disappearing? Are they biological or "natural" and
universal stages of human development, or at least in part the products of
society and culture and history? Do childhood and children have a future? How
different from today was growing up in the past? How did the young mature in
past times, and what relationships to current patterns does that past have?
This course asks a number of important questions
about the changing experiences and meanings of growing up--childhood,
adolescence, youth, "coming of age." In contrast to most contemporary
views, it looks seriously at the past, at the history of growing up, as a
comparison to the present and as the specific context from which today's patterns
and problems developed. History thus provides a rich laboratory in which
current notions about growing up--for example, from psychology, anthropology,
sociology, human developmental studies, and related areas--may be explored and
tested. The relevance, usefulness, and accuracy of theories that relate to
growing up will be examined in historical context and probed over a broad
expanse of time.
A wide variety of evidence, including films and
novels, and a number of different research traditions and approaches are
considered. In addition, we will evaluate family, child, and youth policy as it
has developed over time, and its functions today, and as it provides options
for tomorrow. A new, broad, rich, and interdisciplinary understanding of
growing up and its challenges is the course goal.
Requirements: 1. Regular attendance, preparation, and participation; 2. 3 2-page
"reaction\evaluation" papers at regular intervals during the
semester, each 3-4 weeks, responding to required reading, films, etc. Due:
first week in September, October, and November. 3. Participation in a group
research project and class presentation: giving historical, theoretical, and
policy context and perspective to a contemporary question or problem; 4. 10
page paper: synthesis and integration of course ideas and materials with
primary sources on growing up, selected from either materials of students' own
research or from Eve Merriam, ed., Growing Up Female in America: Ten Lives,
Chris Mayfield, ed., Growing Up Southern, Hamilton Holt, ed., Life
Stories; Mary Frosch, ed., Coming of Age in America; Harold
Augenbraum and Ilan Stavans, eds., Growing Up Latino (detailed information provided in class).
Books
ordered for University Bookstore and Off-Campus Books include: Harvey J. Graff,
ed., Growing Up in America: Historical Experiences; Edward Eggleston, The
Hoosier Schoolmaster; Stephen Crane, Maggie, A Girl of the Streets;
Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life. . . an American Slave; Lucy
Larcom, A New England Girlhood; Richard Wright, Black Boy; J.D.
Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye; Sandra Cisneros, The House on Mango
Street; W. Norton Grubb and Marvin Lazerson, Broken Promises: How
Americans Fail Their Children.
HIS 4203 Harvey
J. Graff
Fall, 2003
Alan Prout and Allison James, “A New Paradigm for the Sociology of Childhood?” in
Constructing and Reconstructing Childhood: Contemporary Issues in the Sociological Study of Childhood, ed. James and Prout (Falmer, 1990), 7-34
Rayna Rapp, Ellen Ross, and Renate Bridenthal, “Examining Family History,” Feminist Studies 5 (1979) 174-200
Mary P Ryan, “The Explosion of Family History,” Reviews in American History, 10 (1982), 181-195
Stephanie Coontz, The Way We Never Were: American Families and the Nostalga Trap. Basic 1991, Introduction, 1-22
Keith Thomas, "Children in Early Modern
England," in Children and their Books,
ed.
Gillian Avery and Julia Briggs (Oxford Univ. Press, 1989), 45-77
articles
listed in Week 1
N. Ray Hiner and Joseph M. Hawes,
eds., Growing Up in America: Children in Historical Perspective (Univ.
of Illinois, 1985)
Frederick Douglass, Autobiography
Lucy Larcom, A New England Girlhood
Edward Eggleston, The Hoosier Schoolmaster
Stephen Crane, Maggie, Girl of the Streets
Anzia Yezierska, The Bread Givers
Richard Wright, Black Boy
E.L. Doctorow, World's Fair
Americo Parades, George Washington Gomez
J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye
Sandra Cisneros, The House on Mango Street
Alix Kates Shulman, Memoirs of
an Ex-Prom Queen. Bantam, 1973
Vicki Ruiz, "'Star Struck': Acculturation,
Adolescence, and the Mexican American
Woman, 1920-1950," in Building With Our Own Hands: New Directions in Chicana Studies,
ed. Adela de la Torre and Beatriz M. Pesquera (University of California Press,
1993), 109-129,
Ruiz, "Oral History and La Mujer: The Rosa
Gerrero Story," in Women on the U.S.- Mexico
Border: Responses to Change, ed. Ruiz and Susan Tiano (Allen & Unwin,
1987),
219-231
Gary Alan Fine and Jay Mechling, “Minor
Difficulties: Changing Children in the Late Twentieth
Century,” in America at Century’s End, ed. Alan Wolfe (California, 1991), 58-78
Robert L. Hampel, “A Generation in
Crisis?” Daedalus 127, 4 (Fall 1998) 67-88
Sherry B. Ortner, “Generation X: Anthropology in
a Media-Saturated World,” in Critical Anthropology Now, ed. George E Marcus
(School of American Research Press, 1999)
55-87
Read: W. Norton Grubb and Marvin Lazerson, Broken
Promises: How Americans Fail Their
Children, esp. Part I
Andrew J. Cherlin, ed., The Changing American
Family and Public Policy (Urban
Institute, 1988)
Eve Merriam, ed., Growing Up in Female in
America: Ten Lives. Beacon, 1987
Chris Mayfield, ed., Growing Up Southern:
Southern Exposure Looks at Childhood
Then
and Now. Pantheon, 1981
Hamilton Holt, ed., The Life Stories of
Undistinguished Americans as Told by
Themselves, ed. Werner Sollers. Routledge, 1990
Mary Frosch, ed., Coming of Age in America: A
Multicultural Anthology. New
Press,
1994
Harold Augenbraum and and Ilan Stavans, eds., Growing
Up Latino: Memoirs and
Stories. Houghton Mifflin, 1993
Tiffany Lopez, ed., Growing Up Chicana/o. Avon, 1995