One possibility that we are examining at the Louisiana School is creating a three semester course; US History to 1836/1840; US History 1840-1914/1920; US History 1914-present. The immediate question from the school's curriculum committee: Must students take all three semesters, or may they select from any two of the three? Scheduling could easily become a problem as well.
Bill McBride
Louisiana School for Math, Science, and the Arts
bmcbride@alpha.nsula.edu
I am in favor of adopting a three semmester sequence for American history with the fist segment ending with the Civil War, the Second at the end of WWII and the third dealing with comtemporay America. The three semmester sequence is widly used in World and Western Civ courses and, given the amount of new material to cover makes sense for U.S. history as well.
Delighted H-Survey is up and running.
I agree, first of all, that the survey _should_ be spread over 2 semesters. At Florida State, however, only prospective History majors take the survey that way. For most students, the survey is crammed into a single (gasp!) semester. The break point, then, is where you place the midterm exam, not where you end the first semster. The problem is rather similar, however.
Let me further confuse things by suggesting that the second half of the course is not the only part that is expanding. As a result of the development of World History courses, and a corresponding world-historical consciousness, "American" history can or should be considered as beginning before 1492 or 1607.
I include three lectures in the first half that many might not: Native North America (30,000 B.C. to 1500 A.D.), Pre-Colonial Africa (500-1500 A.D.), and Renaissance-Reformation in Europe. I find that students very much appreciate the background, and particularly the identification of the players before they are thrown together in the North American and Caribbean context.
I divide the course, therefore, at 1865.
Have others tried this approach?
..
Patrick Riordan Ph.D. Candidate 1717 Old Fort Dr. Department of History Tallahassee FL 32301 Florida State University 904-656-6552 (voice and data) riordanp@mailer.cc.fsu.edu
Let me throw out a question to get our discussion group's ball rolling. When I first started being a TA back in 1979 the US survey broke in 1865. Everyone I knew felt as though it had always been divided at that point. By the time I started teaching my own classes it had become apparent that too much stuff had gone on in the 2nd half for the break to remain in 1865. ...
It seems that our choices are:
Bill Cecil-Fronsman
I don't like #1.
#2 looks good from a Canadian point of veiw. The Spanish-American War and the birth of America's acceptance of her role as a world power.
I like #3 best with the division of the courses at the end of the Mexican War (U.S. reaches from coast to coast), and WW2 (U.S. becomes a super power).
Box 860, Fort Nelson, B.C., Canada V0C 1R0
ronald_smallwood@sfu.ca, (604)774-2741 and fax: (604)774-2750
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From: "HI3001" <HI3001@ruby.indstate.edu> Date: Wed, 12 Oct 1994 12:55:04 EST
I certainly agree with the post that feels Reconstruction should be taught as a conclusion to the first semester survey. Of course, I also think Reconstruction should be taught at the beginning of the second semester survey. (Many texts and readers recognize this by including Reconstruction in vols. 1 & 2.) This represents a choice, a selection on my part. Isn't this what historians, especially U. S. historians, regularly do in their scholarly work? Why do we as teachers think we can somehow escape this requirement/responsibility when we try to "cover" the history of the entire U.S, its political, economic, social, cultural dimensions, in one year? Why not teach from our strengths and teach with the objective in mind that it is historical consciousness that we are trying to foster and not an E.D. Hirsch type of encyclopedic coverage? These views should not be construed as a criticism of any approach individuals may take in the classroom--lecture, discussion, creative anarchy, etc.--all have their place and their stregnths. I just feel that agonizing over having more and more past to understand, to teach, represents misspent energy and emotion.
Thanks for this list and the hard work that has been put into it.
Gary Daily
Indiana State
Why not divide the survey at 1789? In the span of time between the European settlement of North America and the present, 1789 or 1815 come closer to the mid-point that 1865 or 1877.
Actually, I'm not making a serious proposal. But I am noting that proposals to divide the survey at 1877, 1890, or even 1900 seem to assume that the history of the U.S. in the 20th century should have priority in the survey course. As we contemplate the dividing point for the survey, I suggest that we question this assumption.
--George Sims
Belmont Univ..ed
Nashville, TN
simsg@belmont.edu
Here at the University of Southern Colorado in Pueblo, we teach the US survey and the world survey. I was not here when the decision was made, so I don't know what the considerations and arguments were. Although I am a Europeanist, I am very happy teaching the world surveys. After very heavy preparation time at first, it becomes more manageable all the time. The rewards are that even when I am teaching about Europe, I am doing so much more competently because I know so much more about the contexts (world-wide) in which European events took place. We do the world surveys as a three-semester sequence here, breaking at approximately 1100 and 1800. I like this very much, except that not all publishers put out texts which break this way. Overall, in this small world, I really believe in teaching the world survey over the European one, giving our students a better understanding and a broader view of the past.
Carol Loats
University of Southern Colorado
loats@starburst.uscolo.edu
Thanks to Bill Cecil-Fronsman for posing a question that we here at Juniata College wrestle with frequently. The current thinking is that we have to skim too quickly when dividing the survey into two semesters. We're now thinking of shifting to a tripartite division, still in the semester format, that divides the chunks into 1607-1789, 1789-1896, and 1896-present (or as close as we can get to the present). I'm intrigued by the idea in part because I might be able to use one of two of my favorite books for the first part: either Henretta and Noble, EVOLUTION AND REVOLUTION, or Donald Meinig, THE SHAPING OF AMERICA: ATLANTIC AMERICA. Of course, both books might go down in flames, but I look forward to the chance to try them. I look forward to others' thoughts on the chronological division of the survey.
Date: Thu, 13 Oct 1994 22:54:42 +0059 (EDT) From: peter c holloran <pch@world.std.com>
Like Gus Seligman, I gave up all hope of covering the entire history of the USA in two semesters. I teach some topics much more expertly than others, so what. Have you had many students complain about what you "left out" of an introductory survey? It makes more sense to adopt the American Studies style of topical coverage in a loose, flexible chronological framework, no? The History majors will get what they "missed" in upper level courses and the other students need the method and sense of US history more than all of the "important" details, IMHO.
Peter Holloran,
Pine Manor College
Date: Fri, 14 Oct 1994 09:17:44 -0700 (PDT) From: Robert Cherny <cherny@mercury.sfsu.edu>
A decision about redividing the survey involves other factors than just our own preferences as specialists. On many campuses, the lower-division survey meets a graduation requirement. After spending eleven of the past seventeen years on our Academic Senate, I cannot imagine that other parts of any university would gladly give history another chunk of general education requirements because history asks for it. That being the case, students stand to lose a great deal of breadth (by missing one of the new three-semester sequence of American history survey courses) in order to have more depth in the courses they do take. Isn't one of the usual distinctions between lower-division and upper-division that of *breadth* versus *depth*?
Similarly, major degree requirements may be adversely affected by such a change. If the major is to be expanded, I suspect most faculty memers would prefer to expand it at the upper-division rather than lower-division level. If the major is already at an optimal size, expanding the survey will require taking something out somewhere else.
All of us are constantly faced with the need to incorporate new material into our courses at every level. Ordinarily we do that by deleting other material. Isn't that what we must do as historians all the time--make decisions about what is more important and what is less important?
Bob Cherny, History
San Francisco State Uni.
Given the "academic senate" comments on breadth v. depth in light of the many requirements undergraduates face, which are perhaps unfortunate but reality all the same, what do people think of breaking the survey :
I -1492 - 1904;
II - 1900 - 1980
1904 may seem an odd year to end it, but the reason is that it is the year the US Army declared the "Filipino Insurrection" under control. 1492 marks the beginning of the "modern era" not only because of "discovery," but because within a short time (9 months?) the "creole" or "mestizo" cultures that populate the Americas were in their first generation; European colonialism had begun in earnest, with it massive ecological transformation; and the transition to "New World Slavery" was at hand. In terms of the US, the culture groups which form the country can not be fully understood without such background. 1904 and the Philippines is significant b/c it is the farthest westward planting of the flag, thus marks the end of the central feature of US history to that point: expansionism; By this point "the new empire" hegemonically controlled virtually all of the one of the oldest empires of the modern age, the Spanish empire.
Traditional US and European surveys, and Western or World Civ classes seem to have chosen 1500 has the break or entry into the "modern age" simply b/c it is a round number. By choosing 1492 one can more easily emphasize the interconnectedness of capitalism, imperialism and nationalism; the simultaneous appearance of them is hardly coincidence, as is the relationship of the Reconquista/Inquisition to the form of Iberian expansion.
Such breakage points for the survey may at first seem like too much of a burden on the first semester, yet it is manageable and the students I've taught tend to respond favorably to an increased emphasis on the 20th century allowed for in the second semester. It also assumes a multicultural approach to the survey. Lastly, it allows breaking the Toquevillian hegemony on US history by revealing the absurdity of the "no traditions" argument he laid out in 1831; the US tradition of violent encounters with a long series of "others" is emphasized if expansion is revealed as the central feature of US history to 1904. This recovery of what is useful from the Turner Thesis, i.e., the centrality of expansion/frontier experience, creates context for US foreign relations into the 20th c., explains the fascination with the "China Market," and gives context to immigration, industrialization, politics and culture in ways far superior to the 1607-1865 tradition.
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Timothy Lynch
UC Berkeley History Department
tlynch@violet.berkeley.edu
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Date: 17 Oct 1994 18:35:22 -0800
From: "Joan Gundersen" <joan_gundersen@csusm.edu>
Let's get serious folks. U.S. History is also having to push further back in time to adequately cover the American Indian experience. Even if we begin with recorded history, the traditional break-point in the 2 semester survey (i.e. between 1865-1877) already puts 3/4 of American history into the first semester. Rather than shove the breakpoint further into the preent, we should be considering moving it back, perhaps to 1800. That would give us time for pre-conquest information and comparative empire study. The U.S. after all, is made up of bits and pieces from several empires.
As for the traditional two-semester sequence, there is also a good constitutional reason for breaking at reconstruction. The writing of the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments completely restructures the constitution. Certainly nothing is the same for the study of rights, state power, or federal power after the 14th is ratified. In women's history, it is also a convenient breakpoint. By mid-century there is the beginnings of higher education, a women's movement (which conveniently transforms into a suffrage focus by 1869), and the restriction of abortion. For Indian history, it is a workable point because following the civil war, the focus shifts west as different tribes take the brunt of new settlement and displacement from land and to Grant's "Peace" Policy (which is hardly peaceful).
Joan Gundersen, Cal State San Marcos
joan_gundersen@csusm.edu
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