MnSCU Board of Trustees Educator of the Year Teaching Portfolio

Deanna D. Forsman, Ph. D.

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Teaching Philosophy Education is an integral part of human civilization; its history is more than 4000 years old. We have

sources that describe classrooms, students and school exercises dating back to the third millennium

before the Common Era. Many ancient teaching strategies are familiar to us today: the ancient

classroom, like the modern, relied upon lecture, textbooks, classroom exercises, and homework. Then,

as now, there were experienced and novice teachers, as well as stellar and indifferent students. Then,

education was reserved for the children of the elite. Thankfully, today, we believe that education should

be available to everyone.

Although the educational strategies we use today have existed for thousands of years, in the past

twenty years, the focus of education has shifted dramatically. Before the 1990s, specialized information

was not easy to acquire. It was necessary for educated people to carry large quantities of knowledge in

their heads to be effective. Since the creation of the internet, information on nearly any subject is quite

literally at the fingertips of anyone who knows how to google effectively. Knowledge acquisition no

longer requires a teacher. The beauty of this new reality is that as a teacher, I do not have to spend my

time trying to force students to remember information. Instead, I can focus on the skills that truly mark

an educated individual: the ability to think critically; the ability to communicate effectively; the ability to

synthesize disparate and sometimes contradictory sources of information; and perhaps most

importantly, the ability to create new knowledge.

These skills are crucial in our modern world, as we are bombarded with information daily, and as we

face the reality that the jobs of tomorrow do not exist today. These skills are also far more difficult to

teach than simple knowledge acquisition. Teachers need to develop strategies that expose students to

new habits of mind and provide them a safe environment in which they can try new skills. We need to

give them time to marinate in new ideas, to make connections, to explore alternative explanations, to

delve into nuance and complexity, to develop intellectual curiosity. These things require student effort,

faculty guidance, and time for thought and discussion, both inside and outside of the classroom. There is

a reason why students at elite universities are expected to view their studies as their full-time jobs: the

best education is, by definition, inefficient. In my opinion, students at our community colleges deserve

access to the exact same educational experience as students at four year colleges and universities.

My primary goals are to teach students how to evaluate information and to communicate effectively

through the written word. Since I am a historian, I also want to help my students understand how the

events of the past have shaped the present. In my opinion, the best way to achieve these goals is to

teach students how to think as historians. Many people think that history is simply the memorization of

names, dates, and other assorted facts. In reality, historians spend our time evaluating disparate sources

from the past and trying to create a cohesive picture of the past based on these sources. Our

understanding of the past is constantly evolving as we acquire new information.

This philosophy guides my approach to teaching history in the classroom. We may have a particular data

set of information that we examine in a course. However, my emphasis is to have students work within

this data set to create an understanding of the past that is unique to each student. I model the basic

skills and methods used by historians, and then I have the students repeatedly practice these skills.


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Being a historian is not easy. It requires being comfortable with ambiguity. Students will ask “how do we

know,” and I often tell them that we are making our best guess, and then explain how we arrived at this

guess. The reality is that there are many things we do not know about the past. There are even more

things that we cannot know, simply because so many sources have not survived into the present.

Becoming comfortable with ambiguity is perhaps the scariest aspect of my courses for my students. I

have to create an atmosphere of trust so that they believe me when I tell them that I will not penalize

them for their answers, as long as they arrived at their answers by using the skills and methods of the

historian. Those students who are able to take a leap of faith and try to develop their own ideas tell me

that they find the experience incredibly rewarding. They experience the thrill of persisting through a

difficult task, of trying something new, and of creating an idea that they know is completely unique to

themselves.

Ultimately, as a teacher, I want every single one of my students to see education as a liberating

experience, not simply a means to an end, but as something that has inherent value in and of itself. I

want them all to find the ideas and modes of thinking that they find exciting and fulfilling. My task is to

create an environment that nurtures intellectual curiosity, supports students when they fail at specific

tasks, holds them accountable for their learning, and rewards them for persistence and improvement. I

set high standards that I know are achievable, given time and effort on the part of the students.

Teaching and learning function best when there is a partnership between the teacher and the learner.


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Content Expertise & Professional Growth Contrary to what most people think when they hear the word “history,” it is not simply a collection of

names and dates, nor is it easily reducible to the philosopher George Santayana’s famous quote, “Those

who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it” (The Life of Reason, 1906, 1.284). History is

more a habit of mind. It is a way of thinking. As stated by the former president of the American

Historical Association, “historical understanding emerges always at the meeting place between present

questions and past sources” (William Cronon, “Loving History,” Perspectives on History, April 2012).

Within this context, our past sources comprise everything ever written by humans. This includes the

accounts of elites and leaders, as well as the incidental writings left behind by those whose names have

been lost. It would be incredibly arrogant for anyone to claim content expertise in the field of history. At

best, I can claim to be an expert in my area of specialty: Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, with

specific emphasis on Britain and Gaul (roughly equivalent to modern France) between AD 400 and AD

700. My expertise in this region and time period stems from extensive studies for my doctoral work,

ongoing research, and the process of presenting my work through publications and conference

presentations (see pp. 20–21 of my CV for my list of presentations and publications).

Although my doctoral work focused on a small swath of history, the nature of my research required me

to be very creative in my use of sources. My topic began with my doctoral advisor’s suggestion to

research people from Britain who traveled to Gaul, and vice versa, during the Early Middle Ages. He

found this group of people fascinating, because they were largely ignored in the nationalist histories

produced both by the English and the French. Eventually, my topic matured into a study of the cultural

and political situations that enabled individuals to travel back and forth across the English Channel. Such

a study required me to use a wide variety of past sources. Some sources, such as chronicles and

histories, were actively trying to record what happened on a specific date. Some sources were legal in

nature: laws, land grants, and royal decrees. Others fell into the genre of “historical fiction,” telling

stories about real people doing fantastic deeds. I also looked at administrative documents, personal

letters, sermons, autobiography, scientific treatises, poetry, royal propaganda . . . the list goes on. The

point is that each of these different types of sources provides crucial and valuable information about the

past, as long as we are able to ask these sources the right types of questions. Part of mastering history is

learning which questions are right for which sources. It would be inappropriate to ask a poem like

Beowulf when Hrothgar ruled, even though we know that Hrothgar was a real person. On the other

hand, Beowulf can tell us a lot about the expected relationship between a king and his retainers. My

ability to know which questions to ask of which sources provides the bedrock of my content expertise.

When I was hired at NHCC as a temporary sabbatical replacement for the fall of 2002, I was told quite

bluntly that I was being hired to teach. Faculty could research and publish, and the college certainly

would not stand in their way, but it was neither expected nor encouraged. This attitude puzzled me and

troubled me on several levels. I simply could not understand how teaching and research could be

separated. I knew that much of my research would never make its way into the survey-level classes that

are the staple diet of community college educators. However, I have found that continuing to practice

the art of research makes me a better teacher, primarily because I am better able to model what it is

that professional historians do. Since completing my dissertation, I have continued to research and

nuance my thinking in my area of expertise. I have regularly presented at a variety of conferences, and I

make it my goal to attend at least two conferences every year. Attending and presenting at conferences

is a huge component of my professional growth, both as a historian and as a teacher. In my opinion, one


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of the most important benefits is also the most intangible. Attending conferences, sharing my ideas,

learning new ideas, and talking about these ideas with my peers energizes me and reminds me why I

wanted to be a historian in the first place. I think this energy makes me a better teacher, because I bring

it into the classroom. Some students have told me that they never liked history, but the fact that I am so

obviously interested and enthusiastic about the material sparks their curiosity and makes them

interested in learning.

Sometimes, I am able to answer a student’s question in class because of a particular panel I attended at

a conference. Just recently in my Western Civ class, a student asked me who wrote The Donation of

Constantine, a primary source document I had assigned the students to read before class. I was able to

tell the students that recent studies indicate that it was not actually written by the papal chancery, even

though it is clearly associated with the mid-seventh century popes. The students seemed both surprised

and impressed when I told them that this was “cutting edge” information that I only knew because I had

talked with two people studying The Donation of Constantine at a conference this past May.

As much as I love Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, it is a very small subset of what I actually

teach, comprising at most three lectures in two classes. I often joke with my students that we wave at

my specialty as we pass by. Teaching history at a community college means that I primarily teach the

surveys. Within the discipline of history, the survey achieves two purposes: it provides a general

overview of large-scale historical developments, and it provides basic exposure to the methodology

historians use to try to understand the past. For some students, the survey will form the bedrock of

understanding that will enable them to explore the nuances and intricacies of a subject in upper division

courses and graduate studies. For other students, it will provide cultural literacy and exposure to the

multiple different ways humans have dealt with life and all it entails. Given these constraints, I strive to

maintain a balance between breadth and depth, since content expertise requires an understanding of

over 5000 years of human history.

My initial attempts to increase my knowledge base in diverse fields outside of my area of specialty

relieved heavily upon surveying various textbooks and primary source readers. As I continued to grow as

both a scholar and a teacher, I found textbook treatments increasingly less satisfying. Textbooks, quite

simply, are tertiary sources. They attempt to digest and synthesize scholarship into manageable

narratives, and in doing so, they gloss over many fascinating topics. The publisher-generated primary

source readers tend to focus on limited genres of public-domain texts, which is frustrating on two

counts: first it presents a narrow view of what constitutes a primary source, and second, I do not like the

idea of charging my students for documents that are available for free via library resources and the

internet.

My current strategy to increase my content knowledge enables me to continue to grow in both breadth

and depth of understanding. I rely primarily upon scholarly works. As a member of the American

Historical Association, I receive five issues of the American Historical Review each year. Many of the

articles I read in these issues help me nuance my understanding of periods outside of my area of

expertise. An article I read on the letters written by soldiers during World War I1 helped me better

1 Martha Hanna. 2003. “A Republic of Letters: The Epistolary Tradition in France during World War I.” The American Historical Review: 108:1338–1361.


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understand the implementation of universal primary education in the late nineteenth century, the

alienation of soldiers during World War I, and the realities of people living on the “Home Front.” I don’t

always bring these ideas directly into the classroom, but when I speak generally of the “Lost

Generation,” I am always thinking of the complexities behind the general theme of alienation that I

present in the classroom.

I am on the mailing list for several academic publishers, and I always peruse their latest catalogs for

recent publications. In many cases, I find that I simply do not have the time to keep up with all the books

I want to buy and read to increase my understanding of the various times and places that I present in my

courses. Despite this, I try to read widely and broadly each year as a part of my professional

development (see Appendix A: Professional Development Report 12–13 Academic Year on p. 22). I’ve

read about the development of the cult of St. Peter and its association with the papacy; the Qara Khitai,

a Central Asian state that paved the way for Mongol expansion in the thirteenth century; foot binding in

China from the eighth through the twentieth centuries; the Iran Hostage Crisis in the late-twentieth

century; kingship and international diplomacy in the Bronze Age (3000–1500 BC); archaeological

research on the historicity of the Jewish scriptures; an oral history of Guatemala in the mid-twentieth

century; the military campaigns of Alexander the Great in Afghanistan and India; and, most recently, a

biography of George Washington. I have found that even though I read a particular source to enhance a

specific class, the information tends to color my presentation of material in other courses. For example, I

read about the Qara Khitai and Guatemala as background for lectures I delivered in my World History

surveys. However, since the Qara Khitai were the bridge between China and the Islamic world, they play

a role in the history of western civilization. Thus, I am always thinking about this complex civilization

when I talk about Islam or the Mongols. In the case of Guatemala, this Central American state was very

much involved in Cold War politics, and the attitudes of both the US and the USSR towards Guatemala

provide concrete examples I can bring into my lectures on the Cold War. It seems that the more I read,

the more I understand how incredibly complex human history really is, and I also realize how much

more there is to learn and understand.

The pursuit of content mastery is my professional growth. Although I know that I will never be able to

master the entirety of the field of history, this does not stop me from trying. As I continue to explore the

questions that various historians have asked of past sources, I become both a better historian and a

better teacher.


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Teaching Strategies & Materials The first time I taught a course in US History, I decided that I was going to develop a unit around the

American myths that emerged in the first half of the nineteenth century. I chose three key figures:

George Washington, Christopher Columbus, and Santa Claus. I chose Santa Claus because I wanted my

students to understand how the secular view of Christmas developed in this country. I chose

Washington and Columbus because a standard K-12 education presents information about these men

that historians know are not true: the idea that Columbus sailed to prove the world was round (he

actually sailed west to prove that the earth was small), and the story of Washington and the cherry tree.

When I told my students that the story of Washington and the cherry tree was a myth, students asked

me how we knew. While I was on very firm ground for both Columbus and Christmas, my knowledge

base was not as strong when it came to the cherry tree story. All I knew for certain was that I had read

and heard that the story was false multiple times from reputable sources. It shows up in many scholarly

works as a myth, but no one ever indicates the reasons for dismissing the story as a myth. I gave an

answer that was based on my best guess, but I was not truly satisfied with it, and neither was the

student.

After class, I started poking around, trying to see if I could find a good explanation for why scholars

universally dismiss the story of Washington and the cherry tree. Much to my frustration and chagrin, the

only thing I discovered in my initial research was that my best guess was totally and completely wrong.

The next day that the class met, I told them that I had given them the wrong answer, and that I wanted

to share with them how I had arrived at this wrong answer. I had already introduced to the students the

concept of historian as someone who tries to put puzzle pieces together to understand the past, and I

shared the puzzle pieces that I had on this topic:

1. All the scholarship I read kept stating that the story of Washington and the cherry tree was not

true.

2. The cherry trees in Washington DC were gifts from Japan.

3. Japan did not have a formal relationship with the United States until Matthew Perry forced

them to enter trade negotiations in 1854.

I then explained how I had put the pieces together: if cherry trees were given to the US after 1854, and

the story of Washington and the cherry tree was false, then it must be because the story developed

after the cherry trees were given. I told them that I realized that this could not be the correct

explanation because the story of Washington and the cherry tree dated to the early 1800s.

This incident was the beginning of my quest to find the out why scholars keep saying that the story of

Washington and the cherry tree was false. For the next two weeks, I spent a couple hours each day

researching the story. Each class period, I spent the first few minutes of class summarizing my findings. I

started with a search of scholarly journals to find articles that discussed Washington’s youth. All I had to

report from this particular line of inquiry was that all my sources just described the story as false

without any further explanation. My next avenue of research was to look more closely at the history of

Washington’s biography. This was a bit more promising, as I learned the first biographer of Washington,

John Marshall (Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court), had access to Washington’s personal papers and

his family, but said next to nothing about his childhood. I also discovered that the cherry tree story did

not appear until the fifth edition of Mason Locke Weems’s The Life of Washington. Finally, I found a

book review published in 1801, which described Weems’s work (then in its first edition) as nothing more


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than fanciful drivel. At that point, I considered my quest complete. People who had known Washington

dismissed Weems as a credible source.

I think it shocked my students that I admitted that I had been completely wrong, but as I explained my

(incorrect) thinking, I also emphasized the idea that historians are always making our best guesses, and

we always have to be prepared to adjust our thinking and ideas when we obtain new information. As I

continued to share the fruits of my quest, I explained where I had looked and what I had (or had not)

found. I was modeling for them the historical process. I was also showing them that I practiced what I

expected them to do: make their best guesses based on the evidence available to them, and always be

prepared to revise upon obtaining more information.

On the final exam for the course, I asked the following question for extra credit:

During the second half of this course, I went on a quest for information. For extra credit,

write an essay that answers the following:

A brief description of my quest, describing the information I was looking for, and

what I found, both along the way and at the conclusion of my quest.

What you learned about the historical process as I shared the results of my

quest.

Whether it was worth spending class time on this quest. Briefly explain your

answer.

Every student who answered this question thought the class time was well-spent (see Appendix B: US

History Extra Credit Exam Question on p. 26).

The story above illustrates many of my teaching strategies. One of my greatest strengths is actually as a

lecturer. I am able to take the past and turn it into an exciting story (see Appendix C: “History is Her

Story” on p. 27). For example, when I discuss Greece and the Peloponnesian Wars, I also talk about

Socrates. Most people have heard about Socrates as a great philosopher, even if they know little more. I

explain that Socrates lived in Athens at a time when the city was overcrowded, being besieged by the

Spartans, suffering from waves of pestilence, and trying to deal with an incredibly inefficient

government. It was really not the best time to try to engage worried and stressed people in

conversations that involved an infinite-seeming series of “why” questions, as was Socrates’s practice. (At

this point, I ask my students if they have had the experience of talking with a three-year old. Many of my

students can empathize with the Athenians after I ask this question!) Put quite simply, the Athenian

citizens thought that Socrates was incredibly annoying. In fact, the only people who really enjoyed

talking with Socrates were the youth who had nothing else to do, and they loved Socrates so much that

they emulated him, spending their time in public spaces and asking stressed people a lot of “why”

questions (thus, the accusation of “corrupting the youth”). The way the Athenians dealt with citizens

they viewed as a threat was to ostracize them. An ostracized individual had a choice: leave the city of

Athens for ten years, or die. When Socrates was ostracized, he chose death, and after drinking hemlock,

he spent his last moments asking his students, “why do we fear death?” I tell this story because most

students have been exposed to Plato’s version of the death of Socrates, which focuses on the injustice of

the situation. As historians, we have to recognize that one person’s version does not necessarily

represent an accurate picture. We have to consider multiple sources of evidence in order to form our

best understanding of the past.


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In all my classes, I actively encourage students to ask me questions as often as they wish. During

lectures, I tell them that my preference is to talk about what they find interesting, and I am happy to

deviate from my PowerPoints, which I design to provide a general outline and structure for the students

(see Appendix D: Sample PowerPoints on p. 28). Whenever I answer a question, I try to model the

historical process. For those questions where I have a deep and solid knowledge base, I often give the

students an overview on how ideas about the particular question have changed over time, or how we

have to explore another topic before I can fully answer the question. In cases where my understanding

is more general, I will make my best guess, telling the students very clearly that I am guessing, and

explaining my evidence and my interpretation of my evidence. In those cases where I genuinely do not

know, I will tell my students that I simply do not have enough information to even hazard a guess. I want

to engage my students in the historical process, and being a historian means understanding the limits of

our knowledge and our sources, and engaging in life-long learning.

I use lecturing as the hook to engage students and provide historical context for the majority of their

assignments (see Appendix E: Assignments on p. 36), which revolve around developing their own

historical theories based on primary source documents. My assignments are fairly typical of the

assignments students would find in any lower-division history survey course. When I was an

undergraduate student, the most typical assignment was to write an essay evaluating a particular

source. Often, the only instructions students received was to write an essay. Exactly what the essay

should include, and what differentiated a historical essay from an English essay or a philosophy essay

was never explicitly stated. Some students, whether through luck or hard work, realized that history

essays used evidence very differently from the other humanities.

I am far more deliberate in teaching students how to develop a historical theory. We start with the

definition of a primary source: it is anything written during a time in the past that we, the modern

historians, wish to study. Every single class that I teach requires students to read primary source

documents that are relevant to each period of time that we study (see Appendix F: Sample Schedules of

Lectures and Readings on p. 40). I put a great deal of thought into the primary source selection, and I try

to include as many different genres as possible, including poetry, scientific treatises, advertisements,

epigraphy, narrative, literature, sacred texts, speech transcripts, law codes, music, and film. When I first

introduce students to primary sources, I urge them to focus on what they can understand from a

document, rather than try to research the document or become frustrated and give up. Their very first

task is to gather data: they need to make observations based on the document. I emphasize many times

that they should not be afraid to make “obvious” observations. If a document mentions grain over and

over, an excellent observation is that the document mentions grain multiple times. The student does not

need to understand the document fully in order to notice that grain keeps coming up.

The second step in developing a historical argument is to look at all our observations as objectively as

possible, and then try to figure out what they can tell us about the past. I emphasize to the students that

I want them to develop their own interpretations of their data. I do not want them to research other

people’s ideas. I also tell them that I will evaluate their ideas based on how they are supported, not

based on whether or not I agree with their ideas. I tell my students that I genuinely enjoy reading their

ideas, particularly when they are different from my own, or when they develop ideas that have never

occurred to me. Nothing is more gratifying than seeing students take chances, work with limited

evidence, and develop cohesive and original ideas.


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The final step in developing a historical argument is to explain the significance of the argument.

Students need to think about primary source documents within the context of other pieces of

information. Ideally, by thinking about their argument within the context of other course material,

students will develop a more nuanced understanding of the past. When students come to my office

hours for help on developing arguments, I am very fond of sharing my “puzzle” analogy. When looking at

a disassembled puzzle piece, all we see are random lines and colors that are largely meaningless.

However, as we put pieces together, we can suddenly see things that we could not see when the pieces

were separate. My favorite example of this was when I put two random pieces together in 1000-piece

puzzle, and suddenly, I could see a cat. This is the epitome of the historical process: we learn more

about the past by figuring out how our sources fit together, and continuously refining our

interpretations as we obtain more data.

Whether I am teaching a face-to-face class, a fully online class, or a hybrid/blended class, my

fundamental strategy of having students read and use primary sources remains unchanged. The aspect I

find most challenging about teaching in the online environment is making my presence felt in the

classroom. The online environment is impersonal, and it is very easy for the students to see a string of

readings and assignments and think that they are teaching themselves. There is some truth to the idea

that students are teaching themselves since I rely so heavily on active learning by repeatedly assigning

students the task of developing their own original arguments. It is difficult for students to see the

instructor’s hand at work in the way an online course is structured, in the readings that are chosen, and

the set-up and grading of the assignments. Over the years, I have developed several strategies to inject

my personality and presence into the online class. I try to leave detailed feedback on all assignments,

going beyond the feedback that is automatically generated by the rubrics I developed, and customizing

my comments so that I give them suggestions based on the ideas and skills that they are currently

demonstrating. I also post frequently with general comments and feedback for the entire class. Another

strategy I adopted a few years ago was to write overviews for each online unit based on my lecture

delivery (see Appendix G: Sample Online Unit Overview on p. 42), rather than using a textbook. My goal

was to produce a narrative that captured the essence of my oral lectures. It was a tremendous effort to

convert my lecture notes (which were often more in the nature of “talk about [x]” rather than serving as

a specific script) into something useful for students, but I have found that the effort was well worth my

initial investment of time. Every time I teach a class, I revise and modify the content based on my

research, and it is far easier to revise a written document than to edit a self-made audio or video

recording. As an added bonus, the majority of my course materials meet ADA accessibility requirements.

My teaching strategies and methods strive to engage students by making the past come alive, and by

encouraging students to practice the skills of the historian. My students come away with a new

understanding and appreciation of history as the cultural memory of humanity, the skills to evaluate

information and create new interpretations, and the freedom to realize that they can take disparate

pieces of information and create a cohesive understanding. The most rewarding aspect of teaching for

me is watching students grow, and seeing that “a ha” moment, when the student takes the various

puzzle pieces and puts them together in a way that suddenly makes the random lines and colors into a

picture that is clear and makes sense.


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Standards for Assessment of Student Learning Although my standards of assessment have been consistent for several years, they also align with the

recently developed AHA Tuning Project History Discipline Core (http://www.historians.org/teaching-

and-learning/current-projects/tuning/history-discipline-core), which states that a student with a

bachelor’s degree in history can:

1. Engage in historical inquiry, research, and analysis

2. Practice historical empathy

3. Understand the complex nature of the historical record

4. Generate significant, open-ended questions about the past and devise research strategies to

answer them

5. Craft historical narrative and argument

6. Practice historical thinking as central to engaged citizenship

As mentioned above, my teaching strategies focus primarily upon #1, #2, #3, and #5, and the

development of these skills is infused in all my essay assignments, as I view these outcomes as the most

basic skills of the profession. The other outcomes listed above are more advanced, and I touch upon

them in my 2000-level classes. History of Popular Culture (History 2700) strongly emphasizes the theme

of historical thinking (#6). Applied History (History 2900) emphasizes the expansion of students’

research skills (#1, #4, and #5). Students in Applied History, which is the capstone course for our AA with

an Emphasis in History, are required to produce a publication-quality research paper on an original topic

using authentic primary sources. The most readily available authentic primary sources are in the NHCC

archives, and most students choose to produce original research based on these sources.

In addition to the above outcomes, I also expect my students to demonstrate the ability to write in a

formal style at the college-level. (Students have sometimes complained that I think I’m an English

teacher. However, I tell them that if I were an English teacher, I would explain to them why I just used

“were” instead of “was,” but since I’m not, I won’t!) Effective communication is a crucial skill for

historians, because we have to be able to craft historical narrative and argument, most of which is

communicated through the written word. It is also the skill that students recognize as the most

transferrable to their professional careers (see Appendix H: Online Student Self-Evaluations on p. 46).

My final outcome is that students have what I call a “working knowledge” of the periods that we cover

in the course. From my perspective, it is important that students have a sense of relative chronology,

and basic familiarity with some of the events that have shaped various societies and civilizations around

the world. As I mentioned above, one of the purposes of the survey is to provide the bedrock for further

studies and for basic cultural literacy. Aside from this, I emphasize to the students that when they craft

their historical arguments, they should play to their strengths and focus on the information that they

find most interesting. It is not necessary for them to remember all the information that I provide about

historical events, as long as they are able to demonstrate that they have learned something about the

various civilizations we have examined.

My assessment tool of choice is the essay. Since my primary goal is to teach students how to think like

historians, I feel that it is important for student to practice presenting their thinking the same way

professional historians present our thoughts and ideas, which is through formal papers and

presentations. As I tell my students, professional historians do not spend our time memorizing names

http://www.historians.org/teaching-and-learning/current-projects/tuning/history-discipline-core

http://www.historians.org/teaching-and-learning/current-projects/tuning/history-discipline-core


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and dates, so this is not something I expect them to do. Instead, we spend our time trying to understand

and explain the past, and this is something I expect them to do.

From my perspective, demonstrating proficiency in course outcomes is the equivalent of “C”-level work.

I once told a class that students can earn a “C” in my class as long as they follow directions. A very high-

level Honors student told me that she did not like the idea that students could pass a course simply by

following directions. I explained to her that my directions were designed to walk students through the

process of developing a historical argument, and by following these directions, students were thus

learning a way of thought. She paused for a moment, thought about what I had just said, and then

retracted her earlier criticism. In order to earn higher grades in my class, students have to demonstrate

not only the ability to follow directions, but the ability to articulate original thoughts and insights about

the course material that go beyond anything directly stated in the course material. In my directions, I

refer to this skill as historical analysis. The majority of my assessment projects have focused on how

better to teach this skill.

Historical analysis is a crucial skill for historians, but it is also a skill that requires repeated practice to

successfully acquire. I tell my students that learning how to do analysis is a lot like learning how to ride a

bike. I can show them what it looks like when someone is riding a bike; I can tell them that they have to

balance and pedal; I can hold the back of the bike seat and run along behind them. However, only

through repeated practice can someone actually understand and master the skills necessary to ride a

bike. The same is true of developing historical analysis.

I have used many different methods to better help students through this process, and I am continually

assessing the impact of these methods. One of my early attempts was to have students complete in-

class group work assignments that required them to develop analysis (see Appendix I: In-Class Group

Work on p. 47). This strategy had mixed results. While it increased student energy and engagement,

performance on the analysis component was not where I wanted it to be. I tried restructuring the group

work (see Appendix I: In-Class Group Work on p. 47), but still was not satisfied. Although I still assign

group work because it increases student engagement, I need different strategies to help students

develop historical analysis.

One of my subsequent attempts focused on completely restructuring my key essay assignment. My early

essay assignments had minimal instructions: just a series of questions that tried to guide the students’

thoughts about primary sources (see Appendix J: Early Essay Assignments on p. 48). I decided to stop

calling the assignment an essay and start calling it a Lab Report. I pulled out my old copy of the

Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (I double majored and have a Bachelors in

Psychology and History), and based my newly titled assignment on the “Content and Organization of a

Manuscript” defined in chapter 1. Each Lab Report was to have an introduction, results section,

discussion section, and conclusion (see Appendix E: Assignments on p. 38), and I described what each of

these sections was supposed to include. I was thrilled to see that this strategy resulted in more students

making an attempt to connect their interpretations with larger historical developments, thus

demonstrating rudimentary analysis. However, I thought my assessment results could be better.

I focused my efforts on trying to better explain analysis. I developed a short document that I call

“Introduction to Historical Arguments,” (see Appendix K: Introduction to Historical Arguments on p. 49)

and I made it required reading for all of my students. I tried mandatory drafts. I tried re-writes for extra


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credit. These strategies seemed to help some students. I wanted a strategy that would help most, if not

all, of my students.

More recently, I’ve made two changes that seem promising. The first was a minor tweak of my grading

rubric. When I used a paper rubric (see Appendix L: Rubrics on p. 52), it was very easy for me to slice

points however I felt appropriate. When I migrated to using D2L rubrics, my ability to slice points was

limited by the number of rubric levels I created, so I decided to refine my levels for analysis, breaking it

down into three stages (see Appendix L: Rubrics on p. 52). This enabled me to provide more consistent

feedback that also more clearly defined the criteria students should incorporate for full points.

The second change was to add two new assignments. I began to suspect that part of the issue I was

encountering was that students were not actually doing the work I expected them to do outside of class.

I created a new assignment, Primary Source Observations (PSO) that served to encourage students to

keep up with their reading, but also required them to at least begin the historical process with every

single document they read (see Appendix E: Assignments on p. 36). Many students told me that they

initially saw these assignments as busy work, but as the semester progressed, they found it easier to

think historically and make connections. The second assignment, the Observation Essay, required

students to focus on synthesizing two or three disparate sources (the number varied as I experimented

with the assignment; I have found that synthesizing three sources works better than two for the

purposes of encouraging the development of analysis). This assignment requires students to think both

historically and creatively to figure out how sources that are not obviously talking about the same thing

actually tell us something cohesive about the past (see Appendix E: Assignments on p. 37), thus leading

them to engage in basic historical analysis.

The addition of the PSO and Observation Essay assignments has increased student ability to

demonstrate historical analysis. This semester, I am experimenting with the numbers of assignments to

see if I can strike a balance between student mastery of analysis and work load.

Although I am constantly using assessments to help me revise my teaching strategies, I have also had

some surprising results. My most recent assessment project compared student learning when I made

completing all course work a condition for passing the class, versus my standard practice of not allowing

late work. Requiring my students to complete all assigned work gave them the necessary practice to

acquire and master the skills I want them to learn. Assessment data has clearly demonstrated that my

“mandatory assignment” strategy improved student mastery of course outcomes. It also came with a

very high price in terms of student retention in the course (see Appendix M: Learner Outcome

Assessment Project on p. 55). After this project, I have concluded that one of the major barriers to

student success in my classes is student time and prioritization. I find myself struggling with a

fundamental conundrum: is it better for me to maintain high standards and insist that students

complete the amount of work I feel necessary to master course outcomes, or for me to allow students

to miss assignments and just barely earn a D in the name of retaining them.

Which is the better choice? Student retention or student success? I have decided that in the classroom,

my choice has to be student success, and I continue to hold to high standards while working on

strategies to better teach my students the skills they need to succeed. I am much more comfortable

employing strategies that increase student retention outside of the classroom.


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Service to Students, Profession, Institution, System

Service to Students At its core, teaching is service to students, and this is something that occurs both inside and outside of

the classroom, encompassing both course content and life skills. The personal interactions between

student and faculty can be just as important as the classroom material. These personal interactions

occur in the moments just before or just after class; they occur during office hours; they occur in the

encounters on various parts of campus; they even can occur in the community. As a faculty member, I

have done my best to create opportunities for one-on-one interactions with students outside of the

classroom structure, and the relationships I have formed with my students form the core of my best

teaching memories.

I try to be honest and authentic with my students. If I make a mistake, I take responsibility for it and

hold the students harmless. When appropriate, I use examples that reflect my interests outside of class.

I’ve explained the use of peasantry in medieval warfare as a “meat shield,” a term that sounds

disrespectful, but it is also one that has a contextual meaning among many students, and actually

reflects quite nicely the attitude of the nobility toward the peasants. I’ve sometimes pointed out that

students familiar with net-speak will never forget the first year of the One Hundred Years War (1337,

which in net-speak is read as “leet,” short for “elite”). I try to make sure that my students see me as a

real person: someone who has good days and bad days; someone who has hobbies, interests, and a life

beyond the classroom. I think it is this authenticity that helps me create that critical connection with

students and makes it possible for students to approach me outside of class.

Since my third semester teaching at NHCC, I have offered students extra credit if they come and see me

during my office hours. The only requirement is that they have to sit down and have a conversation with

me. Most students are initially hesitant when they come to see me; most who come once end up

coming to see me multiple times, and many comment that they wish they had started using my office

hours earlier in the term. Every semester, I have visits from former students, and I always encourage

them to come back and let me know how things are going for them. I think that I learn as much from my

students as they learn from me during these office hour visits. They come to me for help on

assignments, which I am happy to give. They come to me for advice on various issues, ranging from

personal problems to navigating their academic life (see Appendix N: Letters from Students, pp. 58–59).

They come to talk to me about history because they love it as much as I do. Some come just to hang out.

In the classroom, my number one concern is student success. I have high standards, and I hold my

students accountable to those standards. In my office, my number one concern is the student as a

person. When a student came to my office asking for an extension on due dates because she had

recently been raped, my first concern was to get the student the help she needed. I immediately walked

her down to our Counseling office and helped her make an appointment with a counselor. I told her to

take care of herself first; that was far more important than worrying about a class. I’ve had students ask

for advice about whether or not they should stay in school or take time off to work. I think that they’re

surprised when I advise them to focus on what is most important to them.

Since the summer of 2010, I have been the advisor of the Student Anime and Game Club (SAGC) at

NHCC. Two of the student leaders of this club had been my students, and they knew that I played

computer and role-playing games because of various things I mentioned before and during class (before

one class that semester, I had asked a student who knew the rules of the most recent version of the


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Dungeons & Dragons role playing game, “If you’re trying not to throw up, is it a fortitude save or a will

save?”). They suggested me as a possible advisor to the club, and we interviewed each other. The fact

that I was also interested in anime and manga made me a good fit for the club. SAGC is one of the more

active clubs at NHCC, and it has strong alumni involvement. During the school year, it meets every Friday

from 3-6 pm. Over the summer, it meets every Thursday from 3-6 pm. Since I began advising the club in

2010, I’ve attended almost every single meeting. Most of the time, the students and alumni who attend

want to talk to me. Topics of conversation include pop culture, games and anime (of course), politics,

religion, and the students’ classes and jobs. What surprises me the most, however, is how frequently

they want to talk about history (see Appendix N: Letters from Students, pp. 60–62). On one occasion, a

student, an alumni, and I spent about an hour researching the relative value of cattle in modern dollars

to see if medieval law codes that required people to pay fines in cows were comparable to modern

fines.

Being the advisor of SAGC has given me the opportunity to form close friendships with many students

and alumni outside of the classroom, and these relationships have motivated me to develop a stronger

advocacy for students wherever possible on campus. After seeing three students who I respect have

negative experiences with our Student Code of Conduct process, I took a very active role in examining

this policy when it came up for review by the Policy Committee. I wanted to make sure that faculty and

staff were protected, but also that the Code of Conduct could not be used capriciously or retributively

against students. Not only did I share my concerns with all faculty, but I also worked closely with the

student member of the Policy Committee to make sure that student concerns were heard and given due

consideration.

Service to Profession

The Heroic Age In 2004, I presented a paper at the International Medieval Congress at the University of Leeds in the

United Kingdom. The conference is conducted completely on the university campus: conferees stay in

the dorms (which are luxurious by US standards) and eat in the cafeteria (the dorms may be awesome,

but cafeteria food is apparently the same the world over . . .). During one breakfast, another conferee,

Dr. Larry Swain, joined me at my table. I had met Dr. Swain in 2001 at another conference when he

chaired the panel where I presented my paper. I was rather shocked, thrilled, and honored when he

asked me if I would be interested in joining the editorial board of The Heroic Age: A Journal of Early

Medieval Northwestern Europe (Appendix O: Letter from Dr. Larry J. Swain on p. 63). The Heroic Age

(http://www.heroicage.org/) is one of the oldest online journals, founded in 1998, and is a fully peer-

reviewed academic journal. By 2004, the journal had a strong reputation as a quality publication among

early medievalists in literature, and the board was looking to expand their articles from historians and

archaeologists. I quickly learned that while there were many people on the board, there were only a few

people doing the lion’s share of the work, and I quickly rolled up my sleeves to pitch in. I initially

volunteered to take over the HTML coding responsibilities, as I had been dabbling in HTML since serving

as a TA in graduate school (at that time, there were no strong content management systems like D2L

and Blackboard, so those of us who wanted to use the internet as a teaching aid had to code everything

manually). Within a year, I was promoted to Webmaster of the journal, and was responsible for

completely overhauling the website, developing cross-browser code that was compliant with disability

accessibility requirements, and would look good on “normal”-sized monitors, as well as the wide-screen

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monitors and hand-held devices that were becoming increasingly popular (see Appendix P: Screen Shot

of The Heroic Age, Issue 8 on p. 63).

In 2010, I was promoted to Co-Editor-In Chief, sharing the responsibility for running the journal with Dr.

Larry Swain. Dr. Swain oversees the process of receiving and reviewing manuscripts for publication, and I

oversee the process from approval through publication, which includes initial editing of the manuscripts

to meet our style, coding them into HTML, obtaining author approval of the initial proof, and supervising

the final copy-edit phase. At this time, we are entering the production phase for Issue 16, and I am in

the process of overhauling our system to streamline the author-proof and copy-edit phases, which are

currently two of the major bottlenecks. One would think that online publishing would be more agile and

responsive than the traditional academic journal. The reality is that we face the same bottlenecks, and

since we do not charge a subscription fee, all our work, including mine, is performed by volunteers who

want to give back to the profession.

World History Association In June of 2013, North Hennepin Community College hosted the 22nd Annual World History Association

Conference. My colleague in the History Department, Paul Jentz and I spent a significant amount of time

planning, coordinating, and performing all the tasks necessary to host a conference that attracted over

200 conferees from all parts of the globe. Paul took the lead in the pre-conference arrangements, and I

focused the majority of my efforts on operations during the actual days of conference. In addition to

helping to check-in all the conferees, I provided basic tech support for presenters, coordinated the local

volunteers, and generally served as the local point person to ensure a smooth and enjoyable experience

for the conferees. I also had the opportunity to conduct a roundtable presentation on “The

Merovingians in World History.” The WHA put a brief summary of the conference on their website that

states, “Attendees were treated to genuine Mid-West hospitality, superb tech support, and a very

professional local arrangements committee” (http://www.thewha.org/events/past/).

We were very proud to be the first community college to host the WHA, and soon after the conference,

Paul and I started working on a proposal to bring the WHA headquarters to NHCC. We would like to

develop a partnership to better serve the needs of the WHA, our students, and the community. One of

our ideas is to develop an internship program that could provide our students with direct experience

working with a non-profit agency and would provide much-needed support for the WHA. If our efforts

prove successful, we see this partnership as a concrete way to meet the core commitments of the

MnSCU system as articulated in “Charting the Future” (http://www.mnscu.edu/chartingthefuture/).

Service to Institution/System

Service & Committee Work When I first started at North Hennepin Community College, I had the great fortune to have three

wonderful mentors: John Robertson (Psychology), Bruce Lebus (Philosophy), and Heidi Farah (English).

John Robertson taught me the importance of being involved in campus life, to carefully watch campus

initiatives, and to question the impetus behind them. He taught me that sometimes it is best to fight for

one’s principles, and sometimes it is best to work toward compromise. Most of all, he taught me that

even though one person cannot change everything, one person can make a difference. While I was

adjusting to the reality of a heavy teaching load, Bruce Lebus offered support and encouraged me to

continue my research. Through him, I learned that I can balance teaching and scholarship, and he helped

to reaffirm my initial belief that good teachers also have to be good scholars. Heidi Farah is perhaps the

http://www.thewha.org/events/past/

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most devoted and caring teacher at NHCC. Her heart is for the students, particularly our most fragile and

at-risk population. She is my inspiration for nurturing relationships with my students. Although none of

these individuals ever directly said to me, “you should serve on campus committees,” they were the

ones who inspired me to do so.

I serve on college committees for the same reason that I teach: I want to make a difference. I watched

teachers like Heidi quite literally damage their health in their efforts to help their students. At the same

time, I was confronted by the assumption in the general population that teachers are under-worked and

over-paid. I saw a fundamental disconnect in the way some administrators perceived faculty and my

experience as a faculty member. So I started to work within the system to bridge this disconnect and

change the system. I ran for an at-large position on the Shared Governance Council. I started serving on

campus committees. As can be seen by the list of my committee work and service on my CV (see pp. 18–

20), my involvement on campus has continually increased. I have taken an active role in the Faculty

Association at NHCC, which also led to increased involvement in MSCF at the state-level. In addition to

serving on two state-level committees, I also ran for Vice President of Liberal Arts in 2010. Although I did

not win this election, I am proud of the campaign I ran, and I am even more proud of the fact that many

ideas on my platform (see Appendix Q: MSCF Vice President of Liberal Arts Campaign on p. 66) were

very much in evidence among the initiatives that came out of MSCF the following year. I am a firm

believer that it is better to take action rather than sit passively and complain.

Over the years that I have been at NHCC and served on various committees, I have watched the

atmosphere on campus change from one of general distrust to one that is more open and transparent. It

is incredibly gratifying to know that I have helped contribute to this transformation. Of all the

committees I have served on, the one that I value most is the Policy Committee. This committee was

initially started by our Vice President of Student Affairs, Landon Pirius. He wanted to create a process for

developing and reviewing campus policies that was fair, transparent, and actively solicited input from all

constituents on campus. The committee has representatives from administration, faculty, students, and

each of the staff contractual bargaining units (MAPE, AFSCME, and MMA). We each serve to represent

the views of our constituents, but we also work together to craft policies that can work for the entire

campus. Each semester, we spend hours drafting and discussing policies, and attempting to find

common ground. In my opinion, this process represents the concept of shared governance at its best.

As a historian, I believe quite firmly that we must be respectful of our sources: we must cite our sources

accurately, honoring the intent and context of our citations; we must develop ideas that account for all

sources; we cannot ignore sources that do not support our arguments. If these standards are near and

dear to the hearts of academics, then they should be consistently applied across campus, whether in

academic or administrative departments. I have developed a reputation at NHCC as being the person

who will always ask for supporting documentation. For example, in 2011, faculty were told that a recent

Financial Aid audit found that NHCC had not properly followed federal law because some faculty had not

reported Last Date of Attendance (LDA). LDA had been a point of contention on our campus, because

administrators were asking faculty to report LDA sooner than many faculty felt they were able to make

an accurate determination of student attendance. I requested a copy of the audit. It took several

requests over a series of months before my request was honored. When I finally read the audit, I

discovered that the audit stated that NHCC had failed to return funds, not that faculty had failed to

report LDAs. I shared my findings with other faculty, and when a memo was sent to all faculty, repeating

the claim that faculty had put NHCC qualification for financial aid funds at risk, I drafted a response (see


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Appendix R: Response to Draft of LDA Memo dated 9-17-12 on p. 67) that I sent to administration. It

took some time and effort, and a couple of false starts, but as a result of my efforts, Landon Pirius and I

were charged by our Shared Governance Council to develop a policy on LDA reporting that addressed

the federal requirements as well as faculty concerns.

History of NHCC NHCC celebrated its fortieth anniversary as a year-long event during the 2006–2007 academic year.

While attending one of the brainstorming meetings, I suggested, tongue-in-cheek, that we teach a

course on the history of the college. Anita Olson, who was our Vice-President of Academic Affairs at the

time, encouraged me to pursue this idea. The more I thought about it, the more I saw numerous

possibilities. Instead of creating a course where I researched and shared the history of the college with

students, I decided that I wanted to create a research methods class that used the college and its

archival material as the subject matter. Since the college was introducing and expanding service learning

at the time, I worked with Troy Nellis, our Director of Service Learning, to brainstorm strategies to

incorporate service learning into the course. Thanks to his connections, we were able to develop a

partnership with the Hennepin History Museum. The museum agreed to allow my students to develop

and install a display featuring the history of North Hennepin Community College, which ran from May

through June of 2007 (see Appendix S: History of NHCC Museum Display on p. 69). I offered the course

as a special topics class and had eight students, each of whom chose an aspect of the college to

research. I still remember our first excursion through the college archives. Each student chose a random

box of archival materials to look through. Two of the most memorable finds that day included the

original letter of application from Dr. John F. Helling, who served as president of North Hennepin from

1967 through 1990, and a postcard advertising a theater production from the 1970s. My students

quickly noted that apparently “air conditioned theater” was considered a major selling point, as it was

more prominent on the postcard than the description of the theater production! By the end of the

semester, my students had each developed their own research papers, spent several hours of their time

building and installing displays, and designing an introductory display that tied the exhibit together.

They not only produced original scholarship, they had the opportunity to translate that scholarship for

lay consumption.

The History of NHCC course has morphed into the History Department’s capstone course, Applied

History. This course requires students to develop an original research paper using original primary

source documents. Most students choose to use the NHCC archival material for their research, and each

student is required to spend a portion of the class actually cataloguing what we have in our archives.

Originally, I had students create finding aids as Word documents that I saved on a hard drive. A few

years ago, I started migrating our efforts to a Wiki (http://nhccarchive.wikia.com/). After seven years,

we have still just barely scratched the surface of the work.

Service is an integral part of my teaching. Through service, I help create an environment that is more

conducive to student learning and retention, whether it is through the creation of better policies,

working to develop an Honors Program that meets our students’ needs, or working towards a more

transparent and respectful campus environment for all students and employees. Through service, I

become a better teacher by interacting with my peers and continually honing my skills as a scholar.

Through service, I help to create the work environment that makes an extraordinary education possible.

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Curriculum Vitae: Deanna D. Forsman, Ph. D.

North Hennepin Community College

7411 85th Avenue N. | Brooklyn Park, MN 55445 | (763) 488–0405 | [email protected]

Education

PhD, Medieval European History, UCLA June 2002

Dissertation Title: England and Northern Frankia, 5th – 7th Centuries: Implications of Cross-

Channel Contact; Dissertation Advisor: Dr. Richard Rouse

Minor Fields: Late Antiquity (supervisor: Dr. Claudia Rapp); History of Women (supervisor: Dr. Kathryn Norberg); Old English (supervisor: Dr. Eric Jager)

MA Medieval European History, UCLA June 1997

BA Psychology and History, UCLA, September 1994, Magna Cum Laude

Teaching Experience

Faculty, North Hennepin Community College, History Department, Fall 2002, Fall 2003–Present

Responsibilities: Teach 3–5 courses per semester, design and develop online courses (using

WebCT and Desire2Learn platforms), develop new courses (World Civilization, Medieval West,

Applied History, History and Popular Culture, Ancient West)

Courses Taught: History 1010, History of World Civilization pre 1500; History 1020, History of

World Civilization post 1500; History 1110, History of Western Civilization pre 1550; History

1120, History of Western Civilization post 1550; History 1130, History of the Medieval West;

History 1140, History of the Ancient West; History 1200, History of the United States Through

1877; History 1990, Special Topics—History of NHCC; History 2700, History and Popular Culture;

History 2900, Applied History; HSEM 1990, Special Topics—History of Christmas

Teaching Assistant/Associate, UCLA History Department

Responsibilities: Lead discussion sections, conduct lecture reviews, grade student assignments

Courses Taught: History 194B, Religious Environment of the Early Christians, Spring 2000 (with

Dr. Scott Bartchy); History 117B, Rome from Augustus to Constantine, Winter 2000 (with Dr.

Ronald Mellor); History 117A, Rome from Origins to the Death of Caesar, Fall 1999 (with Dr.

Ronald Mellor); History 1B, Western Civilization, 1000–1648, Spring 1999 (with Dr. Kathryn

Norberg); History 4, World Religion, Winter 1999 (with Dr. Scott Bartchy); History 11A, China to

1000 AD, Fall 1998 (with Dr. Richard von Glahn); History 21, World Civilization, 600-1700, Winter

1998 (with Dr. Geoffrey Symcox)

Academic Service

North Hennepin Community College Committee Work:

Co-Chair, Joint Shared Governance/AASC Taskforce on Class Size (2014)

Policy Committee (2012–present)

Web Advisory Committee (2011–present)


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Honors Committee (2008–present)

Institutional Review Board (2008–present)

Department of Social Sciences Coordinator (2006–present)

Sharepoint COP Committee (2009–2011)

AASC Policies and Procedures Sub-Committee (2009–2010)

Student Success Day Committee (2009)

AASC Intensive Writing Task Force (2006–2007)

Hiring Task Force (2006–2007)

Information Technology Advisory Team (2007)

Learner Outcomes Assessment Writing Sub-Committee (2003–2004)

Minnesota State College Faculty Committee Work:

Meet and Confer Committee (2009–present)

Academic Affairs Committee (2010–present)

Education Minnesota/MSCF Higher Ed/K-12 Advisory Committee (2011–present)

North Hennepin Community College Faculty Association

Grievance Representative (2009–2010, 2013–present)

Shared Governance At Large Member (2006–2007, 2011–present)

Delegate to the Minnesota State College Faculty Delegate Assembly (2008, 2011–2014)

Faculty Association Vice President (2007–2009)

Other Service

The Heroic Age: A Journal of Early Medieval Northwestern Europe (www.heroicage.org)

Co-Editor In Chief (2010–present)

Webmaster (2005–present)

Editorial Board (2004–present)

NHCC Faculty Lecture Series

Creator & Organizer (2011–present)

22nd Annual World History Association Conference (held at North Hennepin Community College)

Local Arrangements Committee

Society for Late Antiquity

Newsletter Editor & Member of the Governing Board (2009–2011)

5th Annual UCLA Graduate Student Conference on Late Antiquity, April 15, 2000

Program Committee

NHCC Student Life: Advisor to the Student Anime & Game Club (2010–present)

Community Service: Girl Scouts

Northern Lights Service Unit Volunteer (2002–2011) o Service Unit Fast Track Coach (2009–2011) o Service Unit Manager (2006–2009)


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o Service Unit Registrar (2003–2006) o Encampment Coordinator (2002–2006)

Troop Leader (2001–2009)

Other

NHCC Excellence in Education Award (2013)

NHCC Faculty Association Educator of the Year (2010)

AHA Member Spotlight Featured Historian (November 13, 2013):

http://blog.historians.org/2013/11/aha-member-spotlight-deanna-forsman/

Textbook Reviews

Crossroads and Cultures: A History of the World, Draft Chapters 1, 2, 11, 17, 18, 25, and 26. Bedford/St. Martins, 2011. Reviewed May 2005.

Bentley, Jerry H., Herbert F. Ziegler, and Heather E. Streets. Traditions & Encounters: A Brief Global History. McGraw Hill, 2006. Reviewed March 2005.

Professional Papers

Merovingians in World History. World History Association 22nd Annual Conference, North Hennepin

Community College, Brooklyn Park, MN. June 26–29, 2013

Becoming Barbarian: An Examination of Stilicho in Fifth-Century Latin Sources. 47th International

Congress of Medieval Studies, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, MI. May 10–13, 2012

Foreigner, Missionary, or Wandering Ascetic? The Transformation and Appropriation of ‘Peregrinus’ in

the Latin West. 36th Annual Meeting of the Southeastern Medieval Association, Virginia Tech, Roanoke,

VA. November 18–20, 2010

“Disgusted with his Foreign Speech”: Shifting Situational Identity in the Early Middle Ages. 44th

International Congress of Medieval Studies, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, MI. May 7–10,

2009

Converting the Frankish Pagani: An Examination of Sixth-Century British Peregrini. 43rd International

Congress of Medieval Studies, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, MI. May 8–11, 2008

Bede, Bertha, and the Frankish Contribution to the Conversion of the English. 42nd International Congress of Medieval Studies, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, MI. May 10–13, 2007

Re-roofing Ferrières: Anglo-Saxon Patronage of Frankish Monasteries in the Ninth Century. 41st International Congress of Medieval Studies, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, MI. May 3–7, 2006

An Early Volte-Face of the Papacy? The Role of the Merovingians in the Three Chapters Dispute. Thirtieth Annual Byzantine Studies Conference, Baltimore, MD. October 28–31, 2004

Ebroin and the Anglo-Saxons. International Medieval Congress, University of Leeds, Leeds, U. K. July 12–15, 2004

The Quest for Immunity: Renegotiating Social Networks in Late Merovingian Gaul. 39th International Congress on Medieval Studies, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, MI. May 6–9, 2004


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Childebertus Rex: Slayer of Innocents or Friend of Saints? 38th International Congress on Medieval Studies, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, MI. May 7–11, 2003

Swearing False Oaths: The Identity of 'Agilbert' in the Chronicle of Fredegar Continuation 3. 37th International Congress on Medieval Studies, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, MI. May 2–5, 2002

An Appeal to Rome: Anglo-Saxon Dispute Settlement, 800–810. 36th International Congress on Medieval Studies, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, MI. May 3–6, 2001

Merovingian Factional Politics and the Archbishop of Canterbury: Cross-Channel Relations in the Mid-seventh Century. University of California Medieval History Seminar, Huntington Library, San Marino, CA. October 28, 2000

An Empire Fragmented? Breaking Down the Myth of English Isolation in the Seventh Century. 3rd Annual UCLA Graduate Student Conference on Late Antiquity. April 4, 1998

Constantine and His Sons: Politics and Family in Late Antiquity. UCLA Graduate Student Conference on

Late Antiquity II. April 19, 1997

Publications

Review of Hyun Jin Kim, The Huns, Rome and the Birth of Europe in Journal of Late Antiquity

(forthcoming).

Editor, Issue 15 of The Heroic Age: A Journal of Early Medieval Northwestern Europe, October 2012.

Author of eighteen articles in Christopher A. Snyder, Early Peoples of Britain and Ireland: An

Encyclopedia, 2008.

Bertha, Burghal Hidage, Dorchester, Dyrham, Eddington, Eddius Stephanus, Egbert I, Egbert II, Egbert of Wessex, Eorl, Hatfield, Hilda, Ine, Kent, Oswald, Penda, Raedwald, Wilfrid

Co-Editor, Issue 10 of The Heroic Age: A Journal of Early Medieval Northwestern Europe, January 2007.

“Swearing False Oaths: The Identity of ‘Aglibert’ in the Chronicle of Fredegar Continuation 3.” Medieval Prosopography 24 (2003).

“An Appeal to Rome: Anglo-Saxon Dispute Settlement, 800–810.” The Heroic Age: A Journal of Early Medieval Northwestern Europe 6 (2003).

Review of Gerd Althoff, Johannes Fried and Patrick Geary, eds, Medieval Concepts of the Past: Ritual, Memory, Historiography in Arthuriana 13 (2003).

Review of George Henderson, Vision and Image in Early Christian England in Comitatus 31 (2000).

Professional Membership

Medieval Academy of America, 2000–present

American Historical Association, 2000–present

Society for Late Antiquity, 2001–2011

Byzantine Studies Conference, 2001 and 2003–2004

Southeastern Medieval Association, 2010–2011

American Society of Irish Medieval Studies, 2012–present

World History Association, 2013–present


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Appendix A: Professional Development Report 12–13 Academic Year The original report contained brief summaries of each of the texts that I read, commentary on the parts

that were most useful for my teaching, and assessments of the authors’ arguments. These comments

have been omitted below for the sake of brevity. The numbers in square brackets refer to the courses I

teach.

Reading in Field (Classroom Related) Kelly, Joseph F. 2004. The Origins of Christmas. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press. [1990]

Nissenbaum, Stephen. 1996. The Battle for Christmas. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. [1990]

Restad, Penne L. 1995. Christmas in America: a history. Oxford: Oxford University Press. [1990]

Frank Lambert. 1995. “The First Great Awakening: Whose Interpretive Fiction?” The New England

Quarterly 68:650–569. [1200]

Robert Rossel. 1970. “The Great Awakening: An Historical Analysis.” American Journal of Sociology 75:

907–925. [1200]

Bernard Bailyn. 1962. “Political Experience and Enlightenment Ideas in Eighteenth-Century America.”

American Historical Review 67:339–351. [1200]

D. H. Meyer. 1976. “The Uniqueness of the American Enlightenment.” American Quarterly 28:165–186.

[1200]

Joseph Ellis. 1976. “Habits of Mind and an American Enlightenment.” American Quarterly 28:150–164.

[1200]

Nancy Shoemaker. 1999. “An Alliance between Men: Gender Metaphors in Eighteenth-Century

American Indian Diplomacy East of the Mississippi.” Ethnohistory 46:239–263. [1200]

Richard P. McCormick. 1993. “The ‘Ordinance’ of 1784?” The William and Mary Quarterly 50:112–122.

[1200]

Reginald Horsman. 1961. “American Indian Policy in the Old Northwest, 1783–1812.” The William and

Mary Quarterly. 18:35–53. [1200]

Lawrence A. Peskin. 2002. “How the Republicans Learned to Love Manufacturing: The First Parties and

the ‘New Economy.’” Journal of the Early Republic 22:235–262. [1200]

Halford L. Hoskins. 1927. “The Hispanic American Policy of Henry Clay, 1816–1828.” The Hispanic


Mark T. Gilderhus. 2006. “The Monroe Doctrine: Meanings and Implications.” Presidential Studies

Quarterly 36:5–16. [1200]

Burton W. Folsom II. 1973. “Party Formation and Development in Jacksonian America: The Old South.”

Journal of American Studies 7:217–229. [1200]

Major L. Wilson. 1992. “Conflict or Consensus?” Journal of the Early Republic 12:458–464. [1200]


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Marc W. Kruman. 1992. “The Second American Party System and the Transformation of Revolutionary

Republicanism.” Journal of the Early Republic 12:509–537. [1200]

Robert O. Rupp. 1988. “Parties and the Political Good: Political Antimasonry in New York Reconsidered.”

Journal of the Early Republic 8:253–279. [1200]

Richard P. McCormick. 1990. “The Jacksonian Strategy.” Journal of the Early Republic 10:1–17. [1200]

Ann-Marie Weis. 1998. “The Murderous Mother and the Solicitous Father: Violence, Jacksonian Family

Values, and Hannah Duston’s Captivity.” American Studies International 36:46–65. [1200]

Sylvia Neely. 1999. “Mason Locke Weems’s ‘Life of George Washington’ and the Myth of Braddock’s

Defeat.” The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 107:45–72. [1200]

Marshall W. Fishwick. 1951. “Virginians on Olympus. IV. George Washington: America’s First Demigod.”

The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 59:51–71. [1200]

John P. Larner. 1993. “North American Hero? Christopher Columbus 1702–2002.” Proceedings of the

American Philosophical Society 137:46–63. [1200]

Robert J. Scholnick. 2005. “Extermination and Democracy: O’Sullivan, the Democratic Review, and

Empire, 1837–1840.” American Periodicals 15:123–141. [1200]

Andreas Reichstein. 1989. “Was there a Revolution in Texas in 1835–36?” American Studies

International 27:66–86. [1200]

Michael Morris. 2007. “Georgia and the Conversation over Indian Removal.” The Georgia Historical

Quarterly 91:403–423. [1200]

David Herlihy. 1973. “Three Patterns of Social Mobility in Medieval History.” The Journal of

Interdisciplinary History 3:623–647. [1130]

C. Warren Hollister. 1960. “The Significance of Scutage Rates in Eleventh- and Twelfth-Century England.”

The English Historical Review 75:577–588. [1130]

James H. Moorhead. 1984. “Between Progress and Apocalypse: A Reassessment of Millennialism in

American Religious Thought, 1800–1880.” The Journal of American History 71:524–542. [1200]

Myra C. Glenn. 1981. “School Discipline and Punishment in Antebellum America.” Journal of the Early

Republic 4:395–408. [1200]

Edward Pessen. 1980. “How Different from Each Other Were the Antebellum North and South?” The


Ronald J. Zboray. 1991. “Reading Patterns in Antebellum America: Evidence in the Charge Records of the

New York Society Library.” Libraries & Culture 26:301–333. [1200]

Daniel A. Cohen. 1996. “Miss Reed and the Superiors: The Contradictions of Convent Life in Antebellum

America.” Journal of Social History 30:149–184. [1200]

Michael McCormick. 2003. “Rats, Communications, and Plague: Toward an Ecological History.” The

Journal of Interdisciplinary History 34:1–25. [1130]


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Daniel Wirls. 2007. “‘The Only Mode of Avoiding Everlasting Debate’: The Overlooked Senate Gag Rule

for Antislavery Petitions.” Journal of the Early Republic 27:115–138. [1200]

Gautham Rao. 2008. “The Federal ‘Posse Comitatus’ Doctrine: Slavery, Compulsion, and statecraft in

Mid-Nineteenth-Century America.” Law and History Review 26:1–56. [1200]

Gary J. Kornblith. 2003. “Rethinking the Coming of the Civil War: A Counterfactual Exercise.” The Journal

of American History 90:76–105. [1200]

Robert E. May. 1991. “Young American Males and Filibustering in the Age of Manifest Destiny: The

United States Army as a Cultural Mirror.” The Journal of American History 78:857–886. [1200]

Speros Vryonis, Jr. 1970. “The Byzantine Legacy and Ottoman Forms.” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 23/24:

251–308. [1130]

Molly Greene. 2005. “The Ottoman Experience.” Daedalus 134:88–99. [1130]

Gregory L. Possehl. 1997. “The Transformation of the Indus Civilization.” Journal of World Prehistory

11:425–472. [1010]

Simo Parpola, Asko Parpola & Robert H. Brunswig, Jr. 1977. “The Meluhha Village: Evidence of

Acculturation of Harappan Traders in later Third Millennium Mesopotamia?” Journal of the Economic

and Social History of the Orient 20:129–165. [1010]

Elisabeth C. L. During Caspers. 1979. “Sumer, Coastal Arabia and the Indus Valley in Protoliterate and

Early Dynastic Eras: Supporting Evidence for a Cultural Linkage.” Journal of the Economic and Social

History of the Orient. 22:121–135. [1010]

E. C. L. During Caspers. 1991. “The Indus Valley ‘Unicorn’: A Near Eastern Connection?” Journal of the

Economic and Social History of the Orient. 34:312–350. [1010]

Mario Liverani. 2000. “The Great Powers’ Club.” In Amarna Diplomacy, eds. Raymond Cohen and

Raymond Westbrook. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. [1010, 1140]

Rodolfo Ragionieri. 2000. “The Amarna Age: An International Society in the Making.” In Amarna

Diplomacy, eds. Raymond Cohen and Raymond Westbrook. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

[1010, 1140]

Hilde Eliassen Restad. 2012. “Old Paradigms in History Die Hard in Political Science: US Foreign Policy

and American Exceptionalism.” American Political Thought 1:53–76. [1200]

Thomas R. Trautmann and Carla M. Sinopoli. 2002. “In the Beginning Was the Word: Excavating the

Relations between History and Archaeology in South Asia.” Journal of the Economic and Social History of

the Orient 45:492–523. [1010]

H. G. Creel. 1965. “The Role of the Horse in Chinese History.” The American Historical Review 70:647–

672. [1010]

David Christian. 2000. “Silk Roads or Steppe Roads? The Silk Roads in World History.” Journal of World

History 11:1–26. [1010]


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Paul E. Chevedden. 2000. “The Invention of the Counterweight Trebuchet: A Study in Cultural Diffusion.”

Dumbarton Oaks Papers 54:71–116. [1110, 1140, 2700]

William G. Crowell. 1983. “Social Unrest and Rebellion in Jiangnan during the Six Dynasties.” Modern

China 9:319–354. [1010]

Burke, E. (2009). "Islam at the Center: Technological Complexes and the Roots of Modernity." Journal of

World History 20(2):165–186. [1010]

Wright, L. E. and C. D. White (1996). "Human Biology in the Classic Maya Collapse: Evidence from

Paleopathology and Paleodiet." Journal of World Prehistory 10(2): 147-198. [1010]

Gorden R. Willey. 1990. “Ancient Maya Politics.” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society

134:1–9. [1010]

Victoria R. Bricker. 1995. “Advances in Maya Epigraphy.” Annual Review of Anthropology 24:215–235.

[1010]

Amanda H. Podany. 2010. Brotherhood of Kings: How International Relationships Shaped the Ancient

Near East. Oxford: Oxford University Press. [1010, 1110, 1140]

Alan E. Samuel. 1988. “Philip and Alexander as Kings: Macedonian Monarchy and Merovingian

Parallels.” American Historical Review 93:1270–1286. [1140]

Richard Miles. 2010. Carthage Must Be Destroyed: The Rise and Fall of an Ancient Civilization. New York:

Viking. [1140, 1110]

Reading in Field (non-Classroom related) Erik Goosmann. 2012. “The Long-haired Kings of the Franks: ‘Like So Many Samsons?’” Early Medieval

Europe 20:223–259.

Claire Sotinel. 2007. “The Three Chapters and the Transformations of Italy.” In The Crisis of the

Oikoumene, eds. Celia Chazelle and Catherine Cubitt. Turnhout: Brepols.

George E. Democopoulos. 2013. The Invention of Peter: Apostolic Discourse and Papal Authority in Late

Antiquity. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.


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Appendix B: US History Extra Credit Exam Question Students were asked the following question for extra credit on their final exam:

During the second half of this course, I went on a quest for information. For extra credit,

write an essay that answers the following:

A brief description of my quest, describing the information I was looking for, and what I found,

both along the way and at the conclusion of my quest.

What you learned about the historical process as I shared the results of my quest.

Whether it was worth spending class time on this quest. Briefly explain your answer.

Sample of Student Responses (unedited from original responses) I believe that it was worth the time spent in class talking about it because it gave the class a look into

how historians come up with their conclusions about the past. By you digging into the question further

may unlock some unknown information about this topic which could spark ideas for other historians to

follow up on. Understanding the past is like a puzzle with everyone contributing their own idea. Because

we will never know if the cherry tree incident or for that fact may stories from the past, the best we can

do is better understand the time period do decipher if your hypothesis is correct.

I believe that it was worth spending class time on this quest. Instead of just learning about history with

only the information provided to us, we were able to catch a small glimpse of the historical process in

action.

I do think it was worth spending time in class, because I thought it was interesting how everything you

read just assumed that Weems was a fraud, and didn't have any evidence to support it, yet many believe

it to be true. It's kind of ironic.

I learned that when studying history one must keep an open mind. Just because something is assumed

to be correct does not mean it is. I also learned that there are many, many different avenues for

research on any given topic and that to find the true answer, one must be ready to muck through a lot

of papers to arrange the pieces in a way that makes sense. Contrary to what I previously thought,

Revisionist History is a good thing; it means that old assumptions are being corrected as new and better

data is uncovered and studied.

I thought it was worth every minute you spent on it. It think it gives you credibility as a teacher that 1,

you genuinly love what you teach and care about expanding your knowledge and 2, that you are humble

enough and concerned enough about the truth to admit to not always knowing the correct answer. Plus,

it was just interesting. Every one loves to hear dirt about popular historical figures. I though it was a fun

adventure and an interactive example of what studying history should be.

What I learned about the historical process is that you can't just go look for the answer. You have to

look not only at the facts but also the accounts of the people that were in that time period. You also

have to look at the credibility of authors because not everything written in history is necessarily true. I

believe it was a quest worth investigating. I learned a lot about how you came to your conclusion. It was

very interesting to find out that a piece of history that everyone associated as a true such as

Washington's cutting down the cherry tree could in fact be false based on the historical evidence

provided.


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Appendix C: “History is Her Story” From: NHCC: North Hennepin Community College Magazine, Spring 2011.


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Appendix D: Sample PowerPoints

History 1010—History of World Civilization pre 1500


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History 1020—History of World Civilization, 1500 to present


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History 1110—History of Western Civilization pre 1550


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History 1120—History of Western Civilization, 1550 to Present


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History 1130—Medieval West


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History 1140—Ancient West


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History 1200—United States History to 1877


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History 2700—History and Popular Culture


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Appendix E: Assignments

Primary Source Observations (PSO) For most assigned primary sources, students are required to turn in a list of four simple observations.

The list of required sources is determined by the available “PSO” quizzes in the Quiz section of D2L. As a

general rule, if the document is assigned for group work, it is not necessary to complete observations for

that particular document. Observations are described in more detail under “Supporting Evidence” in the

guide to “Historical Arguments” posted on D2L. Observations must be in students’ own words (DO NOT

copy and paste lines from the sources), and are not to be based on the Introductory text or Instructor’s

Notes. Observations must be described in complete sentences.

Purpose: The purpose of this assignment is to help the student develop the skills to use primary source

documents to learn about the past.

Grading: I will grade according to the following rubric:

1 point: For each observation (max 4 points)

.5 point deduction: For each spelling/grammar error/use of slang

In-Class Group Work Class-time will be devoted to group work on the days indicated on the Syllabus. Group work may occur

at the beginning, in the middle, or at the end of the class period, depending on material I feel should be

covered before the group-work. Documents that will be used for group work will be available on D2L.

Students should always bring a copy of the assigned readings to class on group-work days. Each group

will be responsible for answering a series of questions based on the assigned documents. This task will

be much easier if students have a copy of the documents in front of them.

The week before group work is scheduled on the Syllabus, a multiple-choice open-note reading quiz will

be available on D2L. This reading quiz is optional. The score each student receives on the reading quiz is

used only to sort students into groups. Students who score well on the reading quiz will be grouped with

other students who scored well on the quiz. Students who do not take the reading quiz will be grouped

with other students who did not take the quiz. Your performance on the reading quiz (or lack thereof)

has no bearing on your grade. The reading quiz system is designed to facilitate the group-work

experience.

Bottom line: If you care about being grouped with other people who are prepared, take the reading

quiz. If you do not care, there is no reason to take the reading quiz.

Purpose: The purpose of this assignment is to help the student develop the skills required to think as a

historian and to organize and think critically about course material.

Submission & Grading: Groups will turn in a single write-up answering the questions, due at the end of

the group-work session. All members of the group will receive the same grade. Group-work grades will

be posted on D2L. If you have any questions about your group grade, please arrange to see me in office

hours. Group write-ups will not be returned.

I will grade according to the following rubric:

1-3 – Incomplete group work


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3.5 – Provides a basic answer to all of the questions

4 – Provides a basic answer to all of the questions with specific examples from relevant sources

to support the interpretation of “open-ended” questions

4.5+ – Provides a basic answer to all of the questions with specific examples from relevant

sources to support the interpretation of “open-ended” questions; makes historical connections

Note well:

Any student who leaves in the middle of Group Work will receive no points for the assignment.

At the instructor’s discretion, points may be taken away from students who do not contribute to

the group answer.

Spelling and grammar errors will not result in point reduction

Quizzes Each day that we have lecture, one or more terms will be highlighted on the slides (*sample key term*).

For each key term, I will provide a definition (the “what”), locate the term in time and space (the “when”

and “where”), and explain why I think the term is important enough for students to remember (the

“why”). Students are responsible for maintaining their own list of key terms. I do not share my list.

Please note that although I do post the lecture slides on D2L, key terms are not highlighted on those

slides. On the day of the quiz, two terms will appear on the board. Students will select one of the two

terms, and provide the “what,” “when,” “where,” and “why.” Students will have five (5) minutes to

complete the quiz, which is given at the beginning of class. All quiz dates are clearly indicated on the

Syllabus. After each quiz, the list of key terms is reset—the first list of terms will not appear on Quiz 2,

etc.

Quizzes are closed note. If I see any visible notes during the quiz, your quiz will not be graded.

Although I will not quiz on earlier lists of terms, I encourage students to keep their lists through the

semester. Key terms are not just random ideas or people, but instead, they are pivotal for understanding

certain historical developments. Key terms are also an excellent example of “specific ideas from

lecture,” which can be used as evidence on group work assignments, lab reports, and exams.

Purpose: The purpose of this assignment is to provide students with distinct examples of evidence from

lecture and to help students understand how historians think about and use evidence in larger

arguments.

Grading: I will grade according to the following point system:

3 Points: Correct definition of the “what”

.5 Points: Correct definition of the “when & where”

1.5 Points: Correct definition of the “why”

Observation Essay Over the course of the semester, students must turn in a total of five Observation Essays. For each

essay, students are required to choose one of the assigned visual sources and write a brief essay that

explains how the source connects to and enhances understanding of the other sources assigned for

topic (this includes both the primary source and lecture). Essays should not be random facts or


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observations strung together. Essays should be no fewer than 150 words and are not to exceed 250

words.

Purpose: The purpose of this assignment is to help the student synthesize information from disparate

sources into a cohesive argument.

Grading: Points will be earned according to the following criteria:

2 points: Essay has a clear assertion.

1.5 points Essay uses supporting evidence from the visual source

1.5 points Essay uses supporting evidence from relevant primary source(s)

1.5 points: Essay uses supporting evidence from lecture

2 points: Essay includes analysis that demonstrates a coherent synthesis representing an

understanding of assigned materials

.5 point: Essay is between 150 and 250 words


Lab Reports Over the course of the semester, students are required to turn in a total of four Lab Reports. For each

essay, students are required to choose one of the assigned primary sources to explore in greater detail.

Students should write an essay of no fewer than 250 words, not to exceed 500 words, based on the

primary source and the other related sources. In addition to general writing expectations, the

assignment must conform to the following expectations:

Students should maintain a historical focus. Avoid making comparisons with the present, but

instead try to understand what this document tells us about the people of the past.

Students should avoid making value judgments on the past (feel free to discuss attitudes and

practices you see in the documents, but do not condemn or praise the people of the past for

having these attitudes and practices; instead, try to understand why they had these attitudes

and practices).

Lab Reports are to include all of the following sections:

Introduction

a clear indication of the document upon which the student is basing the report

a brief overview of the historical period in which the document was written

a brief overview of what we can learn about a particular civilization/historical period based on

the document

Results

a brief description of the purpose (the reason the document was written), function (what does

the author want the reader to think or do after reading the document), and any recognizable

authorial bias

three to five observations from the document (you may use your observations from the Primary

Source Observation assignment)

Discussion

Assertion (a clear and concise statement of the student’s position)


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Supporting Evidence (an explanation of how observations from the Results section connect with

the assertion)

Analysis (discussion that links the student’s assertion and evidence to what the student knows

about the historical period in which the document was written—for example, does this

argument support what is known about the period, or does it contradict what is known?).

o Stage 1 Analysis: Analysis makes a general connection between the assertion and

relevant course material

o Stage 2 Analysis: Analysis describes and justifies the connection between the assertion

and relevant course materials

o Stage 3 Analysis: Analysis demonstrates student’s ability to explore the connection

between assertion and analysis to increase understanding of the historical time period.

Analysis demonstrates student insight and creates new knowledge.

Conclusion

The implications: a brief overview of how the document adds to our knowledge of the historical

period in which it was written—what insights does it provide about the people who wrote the

document?

The applications (otherwise known as “what next?”): discuss the possible avenues for future

research. What questions did the document suggest that cannot be answered with your current

understanding? What questions did the document fail to answer that you would have liked to

have known more about? What other types of questions could the document answer?

Lab reports are not to be research papers. The assignments can (and should) be completed based solely

on assigned materials. Use of formal MLA citations or footnotes is not required, but students should

always indicate their sources.

Purpose: The purpose of this assignment is to help the student “do history” by critically analyzing

primary source documents and developing arguments based on primary source documents.

Grading: Points will be earned according to the following criteria:

1 point: Proper formatting (250–500 words, proper use of paragraphs)

1 point: Introduction includes historical overview and thesis

1 point: Results include the purpose, function, and bias of the document

1 point: Results include observations from the document

1 point: Discussion includes a clearly stated assertion

1 point: Discussion includes strong supporting evidence

1 point: Discussion demonstrates Stage 1 Analysis



1 point: Conclusion includes implications and applications of student’s argument



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Appendix F: Sample Schedules of Lectures and Readings Note that “VS” stands for “Visual Source” and “PS” stands for “Primary Source.”

History 1110—History of Western Civilization, pre 1550

Week 1

13-Jan Early Empires

VS 1—Standard of Ur

PS 1—Umma and Lagash

15-Jan Bronze Age “International System”

VS 2—Model of Hittite Defenses

PS 2—The Deeds of Suppililiuma

17-Jan Ancient Religions

VS 3—Pillar Figurine

PS 3—Book of Habakkuk

Week 2

22-Jan The Classical Age: Persia

VS 4—Apadana Audience Relief

PS 4—Behistun Inscription

24-Jan The Classical Age: Greece

VS 5—Attic Red-Figure Epinetron

PS 5—Xenophon: Economics

Week 3

27-Jan Alexander and the Hellenistic World

VS 6—Statuette of a Dancer

PS 6—Argonautica

29-Jan Rome

VS 7—Chariot Racing Scene

PS 7—Res Gestae Divi Augusti

31-Jan Hellenistic Religions & Philosophies

VS 8—Tyche of Antioch

PS 8—Dream of Scipio

Week 4

3-Feb Rise of Christianity

VS 9—Alexamenos Graffito

PS 9—The Didache

5-Feb Late Antiquity

VS 10—Portrait of the Tetrarchs

PS 10—Zosimus: New History

7-Feb Heirs of Rome: Byzantium & Islam

VS 11—Areobindus Diptych

PS 11—The Treaty of Tudmir

Week 5

10-Feb Heirs of Rome: Barbarians

VS 12—Sutton Hoo Shoulder Clasps

PS 12—Life of Eligius

12-Feb Three Romes in the Early Middle

Ages

VS 13—Sinai Icon

PS 13—Donation of Constantine

14-Feb Castles & Knights: Creating the

“Medieval Period”

VS 14—Bayeux Tapestry

PS 14—Agreement between William

and Hugh

Week 6

19-Feb Crusades

VS 15—Krak de Chevaliers

PS 15—Ibn Munqidh: Autobiography

Week 7

24-Feb High Middle Ages

VS 16—West Façade of Notre Dame

de Chartres

PS 16—Innocent III: Letters

26-Feb Late Middle Ages: Mongols & Plague

VS 17—Crusaders Besiege Antioch

PS 17—Ibn al-Athir: On the Tatars

28-Feb Late Middle Ages: Wars & Religion

VS 18—Notke: Danse Macabre

PS 18—Confession of Agnes Francou

Week 8

3-Mar Renaissance & Exploration

VS 19—Sphaera Mundi

PS 19—Columbus: Letter to the King

& Queen of Spain

5-Mar Reformation

VS 20—Satire on Popery

PS 20—Luther: Ninety-five Theses


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History 1200—United States History to 1877

Schedule of Topics & Assignments

Week 1

26-Aug Colonial America

PS 1: First Thanksgiving Proclamation

VS 1: Portrait of a Negro

28-Aug Provincial America

PS 2: Poor Richard's Advice

VS 2: 'SW' Joined Chest

30-Aug The Enlightenment in America

PS 3: Rush: Of The Mode of Education

Proper in a Republic

VS 3: Bangwell Putt Rag Doll

Week 2

4-Sep Origins of the Revolutionary War

PS 4: Anonymous Account of the Boston

Massacre

VS 4: The Repeal

6-Sep Revolutionary War

PS 5: Tabatabai: A History of Modern

Times

VS 5: Scenes from the American

Revolution

Week 3

9-Sep First Attempt at Government

PS 6: Articles of Confederation

VS 6: One Shilling

11-Sep New Territory for the New State

PS 7: Northwest Ordinance

VS 7: Portrait of Thomas Worthington

13-Sep First Party System

PS 8: Federalist No. 39

VS 8: Federal Superstructure

Week 4

16-Sep Freedom and Inequality

PS 9: A Slave to Thomas Jefferson

VS 9: Boston Massacre

18-Sep Agrarianism & Urbanism

PS 10: Journals of Lewis & Clark

VS 10: Peale: The Artist in his Museum

20-Sep Beyond the Borders of the Nation

PS 11: Letter from Poinsett to Clay

VS 11: A Boxing Match

Week 5

23-Sep Second Party System

PS 12: Jackson's Veto Message

VS 12: King Andrew the First

25-Sep American Mythmaking

PS 13: Irving: Christopher Columbus

VS 13: Trentanove: Bust of George

Washington

Week 6

30-Sep Labor, North & South

PS 14: Robinson: Lowell Mill Girls

VS 14: Cotton Machine Used to Punish

Runaway Slaves

2-Oct Western Expansion & the Reservations

PS 15: Scott: Address to the Cherokee

Nation

VS 15:Mining Life in California

4-Oct American Christian Movements

PS 16: Miller: On the Cleansing of the

Sanctuary

VS 16: Burbank: Religious Camp Meeting

Week 7

7-Oct European Immigration

PS 17: Letter from Unthank to Conville

VS 17: Doepler: A Useful Family

9-Oct US Culture in the 1840s & 1850s

PS 18: Excerpts from The Opal

VS 18:Truth Will Make You Free

11-Oct Eve of Civil War

PS 19: Crittenden: Amendments

Proposed in Congress

VS 19: Currier & Ives: Fourth of July

Week 8

14-Oct Civil War

PS 20: Howe: Battle Hymn of the Republic

VS 20: Nast: Santa Claus in Camp

16-Oct Reconstruction

PS 21: Address to the Colored People of

North Carolina

VS 21: Ku Klux Costumes in North

Carolina


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Appendix G: Sample Online Unit Overview

Witch Craze 1550–1680 Many people think of Witch Craze as a medieval phenomenon. It is true that people were executed as

witches during the Middle Ages (and earlier). However, the specific phenomenon of Witch Craze never

occurred during the medieval period. The most well-known example of Witch Craze is the Salem Witch

Trials of the early colonial period in North America. During a Witch Craze episode, a large proportion of

the community is arrested and executed as witches. The estimated number of individuals executed as

witches between 1550 and 1680 is anywhere between 50,000 and 200,000. A high percentage of these

individuals were unmarried women.

In the typical Witch Craze scenario, a woman in the community was accused of being a witch. She was

arrested and interrogated. Because the judicial standard in the early Modern period was “guilty until

proven innocent,” many of the accused were tortured until they confessed. Once an accused confessed,

the interrogation continued, requiring the woman to name her fellow-witches. After providing a list of

names, the woman was executed, while the individuals on the list were arrested, and the process was

repeated. It was the naming of others that perpetuated Witch Craze, and it is also the feature that

distinguishes Witch Craze from earlier practices.

I like to start this course with an examination of Witch Craze for two reasons: first, it is a “sexy” topic in

the popular imagination, so most students have a passing familiarity with the idea of witch hunts.

However, Witch Craze as a starting topic is also very appropriate because the phenomenon occurred

when it did because of a variety of new developments that distinguish the modern period from the

medieval.

New Beliefs about Witches As mentioned above, belief in witches dates back through the ancient period. Ancient Roman laws, for

example, viewed maleficia—literally “evil deeds”—as illegal acts. Anyone, both males and females,

could be accused of committing maleficia. One of the typical forms of ancient maleficia was the “Curse

Tablet.” A curse tablet was typically a thin lead sheet inscribed with some type of ill-wish (for example,

“I wish my neighbor would die”) that was mutilated in some fashion and buried in the ground. Common

mutilations included cutting the tablet or piercing the words with a nail. Throughout the Middle Ages,

belief in the power of maleficia persisted. By the late medieval period, people started to attribute maleficia to women. This belief was particularly strong among the Catholic Church, which viewed

women as inherently weaker to temptation.

In the late fifteenth century, a German Inquisitor (Inquisitors were responsible for ensuring adherence

to Catholic dogma among the laity) wrote a work entitled Malleus Maleficarum (literally, “Hammer of

Female Evil Deeds”). This text forcefully argued that women were primarily committing maleficia, and

also contained extensive details for identifying and prosecuting witches. Although the text was never

officially accepted within the Catholic Church, it was incredibly popular, and thanks to the then recent

invention of the printing press, disseminated widely throughout Europe. It would be a stretch to blame

the Malleus Maleficarum for Witch Craze. However, the text underpinned common assumptions about

who a witch was, how witches recruited otherwise respectable matrons and maidens, and how to rid a

community of the taint of witchcraft.


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Misogyny and Patriarchy The late medieval period was one among several periods when misogyny (hatred of women) was

widespread. Misogyny was exacerbated in Western Europe by the Catholic Church’s interpretation of

the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. According to Catholic theology, when Adam disobeyed

God and ate from the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, he allowed sin to enter the world. Because Eve was

the one who gave Adam the fruit, the ultimate vehicle for sin was viewed as the temptation of woman.

Science was thought to reinforce this theological view, since it was believed that humans were a

combination of flesh and spirit. Spirit derived from God, but flesh derived from menstrual blood—an

unclean and polluting substance. It was believed that males were comprised of a higher proportion of

spirit, whereas females were comprised of a higher proportion of flesh. Thus females were spiritually

weaker and more prone to temptation (as evidenced in the story of Adam and Eve). It was also believed

that women’s more “fleshly” quality made them sexually voracious.

These theological/scientific views were exacerbated by the Black Death (also known as Bubonic Plague).

The Black Death was an epidemic that began in the mid-fourteenth century and recurred about once a

generation through the mid-seventeenth century. On average, a population hit by plague experienced a

50% mortality rate. Plague created a number of single-parent households, and since the early modern

economy could not support single-parent households, second marriages became very common. The

trope of the “evil step-mother” dates to this time. In many European fairy tales, the evil step-mother

schemes to promote the welfare of her own children over that of her husband’s children (as

in Cinderella), or to eliminate her husband’s children (as in Snow White and Hansel and Gretel). This

view of the “evil step-mother” as untrustworthy expanded to all women. Women were viewed as

outsiders in their husbands’ families, and many men began to delay marriage. This phenomenon was

most marked in Renaissance Italy, where men typically married at the age of thirty, and females typically

married at the age of twelve.

By the early modern period, suspicion of women justified a patriarchic system. Women needed to be

under male control to prevent them from succumbing to temptation, to prevent them from harming

their husbands’ families, and to strengthen their spiritual fiber. Adult women also needed to be under

male control either to provide appropriate outlets for their voracious sexual energy (in the case of

marriage), or to suppress their sexual energy (in the case of widows and unmarried women). It was

believed that an unmarried woman’s sexual energy would run out of control, and ultimately would drive

her to engage in sexual relations with the Devil.

Demographic Change I have already discussed the demographic change due to Black Death. By the sixteenth century,

particularly in northern Europe, both males and females delayed marriage into their mid-twenties due

to the high costs of establishing a household. Both males and females traveled into the towns and spent

several years working to save money. Unfortunately for the women, living in the city as single women

made them automatic targets of suspicion, because they lacked proper male control over their lives.

Individualism Individualism is the belief that the needs of the individual are more important than the needs of the

community. Throughout the medieval period, individual needs were always subordinated to the need of

the community: this practice was crucial to the survival of communities that lived by subsistence

agriculture. As Europe became more affluent over the course of the late medieval and early modern


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periods, it was possible for an individual to amass enough wealth to survive without the community. The

Renaissance period glorified the individual (Christopher Columbus is a perfect example of a Renaissance

individual: he believed that his calculation of the circumference of the earth was correct, even though

everyone else thought it was much larger).

As ideas of individualism expanded into economic self-interest, however, they caused a great deal of

tension. For centuries, Christians had believed that charity was a virtue, and that a good Christian had an

obligation to care for widows and orphans. Economic self-interest demanded that one consider one’s

own needs before those of the widow. During this period of transition from the communal idea to the

individual ideal, many people experienced cognitive dissonance between traditional behavior (charity)

and common practice (save your money for yourself and your family). As a result of this cognitive

dissonance, individuals who did not provide charity when asked were likely to remember if the widow

who had asked for assistance had glared at them or their cow, or their young child on her way out. If the

cow subsequently sickened or died, the memory of the widow glaring at the cow could be seen as the

cause.

It is no coincidence that Witch Craze begins to die as a phenomenon at the point when Individualism

triumphs over the older communal ideal.

(It is also worth noting that the eventual reconciliation between the Christian duty to be charitable and

Individualism is to believe that “God helps those who help themselves.”)

The Reformation The Reformation was a religious movement in the early sixteenth century that resulted in the sundering

of the Catholic Church and the creation of three main branches of Protestantism: Lutheranism,

Calvinism, and the Anglican Church. Protestant reformers abhorred the corrupt nature of the late

medieval Catholic Church, and they also desired an individual relationship with God. Protestant

innovations were to eliminate the hierarchy of the Catholic Church, to establish the Bible as the ultimate

Christian authority, and to eliminate barriers between the believer and God.

Although Luther was the first to successfully break with the Catholic Church, Lutheranism was not the

most popular form of Protestantism. That distinction went to the Calvinists. Calvinists followed the

teachings of John Calvin, who placed an emphasis on the doctrine of predestination. Predestination is

the belief that God has already determined who is saved and will go to Heaven (the elect), and who is

damned and will go to Hell (everyone else). While it is impossible for an individual predestined for Hell

to ever be able to go to Heaven, it is possible for an individual predestined for Heaven to lose that

status. In Calvinist theology, the Devil is constantly trying to “undo” God’s work by tempting the elect

into sin. In other words, from the Calvinist perspective, the human soul is a battleground between God

and the Devil. A Calvinist Christian who hopes to be counted among the elect has to exercise constant

vigilance to prevent the Devil’s insidious influence.

Although incidences of Witch Craze occurred throughout all of Europe (and also in North America

through European colonists), it was far more common in Protestant countries. If a woman was accused

of being a witch in a Catholic country, the priests would be called to exorcise the community of the

Devil’s influence. However, in eliminating the clergy (i.e. the hierarchy of the Catholic Church),

Protestants also lost the “good magic” that could protect the community from diabolic influence. Thus,

Protestant communities had to use other means to be certain they had eliminated all trace of the Devil.


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Growth of the State The basic infrastructure of a well-organized state also underpins Witch Craze. Without the state, there

are no officers to arrest witches; no prisons to house the accused; no place to perform interrogations;

no magistrates to hear cases; no mechanism for systematic execution. While infrastructure is not

necessary for the ad hoc arrest of a single witch, the organization necessary to process multiple

accusations comes with the expansion of the state.

Throughout the late medieval period, kings attempted to exert their authority over the nobility, who

constituted the single greatest threat to the monarchy. Nobles had their own fortresses, their own

armies, and their own income. Thus, they had little reason to obey the king—unless it suited them to do

so. Given the independence of many the nobles, kings in the late medieval and early modern periods

increasingly relied upon salaried officials to perform the business of government. Salaried officials

served as “at-will” employees, whose continued employment stemmed from the kings’ satisfaction with

their performance of their duties. Salaried officials did not have their own armies, and they did not

expect that any authority they received from the king could be passed on to their heirs.

One of the major drawbacks to relying upon salaried employees to carry out the work of government is

the fact that they tend to not do their jobs if they do not receive their salaries. Thus, the business of

government became much more expensive in the early modern period, necessitating that the state

acquire more efficient sources of revenue. Rather than relying solely upon royal income, kings began to

tax their subjects, particularly the subjects who lived in the towns and cities. (Incidentally, one of the

results of more systematic taxation was the extension of the “last name” to the general population;

during the Middle Ages, only the nobility had last names.)

Conclusion Taking the Salem Witch trials as an example, we can see many of the above themes at work. The

majority of the individuals arrested and executed in Salem were unmarried young women and widows.

The religion in Salem was Puritan (referring to Calvinists in England who wished to purify the Anglican

Church and make it look less Catholic). The accused in Salem were arrested, interrogated, tried, and

executed by local magistrates (reflecting the expansion of state government to the local level).

However, Salem also serves as an example of how “neat” explanations for historic events do not always

hold true. For example, research has suggested that the Salem Witch trials may represent an incident of

mass ergotism. Ergot (chemically related to the drug LSD) is a fungal infection of rye that tends to occur

in cold damp years. Consumption of rye tainted with ergot can cause hallucinations, as well as a malady

known as St. Anthony’s Fire, which can lead to gangrene in the extremities and eventually death.

Another scholar observed that the accusers and accused lived in different segments of the town that

were not on good terms. This scholar suggested that tension between these two segments of the town

were exacerbated when the cry of “witch” was first raised.

Although we like to think that there are neat and tidy explanations for historical phenomenon, the more

scholars examine particular events, the more we discover how complex and messy the explanations

always are. This is one of the challenges (and delights) of working in the social sciences. We are dealing

with people, and the things that motivate people to act in certain ways are rarely neat and tidy. The

more we study a particular historical period, the more we understand the nuanced complexities of the

period.


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Appendix H: Online Student Self-Evaluations According to the Collegiate Employment Research Institute at Michigan State University, the top two

skill clusters that employers are looking for in the college graduates they hire are:

Basic Skills: writing (spelling, grammar, sentence structure, composition of letters, memos,

simple reports), oral and visual communication, summarizing ideas and relevant points clearly

and succinctly, and preparing reports.

Professionalism and Maturity: frame realistic salary and job expectations, act professionally in

relationships with management and clients, understand job demands, be able to manage time

and priorities, and accept feedback for improvement in job performance.

For 16.2, please tell me how this course helped (or did not help) you develop the skills employers

currently value according to this study.

Sample of Student Responses (unedited from original responses) This course helped with both of the skills listed above. As far as the basic skills I know that I made sure

to triple check spelling and that my papers made sense prior to uploading them because I didn't want to

get docked for something as silly as a mis-spelled word. I think that with the age of technology now and

all of the acronyms when texting that sometimes this can flow over into our professional world and is

not always acceptable.

Basic Skills: This is the final course that I will take to complete my degree. I have certainly learned about

the importance of proper spelling, sentence structure and grammar. It is something that you get sloppy

at over the years. As an Educator for nurses I definitely understand the need to present professional

lectures or modules as this increases your credibility. This course, if anything, has reinforced that

concept. It taught me to slow down and make sure that everything was in order prior to submitting.

Interpersonal skills: I feel that my knowledge base has expanded as a result of this and all classes that I

have taken over the last 2 years. The ability to understand the world in order to have thoughtful

conversations and in order to promote equality and an appreciation of cultures is important in the field

of nursing.

Basic skills: This course helps me to write clearly and forcefully. It helps me learn to write well involves

not just mastery of grammar but the development of the ability to organize my thoughts into a coherent

form. I know I am going to be graded harshly with grammars so I proofread and run through several

drafts before handing in my paper. Writing skills should require in every college student should master,

regardless of their ultimate career path. Writing skills is important to help us write a strategic plan or

create hospital protocols in my medical practice. Giving me the feedback I get on one assignment help

me improve on the next.

Professionalism and Maturity: At the beginning of the course, I can’t imagine how I am going to make it

through this summer class with tons of assignments and due dates. But throughout the course, it

teaches me about what I’m made of and how far I can really push myself as a student. It was rough

while I was doing it, but it helps me be a better student. I was disciplined and stayed organized. I get my

assignments in on time and prepare ahead of time for the next unit.


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Appendix I: In-Class Group Work

Early In-Class Exercise This assignment is taken from History 1120, Fall 2003. Students formed groups and discussed two

sources from Leeds during the Industrial Revolution. The first source was a petition from the Leeds

woolen workers, dated to 1786, describing the plight of workers whose jobs were replaced by machines.

The second was a letter from the Leeds cloth merchants, dated to 1791, describing the benefits of

industrial manufacture. The final bullet point tries to lead students to develop historical analysis.

Revised In-Class Exercise This assignment is taken from History 1120, Spring 2011. Students were required to read Johann

Gottlieb Fichte’s Addresses to the German Nation from 1806 and 1807. Students had the option to take

a multiple choice reading quiz before class. I used the scores on the quiz to sort students into groups.

Otherwise, the multiple choice quiz had no impact on their grade. The final bullet point tries to lead

students to develop historical analysis.


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Appendix J: Early Essay Assignments The assignments below were the types of prompts I gave students for examining primary source

documents before I developed my “Lab Report” assignment.

Read the “Advice of an Akkadian Father” and the “Precepts of Ptah-Hotep.” Write a brief essay (no more

than 1-2 pages) answering the following questions:

Describe three specific pieces of “unintentional” information these documents tell us about

Akkadia and Old Kingdom Egypt.

In what ways is the advice of the two fathers similar? In what ways is it different?

Are the cultural values of the Akkadians more similar or more different to those of the Old

Kingdom Egyptians? Explain your answer.

Read Boccaccio’s Decameron. Write a brief essay (no more than 1-2 pages) answering the following

questions:

How does Boccaccio describe the plague?

Compare Boccaccio's description of the plague with the Monty Python skit (“Bring out Your

Dead”) presented in class. To what degree is the skit consistent with Boccaccio's description?

Where does it differ? Was the skit historically accurate?

Based on Boccaccio's description, what was the most significant social consequence of the

plague? How might the plague impact the traditional medieval social organization?

Read Wesley’s “Thoughts Upon Slavery.” Write a brief essay (no more than 1-2 pages) answering the

following questions:

How does Wesley define “slavery”? What type of slavery does this omit?

Who (what nation) is responsible for the rise of slavery in Europe?

What does Wesley believe should be done about slavery? Why?

What does Wesley not suggest?

Read Darwin’s “The Descent of Man.” Write a brief essay (no more than 1-2 pages) answering the

following questions:

How does Darwin define Sexual Selection? What are the two types of Sexual Selection?

When is Sexual Selection beneficial to the species? When is it harmful to the species?

How does Darwin’s theory of Sexual Selection reflect the concerns of the middle class?

Based on the information in this document, which political ideology best matches Darwin’s ideas

(conservatism, liberalism or socialism)? Explain your answer based on what you have learned in

this course.


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Appendix K: Introduction to Historical Arguments Throughout this course, I will be asking students to develop their own historical arguments. Historical

arguments basically argue for particular interpretations about the past. They are attempts to

understand the past on its own terms. A good historical argument does not judge the past.

Historians are a bit like puzzle makers. We spend our time staring at little pieces of information. We try

to figure out which pieces fit together, and what we can understand by putting the pieces together. We

are constantly asking ourselves, “do these pieces fit together?” and “what does it mean if these pieces

fit together?” In some cases, pieces that we originally thought fit together turn out not to fit well when

we find more pieces, or complete more of the puzzle. The more pieces we can put together, the better

our understanding of the past.

All historical arguments follow a very specific pattern: they begin with a clearly stated assertion, they

employ interpretations of observations to support the assertion, and they explain why the particular

argument is important. I refer to this pattern as ASA (Assertion, Supporting Evidence, Analysis). Please

do not try to Google ASA, as you are unlikely to find anything helpful for the purposes of this course!

The Assertion The assertion is the statement of argument. In its most simple form, the assertion is the claim that two

(or more) pieces fit together. Assertions can range from very simple to very complex. The best assertions

are not self-evident (if they are self-evident, there is no reason for us to create an argument). The best

assertions attempt to increase our understanding of the past and to somehow answer the question,

“why?” Below are a few sample assertions related to the early 21st century United States:

Americans do not value education.

The events of September 11, 2001 made Americans value safety more than freedom.

Democrats keep losing elections because they fail to articulate a message that resonates with

the people.

Each of the sample assertions above poses a possible answer to a “why?” question that relates to a

specific time and place. Why is education expensive? Why does no one object to the Patriot Act? Why

did Democrats lose the majority in the House of Representatives? These assertions can also be

interpreted as opinion, and this is perfectly acceptable. Historians are constantly expressing our

opinions, based on our interpretations of the data (which puzzle pieces we think fit together). Notice,

however, that our opinions do not contain explicit value judgments. The savvy reader could probably

determine my biases based on some of the assertions above, but the assertions are less about whether I

think not valuing education is good, or whether I like the Republican party because I agree with their

messages. They are my attempt to explain aspects of the United States in the early 21st century.

Supporting Evidence Although the assertion is always stated first in the historical argument, it cannot be developed in a

vacuum. Historians always start by collecting data. Sometimes we have a question in mind when we

begin collecting data. Sometimes we have no specific question in mind, and begin to develop questions

as we look at our data. The way the historian collects data is by making observations based on primary

sources. Let’s take the assertion, “Americans do not value education,” as an example. I am going to look

at a very specific primary source: Newsweek’s article about the “Three-Year Solution” from October 17,


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2009 (http://www.newsweek.com/2009/10/16/the-three-year-solution.html). Based on this article, I

can observe the following:

The article discusses the American auto industry.

The article discusses the costs associated with not holding classes during the summer.

The article claims that the tenure system stifles innovative thinking.

The article states that the average college president holds this position for seven years, the

same amount of time it takes the average student to earn a degree.

The article states that unavailable classes increase time-to-degree for students.

Students who graduate in three years are deprived “of the luxury of time to roam intellectually.”

Anyone who reads the article should see that the observations above are taken from the article. These

are all statements, paraphrases, or ideas present in the article. I have my assertion, “Americans do not

value education.” My next task in constructing an argument is to explain how my observations led me to

this particular assertion. I need to interpret my observations, and explain how my interpretations

support my assertion. For example:

Americans do not value education [assertion]. An article arguing for reducing the time to degree for a

bachelor’s degree spends much of its time comparing higher education in America with the auto

industry, arguing that just as American automakers failed to adequately compete with Japanese

companies, American universities are in similar danger [observation]. This suggests that the author

perceives education as a business enterprise, which can only succeed if it is not wasteful [interpretation

of the observation]. This perception is enhanced [interpretation] by the fact that the article emphasizes

the inefficiencies of the current agrarian-based academic calendar [observation]. By emphasizing the

need for efficiency and the need to compete, the article suggests that education should be efficient

[interpretation]. From the perspective of the author, intellectual inquiry is a luxury [observation],

presumably one we can ill afford [interpretation].

Notice how my observations are interwoven with interpretations of those observations. Some may find

my argument convincing. Others may look at my interpretations and find issue with how I am thinking

about my observations. Both are equally valid reactions. As historians, we constantly assess each other’s

arguments. Arguments may be stronger or weaker, but as long as they are based on observations, and

the historian’s interpretation of the observations is clearly communicated, the argument is valid.

The Analysis The argument I have constructed above is missing one crucial component. It fails to explain why my

argument is important. To return to the puzzle-making analogy, before pieces are fit together, they

often have the appearance of random lines and colors. However, as pieces are fit together, the random

lines and colors resolve into images. Before putting the pieces together, I knew they were part of the

scene somehow, but after putting them together, I suddenly realize that they belong to the part of the

scene that has the small cat. I can better fit these pieces into the larger context of the puzzle. Analysis is

where the historian takes the argument and fits it into a larger historical context. For example:

From the perspective of the author, intellectual inquiry is a luxury, presumably one we can ill afford.

However, without time for intellectual inquiry, it is not possible to have an education. What Americans

truly value is efficiency. We can see this in our demands for immediate gratification, which have been

more than fulfilled through technology. Rather than seeing education as the process of developing the

http://www.newsweek.com/2009/10/16/the-three-year-solution.html


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powers of reasoning and judgment—something that develops differently in each person—Americans

tend to view education as the hoop through which one jumps in order to attain the higher-paying job.

This particular view of education serves to commodify it, creating a cadre of knowledge consumers who

have massive amounts of information at their fingertips, but who lack the tools to understand this

information. Once education is viewed as a commodity, it is believed that education should be subject

to the laws of economics: competition among universities for students should lead to increased

efficiency and consequently bring down prices. In the case of higher education in the early 21st century,

the opposite has occurred, much to the general uproar of the American population. If Americans truly

valued education, they would be willing to pay for it instead of demanding increased efficiency.

Notice how the paragraph above takes the core ideas introduced both in the assertion and the

supporting evidence and expands upon them by making connections with our capitalist economy.

Before I can write my analysis, I have to ask myself, “if I accept the idea that education is not valued,

how does that enhance my understanding of what was going on in the US during the early 21st century?” My answer is, “it helps me understand that the economic system of this particular civilization

is the lens through which this civilization understands its reality.”

Notice also how my analysis is longer than my assertion and supporting evidence. To return once again

to the puzzle analogy, the assertion and supporting evidence put pieces together. The analysis explains

how putting these pieces together changes our understanding of a particular time period. As a general

rule, analysis should always be longer than the assertion and supporting evidence.

Analysis is the most important part of the argument. It is also the most difficult part to construct. It is no

easy task to connect disparate ideas into something cohesive, particularly when one has very few puzzle

pieces to work with. However, like most skills, repeated practice does lead to improvement.

Developing a Historical Argument When developing a historical argument, follow these steps:

1. Collect data. The historian’s data consists of observations drawn from primary sources.

2. Interpret data. Try to answer the following question, “what do I think my observations mean?”

3. Develop the assertion. What can we learn about a particular civilization based on our

interpretations?

4. Support the assertion. Explain how the interpretations of observations led to the assertion.

5. Make connections. Try to answer the following question, “if my assertion is true, how does this

increase my understanding of this civilization?”


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Appendix L: Rubrics

Paper Rubric for Homework Essays Points Criterion Yes Partial No

.5 Typed & double-spaced, 1-2 page length

.5 Proper Essay Format

.25 Free of spelling/grammar errors

.25 Free of slang, awkward phrasing

.5 Free of contractions

1.5 All questions answered

.5 Use of ASA where appropriate

.5 Use of supporting evidence that does not repeat assertion

.5 Analysis explains how evidence supports assertion without repeating assertion or evidence

Total Points

Online Rubric for Lab Reports

Criteria Level 3 Level 2 Level 1

Proper formatting: Word

Count

1 point

Lab is between 250 &

500 words

0 points

Lab does not meet min/max word count

Proper formatting:

Paragraphs

1 point Each paragraph is at least two sentences. Each section has its own paragraph

0 points Reasons for no points on this criterion (could be one or more):

Single sentence paragraphs

Section breaks are not clear

Lab uses bullet point lists

Introduction: Historical

Overview

1 point

Introduction includes a

brief overview of the

time period when the

document was written.

0 points

Introduction is missing the historical overview.

Introduction: What can

we learn?

1 point

Introduction indicates

broadly what we can

learn about the past

based on the document.

0 points

Introduction does not address what we can learn

about the past based on the document.

Results: Purpose,

Function, Bias

2 points

Results includes a clearly

stated purpose,

audience, and bias

1 point One of the following is missing from the Results:

Purpose

Audience

Bias


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Results: Observations 2 points

Results include three to

five observations from

the document.

0 points

Results are missing the observations

Discussion: Assertion 2 points

Discussion has a clearly

stated historical

assertion.

1 point

Assertion is a value

judgment or is not

historical.

0 points

Discussion has no clearly

stated assertion.

Discussion: Supporting

Evidence

2 points

Discussion includes

interpretations of

observations that

support the assertion.

1 point

Discussion includes

observations that have a

general relationship to

the assertion.

0 points

Discussion includes no

supporting evidence.

Discussion: Stage 1

Analysis

2 points

Analysis makes a general

connection between the

assertion and relevant

course material (other

related Unit Materials,

assigned readings, or

lecture, as relevant).

1 point

Student makes an

attempt to connect the

assertion to other course

materials.

0 points

Analysis is missing.

Discussion: Stage 2

Analysis

2 points

Analysis describes and

justifies the connection

between the assertion

and relevant course

materials.

1 point

Analysis makes a token

effort to describe and

justify the connection


and relevant course

materials.

0 points

Analysis does not

describe or justify the

connection between the

assertion and relevant

course materials.

Discussion: Stage 3

Analysis

2 points

Analysis demonstrates

student's ability to

explore the connection

between assertion and

analysis to increase

understanding of the

historical time period.


student insight.

1 point


the student's attempt to

explore the connection


and analysis to increase

understanding of the

historical time period.

0 points

Analysis does not

demonstrate student

thought or insight about

the connection between

the assertion and

analysis.

Conclusion: Implications 1 point

Conclusion includes a

general statement about

what the student

0 points

Conclusion is missing a general statement about

what the student learned by analyzing the

document.


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learned by analyzing the

document.

Conclusion: Applications 1 point

Conclusion contains

questions for further

research that cannot be

answered by the

document.

0 points

Conclusion is missing questions for further

research that cannot be answered by the

document.

Overall Score Mastery

18 or more

Proficient

14 or more

See Assignment

Guidelines on Syllabus

0 or more


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Appendix M: Learner Outcome Assessment Project

Student Success and Retention Over the past two semesters, I conducted a Learner Outcome Assessment in all my hybrid/blended

classes. I was curious if students would perform better in my classes if I forced them to turn in all their

work. The rationale was the students would do better if they were required to complete all assignments,

since this would give them more opportunities to practice the skills necessary to pass the class.

Spring Semester 2013, students in my History 1120-01 (Western Civ from 1550 to the Present) and

1010-01 (World History to 1300) were given the following syllabus instructions:

Late/Missed Assignments/Make-ups All assignments must be completed in order to pass this course. Students missing between one and four assignments will receive no higher than a D in the course. Students missing more than four assignments will automatically fail the course. All late work must be turned in to the appropriate Dropbox in D2L. All late work must be turned in by the end of the final exam period for the course (indicated under the “Schedule of Assignments and Topics” at the end of the syllabus).

Please note that while I will accept late work, I will not grade any assignment that is not turned in by the assigned due date. Should students desire feedback on any late work, they must attend my office hours to receive feedback. There are no exceptions to my policy on late work for any reason. “Any reason” includes (but is not limited to) technology failure, illness, death in the family, religious observations, life, etc. Students are advised to read due-dates carefully. Should assignment due dates conflict with a student’s schedule, the student may wish to consider dropping the class before the end of the Add/Drop period.

I used two factors to determine the number of assignments students could miss for each letter grade.

The first factor was prior learner outcome assessment projects which examined rate of assignment

completion and final grades. As a general rule, students could miss up to two standard-weight

assignments and still achieve an “A” in the course. The other factor was a desire to motivate students to

take their coursework seriously.

Fall Semester 2013, students in my History 1200-01 (US History to 1877) and 1120-01 (Western Civ from

1550 to the Present) were given the following syllabus instructions:

Late/Missed Assignments/Make-ups All assignments are due at the date/time indicated on the Schedule of Topics & Assignments at the end of the Syllabus. Students may turn in late work without penalty, as long as assignments are properly submitted by the time I begin grading. I will close each assignment when I begin grading it. My general practice will be to start grading when the assignment is due, in the order assignments are listed under “Evaluation” on page 1 of the syllabus. Students who are risk adverse are advised to complete assignments by the due date/time.

Aside from jury duty and military duty, there are no exceptions to my policy on late work for any reason. “Any reason” includes (but is not limited to) technology failure, illness, death in the family, religious observations, life, etc. Students are advised to read due dates carefully. Should assignment due dates conflict with a student’s schedule, the student may wish to consider dropping the class before the end of the Add/Drop period.

Students had the exact same type of assignments, which included collecting historical data and using the

data to construct historical arguments.


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Results Proficiency is defined as meeting the following criteria:

Students can write at a college level, using the conventions of formal writing

Students can collect data from primary sources and images

Students recognize the difference between collecting and interpreting data

Students can construct historical arguments based on their interpretations of historical data

Passing is defined by NHCC Policy as a final grade of “D” or higher. In my classes, a grade of a “D”

indicates student effort that was worthy of credit, but not proficient.

The following table indicates my raw data for the experimental group (students from Spring 2013) and

the control group (students from Fall 2013)

Experimental (S13) Control (F13)

# of Students Completing Course 24 31

# of Students Proficient (C or Higher) 14 17

Percentage Proficient 58% 42%

# of Students Passing (D or Higher) 18 25

Percentage Passing 75% 81%

# of Withdraws 13 4

Percentage of Withdraws 35% 11%

# of Students Completing Missed Assignments 17 (71%) —

Looking purely at the students who completed the courses in both semesters, students in the

Experimental group outperformed students in the Control group. Fifty-eight percent of the students in

the Experimental group achieved proficiency in the course, judging by aggregate scores on all

assessments. In comparison, only 42% of the students in the Control group demonstrated overall

proficiency.

Given that the Experimental group demonstrated a higher rate of proficiency, I expected that the

Experimental group should also demonstrate a higher pass rate than the Control group. However, the

opposite was the case. Eighteen out of twenty-four students in the Experimental group (75%) passed the

class with a D or higher, compared to twenty-five out of thirty-one students (81%) in the Control group.

I decided to compare the rate of student withdrawal between the Experimental and Control groups. The

Experimental group had an alarming withdrawal rate of 35%: out of the thirty-seven students who

attempted the courses, thirteen withdrew before the end of the semester. In comparison, the

withdrawal rate in the Control group was 11% (four out of thirty-five), which is not ideal, but is much

closer to typical in my courses.

Discussion While recognizing that there are many issues that explain student retention that are beyond the scope

of an instructor’s control, the data suggests that classroom strategies that enhance student learning are

detrimental to student retention. Students in the Experimental group clearly outperformed students in

the Control group, but the cost was a high withdrawal rate in the Experimental group compared to the

Control group. It is possible that students in the Experimental group were easily discouraged as they fell

behind in course work, and decided to drop the course, rather than attempt to catch up on their missed


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assignments. On the other hand, several students who turned in missing assignments were missing

between four and six assignments. One student turned in a total of twenty-one missing assignments and

still managed to pass the class.

This study raises some significant questions: first, is it more beneficial for a student to earn some credit,

even if it is only a D, or to withdraw. Both have detrimental effects: the D falls below the minimum GPA

required to maintain satisfactory academic progress, while the W negatively affects completion rate,

which is also required to maintain satisfactory academic progress.

Second, if strategies that enhance student learning are negatively correlated with retention, we must

decide what is more important: retention or learning. This study had a small number of students in only

four classes, but my findings were consistent with those found in the study reported in Academically

Adrift. The majority of the students I retained in the Control group learned something. However, many

of them did not learn enough to judge them proficient. Is it worthwhile to retain students if the majority

of marginal students will not achieve minimum standards of proficiency? If our goal is to help marginal

students succeed, what does it say if strategies that lead to success drive the marginal students away?

Finally, this study suggests that one of the major barriers to student success (defined as proficiency in

this study) is time. Students do not succeed because they are not willing or able to devote the time

necessary to completing assignments. In the case of my courses, all assignments are designed to give

students opportunities to practice developing the skills to become proficient, and they are designed in

such a way that failure at a first attempt will have minimal impact on the student’s overall grade. If time

is the major barrier to student success, what can we reasonably do to mitigate this barrier while still

ensuring student proficiency?


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Appendix N: Letters from Students


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Appendix O: Letter from Dr. Larry J. Swain


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Appendix P: Screen Shot of The Heroic Age, Issue 8 The screen shot below is my initial redesign of the journal’s layout, and can be found at

http://www.heroicage.org/issues/8/toc.html. (The “Letter from the Editor” displays “mouse-over”

formatting.) Since 2004, I have continued to update and modify this initial layout.

http://www.heroicage.org/issues/8/toc.html


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Appendix Q: MSCF Vice President of Liberal Arts Campaign


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Appendix R: Response to Draft of LDA Memo dated 9-17-12 I would like to request that this memo accurately represent the following:

Federal requirements regarding LDA reporting

The “audit” (which I assume refers to the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities Schedule of

Federal Awards Year Ended June 30, 2010)

The memo currently states, “. . . to fulfill the federal requirements that we must report to the federal

government as soon as you are aware that a student has stopped attending.”

According to 34 CFR 668.22, (accessed from http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CFR-2012-title34-

vol3/pdf/CFR-2012-title34-vol3-part668.pdf):

“For an institution that is not required to take attendance, an institution must determine the withdrawal

date for a student who withdraws without providing notification to the institution no later than 30 days

after the end of the earlier of the—

(i) Payment period or period of enrollment, as appropriate, in accordance with paragraph

(e)(5) of this section;

(ii) Academic year in which the student withdrew; or

(iii) Educational program from which the student withdrew.”

Payment period is defined in 668.4 as:

“For a student enrolled in an eligible program that measures progress in credit hours and uses standard

terms (semesters, trimesters, or quarters), or for a student enrolled in an eligible program that

measures progress in credit hours and uses non-standard terms that are substantially equal in length,

the payment period is the academic term.” [emphasis mine]

For the sake of clarity, the memo should indicate that the federal requirements are that we report LDA

no later than 30 days after the end of the academic term. If the administration of NHCC would like us to

report earlier than the federal requirements, this should be indicated as an NHCC mandate, not a

federal requirement.

The memo currently states that “Reporting LDA only at the end of the semester puts the institution at

risk . . . . When we appear as an institution not to adhere to Federal financial aid obligations, we put our

ability to grant financial aid at risk.”

This above statement should be clarified with an accurate citation of its source, or removed, given that

34 CFR 668 only requires us to report within 30 days of the end of the term.

The memo further states, “It has been a finding with our last audit and if we do not show a good faith

effort in rectifying the compliance issue, we are at even higher risk of losing financial aid or being

required to pay a large fine.”

According to the referenced audit (Minnesota State Colleges and Universities Schedule of Federal

Awards Year Ended June 30, 2010), p. 13:

“During our testing, we noted that North Hennepin Community College disbursed Title IV Funds to one

student who was enrolled in the spring term; however, the student failed to begin attendance for two of

https://mail.nhcc.edu/owa/redir.aspx?C=613b356e8cd14984aef25acfe7fcb545&URL=http%3a%2f%2fwww.gpo.gov%2ffdsys%2fpkg%2fCFR-2012-title34-vol3%2fpdf%2fCFR-2012-title34-vol3-part668.pdf

https://mail.nhcc.edu/owa/redir.aspx?C=613b356e8cd14984aef25acfe7fcb545&URL=http%3a%2f%2fwww.gpo.gov%2ffdsys%2fpkg%2fCFR-2012-title34-vol3%2fpdf%2fCFR-2012-title34-vol3-part668.pdf


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the registered classes which dropped the student to less than half time enrollment. The funds were not

returned within 30 days of when the College determined that the student was less than half time.”

This audit does not indicate that there was an issue with faculty failing to report last date of attendance,

but that the college failed to return funds within the required time-frame. The reference to the audit in

the memo should be removed, since the audit found the college was delinquent with repayment (over

which the faculty have no control), not with reporting, which is the focus of the memo.

As this is an academic institution, I would also suggest that the memo properly cite its sources. At a

minimum, the memo should cite relevant federal publications, the actual audit, as well as the source for

the statement that, “Other MnSCU institutions were assessed fines ranging from thousands to millions

for improprieties related to not calculating the return of financial aid in a timely manner.”


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Appendix S: History of NHCC Museum Display

This picture was taken outside the Hennepin History Museum on the day our exhibit opened.

Forging the Future: Experiencing Forty Years of North Hennepin Community College. The students

collaboratively developed the title of our exhibit, as well as the introductory poster pictured above.


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“The Arts,” by Brian Knutson. He reproduced the Student Art Show, carefully taking pictures of the

artwork, printing the photos, and mounting them for display.

“Technology,” by Patty Yechout. This display showcases the evolution of technology use at NHCC, using

actual artifacts from the college.

MnSCU Board of Trustees Educator of the Year Teaching Portfolio

Documents

Transcript of MnSCU Board of Trustees Educator of the Year Teaching Portfolio