Core Course Designation Proposal

Historical Reasoning

Faculty Name: Beth Salerno Department: History

Course Number: Hi199 Course Title: America: Origins to World Power
Initial Offering: existing class - initial Frequency course will be offered: Each semester
offering as core course Fall 2013
Course Duration: One semester Maximum enrollment: 20
Course Prerequisite(s): none Course syllabus attached

Course Description (as it appears in the College Catalogue)

(Note: This course was inadvertently left out of the catalog despite being approved in 2011.) This course
covers crucial issues in American History from the American Revolution to the 21st century, with a heavy focus
on processes which created, challenged and changed the Constitution and those which made the United
States an international power. It is specifically designed to support Elementary Education majors by providing
a deeper understanding of United States history and civics, with some focus on geography and economics.

Goals and Objectives

Historical reasoning is the ability to recognize and to analyze change and continuity in human society over
time. Courses in historical reasoning provide students with knowledge of significant historical periods so that
they can interpret the past and consider its relationship to the present. These courses should develop within
students the ability to draw conclusions from historical material by relating persons and events to their
specific context and to place them in the broader continuum of history. Historical reasoning enhances
students’ appreciation of their heritage and allows them to take a historical perspective on contemporary
issues.

Student Learning Outcomes

Please describe how the proposed course will fulfill each of the following student learning outcomes. For
courses with multiple sections or instructors, describe the range of activities that would fulfill each student
learning outcome.

Students who have completed their historical reasoning requirement should be able to:

1. Explain the interplay of change and continuity in human society

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This course highlights the processes by which the American nation was created and became a world power. It
thus focuses on change (how our nation went from colony to nation; how it went from imperial outpost to
world power) and continuity (what factors in those processes continue to shape the nation today). The
course's foundational theme is that our current political, economic, social, and cultural structures and beliefs
have evolved over time, blending long-term continuity (we are still a representative democracy) and change
(with, for instance, markedly different voting laws). This is assessed directly by midterm and final exam essay
questions that test student ability to incorporate both change and continuity in their explanations of historical
events.

2. Recall the key dates, names, events, and dominant themes of significant historical periods
Students, particularly elementary education students, must have basic historical literacy in order to
understand and explain historical events. This is assessed directly by multiple choice questions on quizzes or
exams, as well as the ability to use dates, names, events and themes in essay answers and papers.

3. Evaluate, analyze, and comprehend primary source evidence within its historical context
Understanding that primary source documents reflect the specific uses of language and intellectual currents of
the time of their creation, as well as the gender, race, class or education of their author, is a central necessity
of historical reasoning. Placing the source in its context, including the source's public or private nature, its
purpose and audience, are key parts of evaluating, analyzing and comprehending history as understood by the
writer of the document. Students in this course are exposed to multiple forms of primary documents, such as
Paul Revere's highly inaccuate engraving of the Boston Massacre, an autobiographical account of the Civil
Rights Movement, the Declaration of Independence, Norman Rockwell's Four Freedoms, the Constitution, and
slave narratives. The variety of types, the frequency of exposure, and the required depth of contextual analysis
build student skills which are assessed in class discussion and short writing assignments.

4. Use primary sources (written, oral, visual, and material) to develop and support a historical argument
Once a student has analyzed a primary source in its context, he or she can determine what types of historical
arguments can be based on that source. They also learn this from reading historical monographs and
analyzing how other authors use primary sources to develop and support their argument. The student's ability
to do this is assessed through short papers which require students to draw from a pool of primary sources to
develop and support their own argument about a historical event.

5. Recognize the complex process of constructing history from a fragmentary historical record and how the
interpretation of specific historical events has changed over time
Because historians develop arguments based on primary sources understood in context, the availability of
sources, recognition of their value, and intellectual orientations of the historian all shape the constrution of
historical narrative. Helping students see the difference between "what happened in the past" and "history" is
our most difficult task as historians. This course addresses this regularly in lectures (as the professors explain
changing understandings of historical events) and in the textbook (which discusses new types of evidence, or
new readings of long-available evidence). This is assessed by the students' awareness of source issues and
historical intepretation in the exams and written work.

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6. Understand the distinct perspectives and values of past societies, their connections to the present, as well
as the differences between past and present-day societies
Because this course focuses on the national past of the majority of our students, they often come thinking that
past Americans must have thought like present ones. Yet American society has not only geographic, racial,
ethnic, gendered, economic, and intellectual diversity, it has temporal diversity - people in the past did not
think like people of the present because the factors affecting their lives were different and their value systems
were different. Thus a central challenge of historical reasoning is to get students to see that even Americans
in the past had distinct perspectives and values which made logical sense to them, including slave holders, Ku
Klux Klan members, Nazi supporters, religious communitarians, abolitionist murderers, and Mormon
polygamists. Student awareness of the distinctness of these ideas, the continuity of many of them in current
society, and the factors that affect social values is tested in class discussion, exams, and other course
assessments.

Assessment
Please describe how course assignments or other measures in the proposed course will provide evidence of
students’ achievement of student learning outcomes.
Please see description within each learning outcome.

Approved by department _______________________________ _________

Signature of Department Chairperson Date

If applicable, please list name(s) of faculty experts outside your department that were consulted during the
departmental review process.

Approved by committee of the core _______________________________ _________

Signature of Committee Chairperson Date

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 Hi 199 America: Origins to World Power

Representative Syllabus

Class meets: 3 hours

Course Description: This course covers crucial issues in American History from the American
Revolution to the 21st century, with a heavy focus on processes which created, challenged and changed
the Constitution and those which made the United States an international power. It is specifically
designed to support Elementary Education majors by providing a deeper understanding of United States
history and civics, with some focus on geography and economics.

Course Format: The course is delivered through lectures supplemented by small group activities,
debates, classroom analysis of primary sources, and group discussion.

Course Assignments:

Exams: Approximately 50%. This course has both a midterm and a final exam. Both contain
“objective” questions (multiple choice or other short answer) and essay questions.

Writing Assignments: Approximately 40%. This course has multiple writing assignments. Depending
on the professor and term taught, these can occur in multiple formats. Two examples: a) 8 one page
papers focused on analyzing a primary source in context, a changing historical interpretation, an
intellectual idea in two different time periods, etc. b) 2 four page papers on similar topics done with
greater depth.

Class participation: Approximately 10%. Students are required to engage verbally in class, proposing
and answering questions and engaging in debates. Some professors also require reading quizzes to ensure
students keep up on the reading and are given feedback on their knowledge prior to exams. Some
professors require reading guides completion to ensure students are keeping up with the reading for
discussion. In-class quizzes are also used.

Required Books (These vary by professor but are representative of the types of primary and
secondary sources and the level of reading):

Richard Beeman, The Penguin Guide to the United States Constitution: A Fully Annotated Declaration of
Independence, U.S. Constitution and Amendments, and Selections from The Federalist Papers (NY:
Penguin, 2010).

Eric Foner, Give Me Liberty (Brief Third Edition, volume 2) (New York: W.W. Norton and Co., 2012).

Upton Sinclair, The Flivver King: A Story of Ford-America (Chicago: Charles H. Kerr, 1987).

Primary Sources and Selected Readings on Sakai (http://learn.anselm.edu)

Course Schedule:

Week 1: Revolutionary Origins

Beeman Chapter 1 and Declaration of Independence

Week 2: Shaping a National Government

Beeman, Chapters 2-4: (Articles of Confederation, Constitutional Convention, Ratification) and original
Constitution and Bill of Rights.

Week 3: From Constitution to Civil War

Beeman, Chapter 5: Establishing Government

Sakai Reading: Eric Foner, A Short History of Reconstruction (NY: Harper and Row, 1990), chapter 1
“The World the War Made” and 2 “Rehearsals for Reconstruction” (34 pages).

Week 4 - Reconstruction

Foner chapter 15 (548-589) and Beeman sections on 13th-15th Amendments

Sakai reading: John Hollitz, Thinking Through the Past: A Critical Thinking Approach to U.S. History,
volume 2, 3rd edition (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2005), chapter on the “story” of Reconstruction in
history textbooks.

Week 5 –Second Industrial Revolution

Foner, chapters 16

Sinclair Intro and section on early Ford industrialization

Week 6 – Imperialism and Midterm

Foner chapter 17

John Hollitz, Thinking Through the Past: A Critical Thinking Approach to U.S. History, volume 2, 3rd
edition (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2005), chapter on evaluating primary sources: “Saving” the Indians
in the late 19th century and chapter on evaluating secondary sources “American Manhood and Philippine
Annexation”

Midterm

Week 7 – Progressive Era, World War I and Immigration

Foner chapters 18 and 19

Sinclair, up to World War I section.

Week 8 – Twenties and Thirties

Foner chapters 20 and 21 (768-806)

Sinclair to end.
Week 9 – World War II

Foner chapter 22

Sakai: Propaganda posters home and abroad

First paper due.

Week 10 Cold War

Foner chapter 23

Week 11 – Fifties and Sixties

Foner chapters 24 and 25

Sakai: Excerpts from biographies including Anne Moody, Coming of Age in Mississippi

Week 12 – Seventies and Eighties

Foner chapter 26

Second paper due.

Week 13 – Globalization

Foner chapter 27

Week 14 – Post September 11 world; Supreme Court decisions overview

Foner chapter 28.

Beeman chapter 6