Assignments and activities in my classes strive to engage students in research and writing while building on the knowledge that students have gained throughout the semester. I recognize that students have a range of learning styles, backgrounds, and educational needs, and I strive for universal accessibility in my courses. You can find a few sample assignments below, along with descriptions of each.
Through my training at the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Duke University, where I interned in the 2017-2018 academic year, I have gained experience introducing students to unique archival materials and developing assignments that both illuminate historical trends and inspire curiosity among students. Students have the freedom to pursue themes, ideas, and topics that interest them.
Exhibit Case Final Project
For example, in my pre-1865 American Women’s History course, students designed an exhibit case on some aspect of US women’s history prior to 1865. Students had the opportunity to focus on people, events, monuments, work, etc., as long as their case was related to American women’s history before 1865 in some way. In addition to in-class activities where students practiced developing different elements of the exhibit, I provided students with a link to the Smithsonian’s Guide to Exhibit Development.
Women’s History Tour
In my post-1865 American Women’s History course, students work together to develop a women’s history tour of the campus and surrounding community using Historypin. Each student researches and designs a stop on the tour, providing information grounded in the historical literature along with images and links to relevant digital primary sources.
In-Class Activities
I use in-class activities to fully engage students with the course material. For example, my American Women’s History after 1865 class is divided into four thematic sections, each of which are structured relatively chronologically: race, ethnicity, and citizenship in the late nineteenth century, politics and activism, business and labor, and culture and society. By the time that we begin talking about culture and society, students have covered most the time periods at least twice from different angles. During our class on white women and domesticity in the late nineteenth-century US West, students form groups and write letters pretending to be a white woman in the West writing to a female friend back East. They are asked to incorporate the knowledge they have gained about politics, labor, and culture, along with their previous experience reading similar letters during the semester, to write letters that integrate family news and updates with real world events and the challenges of domestic life and labor in the West.
Similarly, I modify an in-class assignment using advertisements to look at different aspects of the post-WWII US for use in my American Women’s History after 1865, US History after 1865, and US Business History classes. Students are provided with the assigned ads before class and then are broken up into assigned groups. Each group discusses one ad in depth, using provided guiding questions. They then present their findings to the class and lead discussion on their ad. This assignment is featured on the Rubenstein Library’s website.
For our class session focused on housework in my pre-1865 American Women’s History class, I asked students to work in groups and use Lydia Maria Child’s The American Frugal Housewife to find good advice, bad advice, and weird advice. Students then discussed how what they found related to the secondary reading for the day, a chapter from Jeanne Boydston’s Home and Work. Students then had the opportunity to continue their research and analysis of women’s housework through an extra credit blog post on nineteenth-century recipes and advice manuals.
Primary Source Analysis
When possible, assignments throughout the course build on each other. For example, in my post-1865 US survey course, students are first asked to write a primary source analysis on a single primary source chosen from a provided list. The list itself is designed to allow students the freedom to choose a topic or theme that most interests them. After receiving feedback on their primary source analysis, students then use the same primary source to develop a final project. Students are given two choices for their final assignment: they may either write a letter as an individual from that time period, or they may write a traditional essay. Both options are expected to present an argument with supporting evidence and are designed to allow students to demonstrate their knowledge and understanding of the course material in ways that best suit their learning style.
Other Assignments
I try to incorporate assignments that play to a range of learning styles, strengths, and student interests. In my lower-level classes, I ask students to sign up to respond to the readings of a particular class session. This assignment gives them the freedom to choose a topic, time period, or theme that interests them. In some classes, I ask students to analyze an episode of a podcast, chosen from a provided list. In other classes, students craft oral presentations of historical figures based on their own research. These assignments allow students the freedom to pursue their own interests within the parameters of the course.
Mandy L. Cooper, PhD 