Assignments

Class participation (30% of grade):

Students will be expected to carry out assigned museum visits and do the readings before the time of the class meeting to prepare adequately for classroom participation in discussion and in exercises. We will be discussing both the readings and your museum visits. The readings and museum visits have been coordinated to a certain extent, so I will expect that you think about your visit in the light of the readings for that week, although you should also bring previous readings to bear as well. To start you off, I will provide a checklist to guide you in the kinds of things you might look for during a museum visit, but as the course goes on you will be exposed to (and will hopefully think up) many more.

Everyone needs to contribute actively to our discussions, because part of the potential richness of the class lies in our understanding how people (including ourselves) bringing different experiences to the table react to different museums. We are all museum audiences; many of you will have visited lots of history museums; others may have visited other cities or neighborhoods where history is all around. In our discussions we will use it all as we begin to be able to see that history just can't be confined to museums, but spills over everywhere.

We will certainly visit the Jourdan-Bachman Pioneer Farm together to take advantage of the group rate, but you are not expected to stay together in groups (alas we know all too well how organized classes visit museums); part of what you will be trying to look at, at all the museums, is how other people are taking it all in, so you are very welcome to bring family and friends along on all of your visits (especially on the group one--let me know in advance), and thus find out how well the museum works for such groups as you may choose to form for yourselves.

In addition to discussions, there will be several other exercises carried out in class, and students will be expected to pitch in no matter how silly it all seems.

Weekly posting to Canvas discussion (15% of grade):

A discussion thread on the readings for each week (except next week!) will be put up on Canvas and you will be expected to write and post a reflective consideration of the readings for the week by noon on Sunday before the class on Monday. Please especially comment on the readings (pro or con or ideas you've developed in response) and include any ideas you have about how the readings respond to the week's--or any other week's--museum visit.

Term essay (45% of grade):

Each student will write an essay on a topic selected from a list to be announced on September 28. A paper proposal laying out your choice of topic and your plan for researching it will be due on October 5. The essay will be an original piece of work, usually formally researched and documented, of 10-15 pages (exclusive of references and notes). (Note that also alternative formats are possible for this term project.) Each essay will use at least one of the Austin historical museums we visit as an example to inform the paper (the reason for this is to encourage you to make repeated "reference" visits to a museum as suggested by Carr). At the end of the course, each student will be required to present a precis of the paper as a contribution to the summative discussions. Student papers written for this course have been presented at conferences and published, so you are encouraged to be ambitious. The term essay is due on November 30, the last day of class. For the list of topics, see papertopics15.

Take-home essay (10% of grade):

Students will be given a take-home essay assignment to write at the last class on November 30, to be returned by the date that the examination would be regularly scheduled.

Grading policy:

Since class participation is so important in this class, attendance is also important: you can't participate if you are not there. If you are actually ill I don't want you to come and spread contagion, but please notify me if you must miss class and I will suggest a make-up activity. Grading itself will make full use of the plus/minus system.