Final Exam: Take-home essays due May 15th April 24, 2009
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The final exam can be found here. You have to do two essays, out of the seven listed (and there are actually more choices than that in some of the questions), and hand them in the morning of the 15th of May. I know that one section had a final scheduled for Thursday, but I want to give everyone as much time as possible. The downside is that late papers will not be accepted except in cases of medical emergency.
We’ll talk more about the exams on Monday, when you’ve had a chance to look them over.
Ibsen thoughts and samples April 1, 2009
Posted by jdresner in doing history, hist 102 (Spring 2009), homework.add a comment
I have a few thoughts about the Ibsen papers that might be useful as you move on to the next documents assignments, and two excellent papers from this batch as examples if you’re still struggling.
- The historical use section continues to be challenging. Many of you are discussing the importance of the document there; that’s good material, but mostly belongs in the Response section. The key thing to ask in the last section is “why would this document be important to an historian today? What do we learn about history reading it, and what else might we want to research?”
- The authorship question also presents a challenge: what’s relevant? Generally, I suggest that you go back to the authorship section (I know most of you write it first) at the end, and take out anything which doesn’t contribute to the rest of the assignment.
- While I don’t insist on highly formal writing, I don’t understand why you’d refer to an historical personage, like the author, by a personal name, as though they were a close friend. It’s not something that affects your grade, just an oddly common writing quirk I’ve seen.
- Overall, people who did the assignment did better than in the past. What I don’t understand is the fairly high number of you who are coming to class, taking the tests, but NOT handing in some or all of the document assignments, which are 30% of the course grade. Granted, I drop the lowest grade, but that’s only one out of the eight. You’re supposed to do at least seven and a missing assignment hurts your grade more than an F does.
Below the jump are two samples: both are excellent, though they are actually rather different. Both are detailed, careful, and make good use of the historical context in both the context and response sections. The Historical Use sections are thoughtful and even creative, and generally focused on the right questions.
Weekend Homework: Sadler and Marx March 27, 2009
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Since hardly anybody had done the readings for today — The Sadler Report from chapter 23 and the Communist Manifesto from chapter 24 — and I really couldn’t have a discussion under those conditions, everyone gets homework for the weekend: write a short summary, about a page for each, of the documents you were supposed to read for today (as indicated on the schedule and syllabus). It’s due Monday, 3/30.
Don’t forget to look at chapter 25, too, which is the reading for Monday.
UPDATE: Some people didn’t realize, it seems, that I meant for the homework to cover both readings. Hand in the other as soon as possible, so you can get full credit for the assignment.
Ibsen’s “A Doll’s House” March 23, 2009
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You can find the full text of the play here at Project Gutenberg. The summary at Wikipedia is basically correct, if you just want a quick bit of context for the excerpt you’ve been assigned. Also, the title of the excerpt on the CD-ROM says correctly that it is from Act Three; the notation in the document about Act II is an error.
Two procedural notes and a small test change March 9, 2009
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- If you email an assignment to me, I will email you back with an acknowledgement (or a question, if the file is missing or I have difficulty with opening it). If you don’t get an email confirmation from me, then I haven’t gotten it.
- I take class time to hand back assignments when I have finished grading them. If you are not in class when I hand them back, you need to come to me to get it; I don’t spend extra class time later trying to track down people to give them assignments. (Or you can wait until the next assignment is graded, since I do run through everything in my folder.)
On the next test, I’m going to keep the structure of the last one — Twelve terms: two from each chapter, plus four from any remaining terms — with a slight modification. Because we spent more time on the Enlightenment/revolution chapter, I’m going to require three from that one. You still have three “free choice” terms, though.
Today’s Pop Quiz March 4, 2009
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For those of you who missed today’s pop quiz (or who just want a bit more detail), the word was “plagiarism.”
Schedule Update February 27, 2009
Posted by jdresner in Schedule Change, extra credit (S09), hist 102 (Spring 2009), homework.add a comment
Due to my illness earlier this week, I’ve had to shuffle the schedule for the next two weeks. Fortunately, I had built a catch-up/review day into the syllabus on the day before Spring Break: we lose that, but don’t have to lose any other material; everything just gets slipped back one day.
The only exception is the next document assignment: I’ve slipped that back two classes, so that we will be through the whole Enlightenment, Revolution and Napoleon section before you have to write it.
You can find the updated schedule here and the updated document assignment sheet here.
Oh, and a reminder: if you attend an extra credit opportunity event, all you have to do for me is write a short summary and reaction paper, no more than 1-2 pages, as proof of your participation. You can hand those in anytime during the semester, up to and including the last day; there’s no such thing as a “late” extra credit paper.
Document Assignment modifications February 19, 2009
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I have revised the course schedule and document assignment pages to reflect the new read-and-discuss-before-writing schedule and the additional input I gave you in the handout.
More thoughts on the document assignments February 18, 2009
Posted by jdresner in doing history, grading, hist 102 (Spring 2009), homework.1 comment so far
the average score was a C-, roughly. I’ll put another sample at the bottom of this post.
I’m going to give some general comments here, and then go section by section. If you got an A or B, then you need to pay more attention to my comments on your paper than to this general statement. If you got a C, then a lot of this probably applies to you. If you got a D or F, then you need to take this very seriously: this is your blueprint to improve. Here is the original assignment, for reference.
Slight change in plans February 16, 2009
Posted by jdresner in Schedule Change, hist 102 (Spring 2009), homework.add a comment
In order to help you get the most out of the readings and prepare for the next document assignment, I want to switch the order of readings for the end of this week. Your next document assignment is due next Monday, on the Tokugawa House laws: read it before class on Friday, so we can discuss it and make sure that you have a clear idea of what you’re doing before doing the written assignment. Feel free to bring a draft or notes, of course, to aid the discussion. We’ll discuss the Thomas Malthus on Monday, instead.
