Category Archives: hist 102 (Spring 2009)

Weekend Homework: Sadler and Marx

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.

Test 2 Results

The most popular terms were French and American Revolution, Thomas Jefferson and Napoleon. Only one person did Qianlong and only two did Kant.

The high score in the class was 39 out of a possible 48. The median score was a B; as you’d expect with a lower top score, the median was a bit higher than last time. Here’s how the grade scale worked out:

Grade minimum points distribution
A+ 39
A 37 20%
A- 35
B+ 32
B 28.25 45%
B- 25.25
C+ 22.25
C 18.5 25%
C- 15.5
D+ 12.5
D 8.75 10%
D- 5.75
F 0

11 people were helped by the extra credit, moving up a grade because of those points. That’s more than a third of the people who attempted the extra credit questions.

New Book on Revolutionary and post-Revolutionary France

Just in time for something to think about while you’re writing about the Revolution and studying for your test: a review of a new book on a woman who saw the Revolution and Napoleonic age from awfully close-up. The biography includes her connections to the English Enlightenment, American Founding Fathers, the political turmoil of the Revolution, Napoleonic and post-Napoleonic years. Fascinating stuff.

Schedule Update

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.

First Test Results

The most popular terms were monsoons, Columbian Exchange, Columbus and Martin Luther. No surprises there. Only one person did Timur the Lane and only one person did the Dalai Lama, in spite of the Tibetan Monks visit.

The high score in the class was 44 out of a possible 48 — pretty good for the first test. The median score was a B-, which is actually quite good. Here’s how the grade scale worked out:

Grade minimum points distribution
A+ 44
A 41 6%
A- 39.5
B+ 36
B 32 55%
B- 28.5
C+ 25
C 21 33%
C- 17.5
D+ 14
D 10 6%
D- 6.5
F 0

Over the weekend I’ll put some of the 4-out-of-4 answers up here for reference.

When looking at your papers, you can ignore the little diagonal I put in the upper-left and lower-right corners of pages: that’s a note to me that there’s nothing before or after (respectively) that page which isn’t graded (just keeps me from having to flip more pages than necessary). If I underlined or circled something in one of your answers, though, it almost certainly means something you got wrong. If I put an “approximately” sign in the margin (and I do this on essays, too) — it looks like this: ≈ — that means something which is almost right, or nearly wrong; questionable, in other words.

Here are some sample answers. As always, these earned 4 out of 4, though that doesn’t mean perfection: it just means that the historical issues are covered, clear, and the significance really is significant.

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Extra Credit Opportunities: Mystical Arts of Tibet – Mandala creation and viewing

At the Crimson and Gold Ballroom in the Student Center this week:

From all the artistic traditions of Tantric Buddhism, that of painting with colored sand ranks as one of the most unique and exquisite. In Tibetan this art is called dul-tson-kyil-khor, which literally means “mandala of colored powders.” Millions of grains of sand are painstakingly laid into place on a flat platform over a period of days or weeks.

Formed of a traditional prescribed iconography that includes geometric shapes and a multitude of ancient spiritual symbols, the sand-painted mandala is used as a tool for re-consecrating the earth and its inhabitants.

On previous US tours the lamas have displayed this sacred arts in museums across the country, including the Arthur Sackler Gallery, Washington; Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago; Peabody Essex Museum, Salem; the Indianapolis Art Museum, Indianapolis; Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, and The Provincial Museum of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada.

The mandala viewing is free and open to the public.

The Mystical Arts of Tibet is part of the PSU Performing Arts & Lecture Series.  For more information visit www.mysticalartsoftibet.org or contact the PSU Campus Activities Center at 620-235-4795 or campusactivities.edu.

There will be an opening invocation at Noon on Monday, followed by a four day creation process. It will be open to viewing Monday 12-6, Tue and Wed 10-7, Thur 10-3, with a closing ceremony Thursday at 4 and a  lecture on the symbolism Thursday at 7pm (Governor’s Room).

More thoughts on the document assignments

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.

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