HIST 411 ~ Fall
2008 ~ Senior Seminar
Dr. Darlene L. Brooks Hedstrom
HIST 411 is the capstone course for history majors in their senior year. This means that you, as a major, will be drawing upon the key required courses from previous years: 202, 203 and 390. Collectively these courses will enable you to conduct your own research on a historical topic and present your results to your colleagues, department faculty and the junior history majors.
In this course senior history
majors will assist each other in the designing, writing, and presentation of
independent and original historical writing. Additionally, students will deeper
their understanding and appreciation of history through the reading and discussion
of what history is and what it means to be an historian.
Texts for the course:
Tosh, John. The Pursuit of History.
Turabian, Kate. A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations. (7th ed.)
Assignments & Assessment: (Links to individual assignments are available through Moodle).
1.) Historian Project (first 6 weeks): Each student will write a 5-6 page paper (1250-1500 words) on a major nineteenth and twentieth century professional historian tied to their research project. This historian must either explicitly explore historiographical issues or reveal in her or his work a distinctive approach to the nature and writing of history. You therefore do not simply select any historian who has written several works. Rather, you need to look carefully at what he or she has written to determine if you can easily extract their philosophy of history and represent that both in your paper. The comparative paper will then be presented to the department faculty.
Your paper, which is a critical essay, will explain your historian's position on the meaning, purposes, methods, and uses of history. It is not a biography. There are a variety of issues you may cover -- the focus of everyone's paper will be slightly different. Some specific questions include the politics of history, methods and types of history, problems of historical study, the ways in which a historian defines meaning or causality, etc. Paper due Tues. Sept. 28.
2.) Readings, Discussion, and Attendance/Participation: This will be a key component of the first five weeks where we will read Tosh's book and dive quickly into the research projects and your historian papers.
3.) Senior Thesis: Students will write a major research paper on an original topic (at least 28 pages in length of text). Students will pick their own research topics according to their interests. Research will be conducted over the course of the semester in both primary and secondary sources. At the end of the semester, students will present their findings at the HIST 411 conference.
You are required to visit, at least once, a research library, archive, or museum to search for or use primary or secondary sources.
You should include a discussion of your research trip in your Research Design and later your Annotated Bibliography should clearly reflect what you found.
Assessment: (Values will be determined by class members on first day of course).
| Quiz on Tosh and Historian | |
| Historian Paper | |
| Historians' Forum | |
| Class Discussion, attendance and participation | |
| Senior Thesis Research Project & component parts | |
| 411 Presentation of research |
Attendance Policy:
Attendance will be taken in class. Because this class does not meet every scheduled class period (in order to give you time to complete independent research and writing) it is expected that you will attend all scheduled class meetings and required conferences with Dr. Brooks Hedstrom. Students will be granted two absences with no penalty to their grade. If you do miss a class, it is expected that you will take responsibility for any discussion you missed or work that is due. If you miss four classes or conferences, your final grade for the course will be reduced an entire letter grade. More than six absences will result in automatic failure of the course. By now you know that department does not distinguish between "excused" or "unexcused"; if you are absent you are absent. This is why we grant you some grace; if you abuse it in 411 you will fail the course.
Statement on Academic Dishonesty:
Wittenberg now operates under an Honor Code. Academic dishonesty of any king will not be tolerated.