Assignments
for Graduate Students
This page is strictly for students taking this course for graduate credit.
General Comments
What makes graduate work different from undergraduate? Easy: it's the same, there's just more of it.
All too often, that's how it seems, anyway. It's as if you are being punished for being a grad student by having to do more than everyone else. That's not how it should work, though. Graduate work should be qualitatively different.
There are a couple of directions that difference can take. One is in the direction of scholarship. As a graduate student you are expected to grapple with the original sources more directly. You are expected to understand the historiography of the subject under study and to some extent participate in the on-going scholarly debates surrounding it.
Some of your assignments will lead in that direction, the direction of professional scholarship. That direction, however, tends to lead you away from the rest of the class, for your undergraduate classmates are not expected to deal so directly with the primary sources nor to participate or even to be much aware of the scholarly debates. In short, they'll be hard-pressed to keep up with you.
There is, however, another direction in which graduate work differs from undergraduate work: teaching. While it's true that historians can go on to a variety of careers, the fact is that most wind up being teachers. Learning how to teach is a lifelong course of study, but there are good reasons to get started right now, not least of which is that this is a useful point of juncture between the graduate and the undergraduate.
Some of your assignments are therefore aimed at casting you in the role of teacher toward the undergraduates. You will make up assignments and you will have to grade them. The grading won't count, but it will give you valuable experience and will give you practice in turning research into something other than yet another term paper. Eventually, we all also have to turn our research into teaching.
Finally, you will also be expected to act as mentor, or at least as area specialist, in the discussion. You will participate along with the others, of course, but the nature of your participation will be a bit different.
My hope and intention is that you will add value to the course. It is an old and well-proved aphorism that the best way to learn is to teach. I have no doubt this approach will provide you with a richer learning experience. Perhaps the best result will be that it will also provide a richer learning experience for the undergrads as well.
Term Paper
Okay, here's where you pay the higher dues. I expect your paper to be a little longer than an undergrad paper, but mainly I expect better research and a more sophisticated analysis. Specifically, I expect to see cognizance of scholarly research already done and how your paper fits into that.
Length: 3750 to 6250 words (that is, about 15-25 pages)
Sources: no real requirements, but I expect to see serious journal research and if you include a web site it had better be awfully good
Discussion
Your participation in discussion will be pretty much the same as everyone else's. You post a minimum of three messages a week.
Think of yourself as co-teaching the course. When someone asks a question, take it as a challenge to see if you can answer it. This is an opportunity for you start thinking about how you would teaching this subject, and the best way to start thinking about that is to take leadership in discussion.
I do hold you to a higher standard. I expect your arguments to be a bit more sophisticated and research to be deeper. I expect to see comments that are analytical, interpretive. I do not expect you to be experts! Indeed, we may well find a student better versed on a particular topic than we are (it's not uncommon to encounter a student with a passion for Queen Elizabeth, or for military minutiae, for example). This isn't about quantity of knowledge, it's about quality of discussion. For the undergraduates, it's more okay for them to say, "gee, I don't know." For you graduates, it's still okay . . . but less so. [smile]
There is a separate discussion area just for graduates. The "Grads" conference is visible only to those who are taking the course for graduate credit. Here I invite you to talk about any and all aspects of the course: the content, naturally, but also the course design and pedagogy and dynamics.