Before Class
Read April 3
- Po-Yi Hung & Abigail Popp, “How to Frame a Researchable Question” on William Cronon’s Learning Historical Research.
- Allan Branstiter’s 2016 blog series in AHA Today on adapting your research:
- “Madness and a Thousand Reconstructions: Learning to Embrace the Messiness of the Past.
- “Adapt and Overcome: What to Do When Your Archival Research Hits a Dead End”
- “Scalawags and Scandal-Mongers: Intra-party Rivalry and the Complex World of Reconstruction Politics”
- David Welky, “Gone With the Wind, but Not Forgotten.” In Everything Was Better in America: Print Culture in the Great Depression, 193-214. (Available on JSTOR)
- Carol Toner, “Teaching Students to Be Historians: Suggestions for an Undergraduate Research Seminar.” The History Teacher 27, no. 1 (1993): 37-51. (Available on JSTOR)
Do April 5
- Check out some of my previous digital history projects I’ve done for classes.
- Reconstruction of Sanford Grammar School and Hopper Academy: A Visualization of Two Florida Schools.
- Here is some of the blogging I did for that class so you can see my thought process
- My handcoded HTML website
- Here are some blog posts I wrote about the process for that website and my eventual final project. You might get some decent insight from someone who has been through it!
- My handcoded digital archive
- Networking the Early Video Game Industry
Keep in mind, although I am your professor, you are more than welcome to critique my projects and writing in class discussion and your blog post. Be candid, and don’t be afraid of me. I included these because at one point, I was learning just like you are now. I wanted you to see how projects like these could potentially look, as well as the learning and thought process that goes along with it.
After Class
How do historians do their work? What specifically did you come out of this class knowing that you might not have known or understood before? How does it help you frame your own final project? Did it help to see the thought process of someone going through the process or hinder you? (200-500 words)
DUE APRIL 8 BY 5PM