Topic In History with Oral Communication Emphasis

Approved by Faculty Senate April 14, 2003

Department of History

New Course Proposal

History 398: Topic in History with Oral Communication Emphasis

3 Credits

To be Offered Annually

Grading: Grade Only

Prerequisite: CMST 191 or equivalent

Elective Course in:

History Major

Social Science/History Major and History Minor

Law and Society Major

University Studies – Oral Comunication Flag

A. Course Description

1. Catalog Description

This course features in-depth study of topics of current concern to the historians including newer areas of research, emerging themes, and recent interpretive debates. The assignments will include an emphasis on discussion and oral presentations designed to meet the requirements for University Studies Oral Flag.

2. Statement of Major Focus and Objectives.

The focus will vary according to the topic selected for any particular offering of the course. The objective of fulfilling the requirements for the oral communication flag, however, will guide each offering regardless of the particular topic.

3. Course Outline of the Major Topics and Subtopics

Since the topic will vary from topic to topic, there can be no one particular outline and set of subtopics for the course.

4. Basic Instructional Plan

The basic plan will involve students in reading and discussing works by historians, preparing written reports and papers that form the basis of oral presentations, and evaluating fellow students’ oral presentations.

5. Course Requirements

The course requirements will vary from topic to topic and instructor to instructor, but in each offering it will involve students in reading and evaluating historical literature and will fulfill the requirements of the University Studies Oral communication Flag.

6. Textbooks

The required books will vary according to the particular topic.

7. References and Bibliography

The course will make use of the University Studies Oral Communication Outcomes, but the bibliography will vary in accord with the topics selected for each offering.

B. Rationale

The department developed this course to meet the requirements for the University Studies Oral Communication Flag. . The department determined that flagging an existing advanced-level course focused on a particular topic or time period would not serve students by offering as wide range of advanced courses as possible. The History major does not have a prescribed set of advanced courses and is able to offer a relatively limited number of them each year; flagging one of them, and thereby requiring that it and not another advance course be taught each year would limit the range of courses and topics available to our majors. The best solution involved creating a new, variable topic course that whose assignments would fulfill the requirements for the oral flag. No other course will be banked or dropped if this course is approved.

C. Notification

This course neither increases nor decreases the credits required by any major.

D. “G” Courses

The department is not proposing this course as a G or 500 course.

E. General Education Course Proposal

The department is proposing this course as an Oral Communication Flag course.

Financial and Staffing Data Sheet

For New Course Proposals

PROPOSED COURSE: No.: 398 Title: Topics in History with Oral Communication

Emphasis Credits: 3

PROPOSED AS: Required Course _________ Elective Course _____X____

Specify titles of programs in which the course will be required/elective:

History Major and Minor

Social Science/History

Law and Society

University Studies (as flagged course)

PLEASE PROVIDE A NARRATIVE STATEMENT AND SPECIFIC DATA TO THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS.

1. Would this course be taught with existing staff or with new/additional staff?

This course would be taught with existing staff. It would require no additional faculty.

2. How would this new course impact on current course offerings (i.e. change the number of sections of current offerings, dropping/banking of courses, etc.)?

The department would offer sections this course in place of other 300- 400-level courses. There would be no net loss or addition to the number of 300- and 400-level courses the department would offer each year on account of adding this course to the curriculum.

3. How would this new course impact the department’s budget (e.g. equipment, supplies, instructional resources, etc.)?

The course could have a no impact on the department’s budget. It would simply take the place of another 300- or 400-level course that we would have offered.

Signed: __________________________

Department Chairperson

__________________________

College Dean

University Studies Course Approval

Department or Program: History

Course Number: 398 Number of Credits: 3

Course Title: Topics in History with Oral Communication Emphasis

Catalog Description: This course features in-depth study of topics of current concern to the historians including newer areas of research, emerging themes, and recent interpretive debates. The assignments will include an emphasis on discussion and oral presentations designed to meet the requirements for University Studies Oral Flag.

This is an exisiting course that has previously been approved by A2C2 ___

This is a new course proposal __XX__

(If this is a new course proposal, the WSU Curriculum Approval Form must also be completed as in the process prescribed by WSU Regulation 3-4.)

Department Contact Person For This Course:

Alex Yard

Email: ayard@winona.edu

University Studies Course Approval

Department or Program: History

Course Number: 398

Semester Hours: 3

Frequency of Offering:Annually

Course Title: Topics in History With Oral Communication Emphasis

Catalog Description:

This is an existing course previously approved by A2C2:

This is a new course proposal:

YES

University Studies Category:

Flagged Courses: Oral Communication

Department Contact Person:

Alex Yard

ayard@winona.edu

Rationale:

The department is proposing the course to meet the oral communication flag requirement. The department determined that flagging an existing advanced-level course focused on a particular topic or time period would not serve students by offering as wide range of advanced courses as possible. The History major does not have a prescribed set of advanced courses and is able to offer a relatively limited number of them each year; flagging one of them, and thereby requiring that it and not another advance course be taught each year would limit the range of courses and topics available to our majors. The best solution involved creating a new, variable topic course that whose assignments would fulfill the requirements for the oral flag.

This course includes requirements and learning activities that promote students' abilities to...

Earn significant course credit through extemporaneous oral presentations.

More than one-third of the course credit comes from delivering individual oral reports and presentations. Projects are graded individually

Understand the features and types of speaking in their disciplines.

Students will rehearse, refine, and make at least one individual presentation and field questions about it that would approximate a presentation at a professional conference. Moreover, each student will be required to develop questions concerning at least one other student’s presentation.

Adapt their speaking to field-specific audiences.

Students will gain experience speaking in a class discussion context and in making formal presentations. Informal discussion and debate with peers and formal presentations to colleagues are the two primary contexts for oral communication in the field.

Receive appropriate feedback from teachers and peers, including suggestions for improvement.

Students will have peer and instructor feedback on at least one significant presentation. Students will also receive written feedback on class discussion participation from the instructor,

Make use of the technologies used for research and speaking in the fields.

There is no norm in the field for technology use, and the course will convey that.

Learn the conventions of evidence, format, usage, and documentation in their fields.

The oral presentation will have a written counterpart, and students will enhance their understanding of the conventions of the field as they prepare it. As a rule, the field uses The Chicago Manual of Style as the guide for documentation style. History 298: Historical Research Methods and Historiography introduces students to it, and this course will provide opportunity for enhancing student understanding of it.

Sample Syllabus

History 398: Topics In History with Oral Communication Emphasis

American Exceptionalism

University Studies – Oral Communication Flag

Professor George Leroy Tyrebiter Office: TBA

Office Hours: By Appointment Only Phone: None

This course variable topics course that this term will focus on a longstanding controversy in the public and among historians over whether or not United State history marks as somehow exceptional among nations. The idea dates at least from the 17^th-century Puritan claim to be building in John Winthrop’s words a uniquely virtuous and sacred “Citty upon a hill,the eies of all people are uppon us.” It is also an idea that appears in the making of the Constitution (the Novus Ordo Seculorum, or New Order of the Ages, of the dollar bill) and in the works of 19^th-century European visitors like Alexis DeToqueville. Twentieth-century Socialists and Stalinist Communists debated whether the United States was somehow exempt from Marx’s predictions of class war in industrial capitalist societies, coining the term “American Exceptionism” in the process. Since at least the 1930s, historians have argued over the character of U.S. development when compared with Europe and elsewhere. Most recently President Bush and his National Security Strategy of the United States of America (September, 2002) invoked this idea, offering to lead a “great mission” throughout the world “based upon a distinctly American internationalism that reflects the union of our value and national interests.”

This course will also emphasize the sort of oral communication commonly practiced in the field of history. You will be responsible for participating in class discussions, making at least three oral (and written) reports on readings to the class, and one significant oral presentation based on a written assignment.

Required Texts

Selected Puritan Sermons (handouts)

Dorothy Ross, The Origins of American Social Science

Seymour Martin Lipset, American Exceptionalism, A Doubled-Edged Sword

Rowland Berthoff, The Republic of the Dispossessed

Eric Foner, “Why is there no Socialism in the United States?” (handout)

National Security Strategy of the United States of America (September, 2002)

In addition, each student will report on three scholarly articles available on JStor, book chapters, and/or primary documents drawn from the past.

Assignments

Class discussion. You will be expected read the assignments in advance of each class and participate in the class discussions. Your discussion grade will reflect both the quantity and quality of your contributions.

Written and oral reports, You will make three written and oral reports to the class on supplemental readings that the rest of the class will not have read. The written report will take the form of a one-page summary and (when appropriate) critical evaluation and an oral presentations based upon your written work. You will receive feedback on both the written and oral elements of the assignment.

Paper and oral presentation. In consultation with the instructor, each student will select a topic relevant to the course, read a series of historians’ works on the topic, and prepare both a paper and an oral presentation on the readings. Both the topic and the reading list require the instructor’s approval. Your paper will use the documentation format described in the Chicago Manual of Style. The paper will account for one-half of your grade for this assignment, and the oral presentation will account for the other half.

C-SPAN Evaluation. You will watch a C-SPAN presentation by a historian and together with a small group you will develop criteria, informed by the University Studies Outcomes for Oral Communication, for evaluating such presentations.

Peer Evaluation and Presentation Questions. You will credit for offering peer evaluations of other students’ presentation rehearsals and presentations, and you will be responsible for developing questions of at least one other student’s oral presentation. The peer evaluations will incorporate the criteria developed in the C-SPAN assignment.

Course Grade

10% Class discussion

20% Three Written and Oral Reports

30% Paper and Oral Presentation

10% Peer Evaluation and Presentation Questions

10% C-SPAN Evaluation

20% Final Exam

University Studies Note

This course fulfills the requirements for the Oral Flag. The course address each of the requirements for the flag as follows:

Earn significant course credit through extemporaneous oral presentations.

The three oral reports on readings and the oral presentation of your research will account for one-third of the final grade. Students will also earn points toward the final grade by preparing and asking questions of at least one other student’s presentation.

Understand the features and types of speaking in their disciplines.

Students will have the opportunity to rehearse, refine, and make a formal presentation and field questions about it that would approximate a panel session at a professional conference. Moreover, each student will be required to develop questions concerning at least one other student’s presentation. Students will also engage in a group project to develop criteria for judging oral presentations and use them to evaluate a book presentation on C-SPAN.

Adapt their speaking to field-specific audiences.

Each student will experience three different kinds of audience situations in the course, informal class discussion, oral reports, and a formal oral presentation.

Receive appropriate feedback from teachers and peers, including suggestions for improvement.

Students will have peer and instructor feedback on the presentation. Students will also receive written feedback on class discussion participation and oral reports from the instructor,

Make use of the technologies used for research and speaking in the fields.

The course will clarify that there is no norm in the field for technology use.

Learn the conventions of evidence, format, usage, and documentation in their fields.

For the written counterpart of your oral reports and oral presentation, you will use the documentation style outlined in The Chicago Manual of Style as the guide for documentation style. You will receive instructor feedback on a draft of the paper that will serve as the foundation of the oral presentation.

Course Schedule

Week 1 Course Introduction: Exceptionalism Defined and Oral Emphasis Explained

Ross, Origins of American Social Science, introduction

Berthoff, Republic of the Dispossessed, 1-9

Discussion of Lessons CMST 191 (or comparable transfer course) Taught and

University Studies Outcomes specified for Oral Communication Area

Week 2 The Puritan Sense of Mission

Selected Sermons (handout)