Links for Graduate Seminar on Teaching World History

Presentation in UCSB Hist 200WO

by Harold Marcuse
(professor of German history at UC Santa Barbara)
Harold Marcuse homepage

created Feb. 14, 2007, updated 10/23/10

Introduction (back to top)

• In my guest presentation on Feb. 20, 2007, I'd like to cover three main topics:
  1. The Western Civ. vs. World History debate, esp. as it unfolded at UCSB
     • Explore the linked documents below--I'll answer questions and comment orally
     • The readings from the first section of Ross Dunn (ed.), A New World History (2000), pp. 13-108 address this issue as well.
  2. My goals in teaching this General Education survey course
     • The essays I give my TAs in the Hist 500 seminar accompanying my World History course address this.
     • I'd like to give you a tour of my Hist 2c website, commenting on how the various parts fit together to achieve my goals.
  3. How I go about constructing a syllabus: choosing a textbook, finding resources for the lectures, etc
     • Journals like World History Connected are an important resource.
• In the seminar session, I'd like to try projecting these documents/web sites on the classroom screen to aid our discussion. (This could also prompt a discussion of the pros and cons of integrating technology in instruction, another one of my favorite topics--see this outline of my 2002 presentation on "Technology in the History-Social Science Classroom."
  

Western Civ vs. World History (back to top)

• "The Western Civilization Requirement at UCSB: Pro and Con Arguments, 1985-2004"
  This blow-by-blow account is probably much more than you care to know, but it does have embedded links to some documents that explicitly formulate the pro-Western Civ position. You can find them on that page, or go directly. I'd recommend using the link above, and making good use of your browser's "back" button.
  • 5/14/01 minority report (description in 4th paragraph after indented quotation)
    and the 6/11/01 majority response.
  • Nov. 2003 History department discussion of Western Civ
• Table of links to the GE requirements at other UC campuses and our comparison 9 institutions, on my GE Reform homepage. Note that Illinois explicitly defines the content of WCiv courses.
• The readings from the first section of Ross Dunn (ed.), A New World History (2000), pp. 13-108.

My Goals in Teaching the World History Survey: Research (back to top)

• My 2006 Hist 500 syllabus, which at the bottom has links to the "practical" (how-to teaching) texts that I hand out to my TAs. The syllabus itself shows how I try to work with my TAs in the course, and how discussion sections are integrated but independent. In 200w I'd like to talk about the "Global Village" handout for the first section meeting, and how it can set a tone for the course. Here are the main readings from the 500 syllabus again, but in order of importance (1a, 1b and 2 are short; Wineburg is longer; Gross Davis is just for your benefit):

1. Carole Srole, "Scaffolding Research Skills in a non-research class," AHA Perspectives, Jan. 1998.
   1. I don't use these techniques specifically, but I share the goal of teaching research skills in a survey course.
   2. See also Robert Townsend, "'Best Practices:' Encouraging Research Excellence in Postsecondary History Education," AHA Perspectives, Oct. 2000, esp. "Encouraging Student Research," points (f) - (o).
2. E.D. Hirsch, Jr., "You can always look it up--Or can you?" American Educator, Spring 2000 (pdf at American Educator website; html at Hirsch's coreknowledge.org website)
• I tend to be a "skills, not facts" person (i.e., I don't really agree with Hirsch), but I think it is indeed important not to forget that we need a basic framework of factual/core knowledge into which we can integrate new knowledge.
3. Samuel Wineburg, "On the Reading of Historical Texts: Notes on the Breach between School and Academy," AERJ 28:3(Fall 1991), 495-519. (pdf)
1. Wineburg has conducted studies of how differently historians and non-historians (the latter including high school history teachers) read primary sources. Keeping this in mind will help to keep you from throwing up your hands in frustration at your students' seeming ignorance, and show you what you may need to teach them. Getting them to "think historically" in this way is my primary goal in teaching a survey course such as this.
2. See also these excerpts from a summary discussion of Wineburg's research by Robert Bain, which he presented at the 1999 World History Association conference.
3. This article was republished as chapter 3 in Wineburgs book: Historical Thinking and Other Unnatural Acts: Charting the Future of Teaching the Past (Philadelphia: Temple, 2001), 63-88. ($26/20 at amazon) -- a wonderful book.
4. Barbara Gross Davis, Tools for Teaching (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1993). This is my all-time favorite book with practical advice on designing any course and teaching it.
   1. hyperlinked table of contents; $34 new/$22 used and searchable at amazon
   2. chapter 9: "Encouraging Student Participation in Discussion" (pp. 75-80)
   3. chapter 10: "Asking Questions" (pp. 82-89) (pdf). Eight pages that can change your section style forever.

Tools for Designing a World History Course (back to top)

• My Hist 2c course website, with sections on my course goals, as well as some lecture outlines.
  • Of particular note are the Old Announcements, which reflect my thinking and collecting of material prior to teaching the course (kind of like a blog). They are chock full of links, and include links and a discussion of how I arrived at my textbook choice (see Sept. 14, 2005 announcement).
• I mentioned how teaching students to conduct (historical) research is one of my main goals. To that end see especially the 2nd writing assignment and other materials and discussion collected on the Events page. It includes my analysis of how students chose topics, and 5 model papers. I would like to guide you through this during my 200wo presentation.
• The previous time I taught the 2c survey, I considered using Mary Lynn Rampolla's Pocket Guide to Writing in History as a required text (table of contents on my proseminar site). Since so few of the students ever do history again, I decided this was overkill, and did not use it. Instead, the assignment mentioned in the previous bullet is my attempt to find more real-life topics for the students to learn research skills on. My 2003 2c website has the previous version of this assignment, so you can see how I've tried to refine it.
• Useful links for a World History course:
  • Bulliet textbook website has a page of very briefly annotated links by world region

Additional Resources (Prep. for Hist 200WD, Winter 2011) (back to top)

• Valuable Online Resources for Students of History, a short annotated list by guide to online schools.com

Links

• Interview with author Felipe Fernandez-Armesto at The Mind Construction Quarterly, Spring 2004

Books (English)

• Chris Harman, A People's History of the World: From the Stone Age to the New Millennium (Verso, 2008).  (amazon $14) [UCI, UCSC only]
• Ross E. Dunn, The New World History: A Teacher's Companion (Bedford/St. Martin's, 1999).  (amazon $22-$55)
• Tignor (et al), Worlds Together, Worlds Apart (3rd ed. 2010) (Norton ebook lite)
• Heidi Roupp, ed., Teaching World History in the Twenty-First Century: A Resource Book (Armonk, N.Y: M.E. Sharpe, 2010 [1st ed. 1997]).  (H-Teach discussion, started 8/23/10)

Books (German)

• Michael Borgolte: Christen, Juden, Muselmanen. Die Erben der Antike und der Aufstieg des Abendlandes 300 bis 1400 n. Chr. (Munich, 2006)
• Jürgen Osterhammel: Die Verwandlung der Welt: Eine Geschichte des 19. Jahrhunderts (Munich, 2009), 1305
• Bärbel Kuhn / Holger Schmenk / Astrid Windus (eds.): Weltgeschichtliche Perspektiven im Geschichtsunterricht (St. Ingbert: Röhrig Universitätsverlag 2010), 132 pp. (May 2010 Sehepunkte review)(20Eur at amazon.de)
  • 4 scholarly essays & 8 classroom units from 2009 workshop
  • Central question: What did peoples in the past know about each other?
    E.g. Crusaders and Muslims; European vs. colonial troops in WWI
  • Has sources with detailed commentary, each on separate page for easy copy use