Grade Percentages
Course Participation: 15%
5 Book Reviews: 50% (10% each)
Book Review Comments: 15%
Final Project: 20%
Course Participation
The course participation portion of your grade will be based on your consistent and active participation in classroom discussions (in a constructive manner), including 1) your demonstrated understanding of the theses, arguments, methods, and evidence in the weekly readings and 2) your analysis of writings both as individual works and in the larger context of the course and early modern history. Please feel free to ask me at any time throughout the semester how your course participation is going.
As you are graduate students, I assume your attendance at class every week. That said, life happens. If you need to miss class, please contact me and we will make an alternate plan for your participation that week.
Book Reviews
Over the course of the semester, you will write 5 book reviews of approximately 1000-1200 words each. This will be a mix of books assigned as reading each week and other books you are interested in that have been published in the last 20 years (2003-2023).
There is some flexibility in the ratio, but I expect this to be either a 4-to-1 or 3-to-2 ratio of assigned/free choice books depending on the number of students who register for the course.
You will be expected to (co)lead the class discussion on the days we cover your reviewed books.
Book reviews on assigned readings will be posted to the class blog and are due Sundays at 11:59pm.
Book Review Comments
You will post weekly comments on your classmates’ book reviews. These comments should provide substantive feedback or amplification of the reviews and be 100-300 words in length.
Comments are due Tuesdays at 11:59pm.
Course Projects
You will have a choice of activities for your final project (full guidelines linked here), which should be approximately 3,000-3,500 words. You may choose to write an historiographical essay, a Wikipedia article, an undergraduate lesson plan, an article/book prospectus, or some other alternative that you pitch and I accept as commensurate.
If you are signed up for this course under the HIST 615 code, I will expect your final project to have a colonial American subject and if you are signed up for this course under the HIST 635 code, I will expect your final project to have a European subject. If this is not the case, please consult with me before diving into the research for your project to ensure you are adequately meeting the department’s requirement for each course code.
Final projects are due at the end of the University-assigned final exam period, which is Wednesday, May 10 at 10:15pm.
