HIST 10613-080
Kerstetter

Sourcing

Workshop essay #4: Use the documents that can be accessed via hyperlinks in the syllabus for the week of February 11 to complete this assignment.

1. Read the documents fairly quickly. Using only these documents, you have to plan how to write a history of the Progressive Era, which historians typically define as roughly 1900-1920.What question would drive your history of the period? Write down the best question you can craft.

2. Now read the documents more carefully and start looking for connections that might help answer your question. A concept map might help you with this task, but you're not required to make one. Find as many connections as possible. In several sentences, explain a connection you think most people would miss.

3. Write a sample sentence demonstrating each of the following:

a. a naive understanding of source information;

b. a simple understanding of source information;

c. a good understanding of source information; and,

d. a sophisticated understanding of source information.

Submit written answers for the three sections above at the start of class.

This assignment adapted from material developed by Lendol Calder and presented in "Uncoverage: Toward a Signature Pedagogy for the History Survey," Journal of American History 92(March 2006): 1358-1870 and on a related Web site http://www.indiana.edu/~jah/textbooks/2006/calder/index.html.