REQUIRED COURSE LEARNING OUTCOMES:

 1.  Reference secondary and tertiary sources to construct knowledge and to develop context.

 2.  De-construct complex and multiple sources of information into basic historical concepts.

 3.  Recognize the impact of continuity and change of historical perspective in context of time and space.

 4.  Develop narrative structures and arguments based on evidence.

 5.  Compare and contrast how peoples, groups, cultures, and institutions change over time.

 6.  Analyze events a chosen topic in historical context to illustrate how social, cultural, gender, race, religion, nationality, and other identities affect historical perspectives.

 7.  Use diverse resources for historical research, including libraries, databases, bibliographies, and archives.

 8.  Identify perspectives in historical interpretation using secondary sources.

 9.  Identify types of primary sources, their perspective, and purpose of their author.

 10. Create substantive writing samples that employ critical analysis of primary and secondary sources with appropriate citations.

 11. Construct knowledge by developing historical narratives from primary and secondary sources, maps, and/or artifacts.

 12. Identify historiography and evaluate many points of view to build historical arguments.

 13. Create a substantive writing sample, a capstone, that employ critical analysis of primary and secondary sources, with appropriate citations.

 REQUIRED TOPICAL OUTLINE:

 I.    Identifying historical problems

         A.  Posing important questions about history

         B.  Using existing historiography to narrow topics

         C.  Locating historiography and primary sources in libraries, databases, and archives

         D.  Techniques for skimming, annotating and organizing data from large numbers of sources

 II.   Drafting a Critical Review of a historical work

         A.  Taking and organizing notes on readings

         B.  Providing context on historical problems

         C.  Summarizing notes and identifying the thesis and evidence of historiography

         D.  Assessing strengths and weaknesses of writing about history

         E.  Identifying and avoiding problems of writing about history

         F.  Ensuring a competent understanding of essential essay structure and coherence.

 III.  Gathering a working bibliography and annotating it

         A.  Covering the breadth of available sources including those published, unpublished, primary and secondary

         B.  Providing annotation useful to other historians

 IV.   Following the conventions of historical bibliographies as found in the Chicago Manual of Style or Turabian’s A Manual for Writers.

 V.    Writing a review of historical literature

         A.  Identifying an important historiographical subject

         B.  Synthesizing the main arguments on the subject in the scholarly literature

         C.  Evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of historical theses and evidence

         D.  Identifying problems and lacunae in the literature and suggest remedies where possible.

 VI.   Writing researched, documented papers on historical subjects

         A.  Creating an original research proposal with a working thesis and bibliography

         B.  Locating sources and planning research

         C.  Taking and managing notes and quotations

         D.  Organizing and documenting your argument in proper format

         E.  Adopting tone and style appropriate to the anticipated audience and avoiding pitfalls of historical writing

         F.  Revising/editing

         G.  Using technology to efficiently and correctly format typescripts