Course Synopsis:    

Read old diaries and enter into the daily lives of individuals.  In this course you will develop your detecting, analyzing, mapping, tabling, graphing and digital history skills .  You will reveal the meanings found within these laconic texts and relate diarists’ lives to larger themes in the scholarly literature.  These themes will include work, food production, marketing, material objects, animals, property, social order, family strategies, the environment, gender, and leisure from the early days of settler society into the 20th century.  

Course Format:

Seminars held twice a week

Learning Outcomes:

By the successful completion of this course, an assiduous student will have learned to:

1. identify and explain the key factors that define rural life and key changes over time;
2. plan a research project and propose it in a convincing manner proving its significance and do-ability;
3. critically evaluate the reliability, strengths and weaknesses of primary evidence;
4. map, table, graph, and apply some digital history techniques to primary evidence;
5. find meaning in diary texts and relate diarists’ lives to their communities and larger themes in the scholarly literature;  
6. Appreciate the contributions of scholars to Rural History, how they approach the subject from different perspectives, and how the historiography has developed;
7. communicate their ideas orally through regular participation in seminar discussions and in other scholarly settings;
8. lead a seminar using engaging teaching and communication skills;
9. assume professional responsibilities as budding historians by locating suitable primary source and secondary source materials, using them appropriately, and ethically citing them in their work;
10. Communicate effectively in good prose.
11. manage information
12. martial evidence to support and effectively communicate an independent, original piece of scholarship grounded in an explicit historical literature and context

Methods of Evaluation and Weights:

Seminar participation & leadership - 45%
Essay Proposal - 5%
Research Essay - 45%
Presentation of Essay - 5%

No Textbooks Required:

The readings are from a variety of sources and are available on reserve unless stated otherwise

        
*Please note: This is a preliminary web course description only.  The department reserves the right to change without notice any information in this description.  The final, binding course outline will be distributed in the first class of the semester.