Dr. Mark Grimsley
Spring Quarter 1996

Office Hours

Mondays, 12:30-1:30, Thursdays, 9:30-10:15; and by appointment.
Office: 363 Dulles Hall
Office phone: 292-1855
E-mail address: grimsley.1@osu.edu

Textbooks

John Mack Faragher et al., Out of Many: A History of the American People. Vol. 2.

Main text for the course. Available at SBX.

Tom Wolfe, The Right Stuff.

Classic account of the Mercury astronauts. Vividly depicts the combination of American confidence and anxiety at the height of the Cold War. Available at SBX.

Mark Grimsley, comp., Retrieving the American Past, vol. 2.

Additional course readings. Available at SBX.

IMPORTANT: Retrieving the American Past is a customized reader. Your instructor has chosen certain essays and documents from a wide array of possibilities. The selections are published in a unique version of the Retrieving the American Past reader prepared especially for your class. Make sure you purchase the correct version! Each reader has a sticker on the front cover with the name of the instructor who compiled the version and the academic quarter in which it will be used. (The same information is also printed on the first page.) Don't use a version prepared by another instructor and don't use a version prepared for a quarter other than the one in which you are taking the course.

Overview

History 152, the second half of the American History sequence, covers the period from 1877 to the present. The course is designed to acquaint students with the basic concepts, events, and interpretations of the American historical experience. The assumption upon which this and similar courses are built is that all educated persons should possess an understanding of the past that gave rise to our current society.

Enrollment

All students must be officially enrolled in the course by the end of the second full week of the quarter. No requests to add the course will be approved by the department chair after that time. Enrolling officially and on time is solely the responsibility of each student. Make-up Exam Policy

If for any medical reason you find it absolutely necessary to miss an examination, you must contact your discussion section leader before the exam and get her or his consent to your absence if you wish to make up the exam. The date and time for any make-up will be announced in class.

Requirements

Students will take two mid-terms and a final exam. In addition, each student is responsible for satisfactory participation in the discussion sections. These requirements are weighted as follows:

FIRST MID-TERM - 200
SECOND MID-TERM - 250
FINAL - 350
CLASS PARTICIPATION - 200
TOTAL POSSIBLE - 1000

Week 1

America in 1877

Intro; administrative

Reconstruction

The West, 1860-1900.

Week 2

Industrialization - I.

DISCUSSION: "The Age of Industrial Violence."

Industrialization - II.

The Search for Order - I.

Week 3

The Search for Order - II.

DISCUSSION: "How to Write a Mid-Term Essay"

Informal Empire.

NO CLASS

Week 4

The First World War - I.

DISCUSSION: "The First Sexual Revolution"

The First World War - II.

FIRST MID-TERM

Week 5

The Twenties

DISCUSSION: "The Clash Over Values"

The Depression.

The New Deal - I.

Week 6

The New Deal - II.

DISCUSSION: "The Internment of Japanese-Americans"

The Second World War

The Second World War/The Cold War.

Week 7

The Cold War.

DISCUSSION: "The Feminine Mystique and the Organization Man"

America in the 1950s.

SECOND MID-TERM

Week 8

The Civil Rights Movement.

DISCUSSION: "The Cold War and the Space Race"

The Great Society - I.

The Great Society - II.

Week 9

The Vietnam War - I.

DISCUSSION: "American Myth and the Space Race"

The Vietnam War - II.

Watergate.

Week 10

MEMORIAL DAY - NO CLASS

DISCUSSION: "Did the United States Cease to Be a Middle Class Nation in the 1980s?"

The Cultural Wars of the 1960s

The Conservative Resurgence

Overview

History 152, the second half of the American History sequence, covers the period from 1877 to the present. The course is designed to acquaint students with the basic concepts, events, and interpretations of the American historical experience. The assumption upon which this and similar courses are built is that all educated persons should possess an understanding of the past that gave rise to our current society.

Examinations

The mid-terms and final examination are divided into two main parts: an objective section and an essay section.

1. Objective Section (Multiple Choice/Short Answer)

The first part tests the student's knowledge of key individuals, places, concepts and events. There will be ten to twenty questions requiring a brief response (one to five words). Either you will know the answer or you won't, so plan to spend no more than a minute per question. Use the remaining time to write your essay.

2. Essays

The "objective" portion of the test is concerned primarily with the student's understanding of the facts. By contrast, the essay is concerned with the student's grasp of the overarching concepts and how these concepts organize and give meaning to the facts themselves. This is frequently a difficult point for students to understand and it therefore merits extended treatment.

Students often assume that the essay is just another way for them to demonstrate hom much they know about the material that has been presented in class. This leads them to do a "memory dump" in which they feverishly seek to record in the exam booklet every fact, anecdote, and quotation that pops into their head. This can have unpleasant consequences and usually does, because an essay is intended to test your ability to think analytically and to explain your analysis on paper. This involves, in turn:

a. an ability to write clearly, so that the reader is not baffled by misspellings, grammatical faults, run-on sentences, etc.;

b. an ability to orient the reader to the question that will be answered and to explain why the question is important;

c. an ability to prioritize. What issues are most important in answering the question? What is the most logical order in which to present them? What examples most clearly illustrate these critical issues?

d. an ability to avoid the irrelevant: everything you write should relate directly and explicitly to the question posed;

e. an ability to write an essay that is proportional to the time allowed for its completion. If you have 30 minutes to complete an essay, you must tailor your depth of coverage so that you cover the whole question in 30 minutes, without omitting important points or overemphasizing one point to the detriment of another.

This is not an easy task. It requires careful thought, and the best way to prepare for an essay is to apply one question to everything you hear in lecture and everything you read in the textbooks, namely: So what? Or to amplify that question: How does what I am hearing or reading relate to the overarching themes of the course? Never lose track of those overarching themes. I will tell you in lecture what they are; the textbooks will reveal and reinforce them as well. So will your discussion section leaders. If you're not sure you grasp them, track down your T.A. and ask questions as soon as possible and certainly well in advance of the exams.

The mid-terms will test material covered up until the time of those exams; they will not be comprehensive. The final exam will test material covered since the mid-term. However, it will also include a one-hour comprehensive essay that will require the student to deal with the full scope of the course. Possible comprehensive essay questions will be handed out a few days before the final. All exams are closed book, closed note.

NOTE: Once in a great while a student will answer an essay question in non-essay format; for example, in outline form. This will not do. If the exam requires you to write an essay, you must write an essay consisting of complete, well-developed paragraphs.

CLASS PARTICIPATION

Students learn better when they actively involve themselves in the course. For that reason class participation counts for 20% of the final grade. The Discussion Section Leaders and I gauge participation by keeping track, informally, of the students who ask questions, participate in the discussions, and take advantage of office hours. Individual Discussion Section Leaders enjoy full authority to allocate the class participation grade as they see fit. They will provide you with a written statement of their grading criteria.

Attendance is not required in lecture; on the other hand, students who miss a lot of classes are bound to do poorly. Attendance in discussion sections is required unless your Discussion Section Leader says otherwise.

Here is how the course is designed to operate. To begin with, you have a textbook and two other books to read. READ THEM. They contain practically everything you need to know in order to pass the course. The lectures and discussions are intended mainly to help you master the material contained in the readings.

But although in theory you could get an "A" simply by reading these three books with care, in practice this will not happen. Students usually require help in order to identify the important themes, isolate the most critical facts, and relate themes and factual material in an intelligent, convincing way. That is the whole reason for having a course like this in the first place.

I lecture on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Even if I lectured every day of the week, however, I could not tell you orally everything you need to know in order to do well in this course. Three days is nowhere near enough time. The most I can do in lecture, then, is give you a general idea of the important themes and the really salient facts, and show you some of the ways in which these themes and facts are connected. Tuesdays and Thursdays are reserved for your discussion sections. There you'll have the opportunity, along with other students, to practice relating themes and facts yourself--under the supervision of a Discussion Section Leader who will serve as your guide.

Study Techniques

READING THE TEXT

Read along with the lectures. This is a simple but generally neglected rule. Read the relevant parts of the textbook before each lecture, then use the lectures as a check on your understanding. Let them serve to help you distinguish the critical points in the textbook, and re-read the relevant parts of the textbook as soon as possible after each lecture to cement your grasp on the material. Don't expect to be able to cram several chapters into your head just before an exam; you can't possibly do it.

Some chapters are more important than others. If you look at the syllabus, you'll see that we're going to spend several days on some chapters, whereas others will rate much less coverage. Use the syllabus as a guide. Concentrate on the material that will be emphasized in lecture; think of the rest primarily as background.

Read actively. Don't let the words just sort of wash over you. Stop from time to time and ask yourself about what you're reading; for example, how does the current section relate to the theme of the chapter as a whole? Passive reading can waste a lot of time without giving you a good grasp of the material. Less but more energetic reading is beneficial.

DISCUSSION SECTIONS

Obviously, you'll need to do the assigned reading before each discussion section. Think about how the reading relates to points made in the textbook or in lecture, and pay close attention to the way in which your Discussion Section Leader guides the class discussion. Make a note of the major personalities, events, and concepts described; they will almost certainly show up on the exam.

REVIEWING FOR TESTS

This should be an on-going process; that is to say, you should study every day. When you do study, think about concepts first. Next, think about the major figures and events associated with each concept. Do not treat the concepts, figures and events as "vocabulary" words with definitions to be memorized out of context. History is, in large measure, a story. Learn the story. Then learn how to interpret the story.

GETTING HELP

The T.A.s and I have office hours twice a week; if you can't make them, we can arrange another time. During our office hours we have no other purpose in life than to answer your questions and help you get a better grip on the material. Take advantage of that.

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