Medieval survey revamp, part 3

Christmas and New Year's were both relatively quiet round these parts. Now I have a little time to sort out upcoming classes, which brings me back to my revamped medieval history survey.

I teach both a medieval and an early modern survey (and, in fact, I'm teaching both in the spring). For some reason, the early modern survey has always been easier for me to teach, even though (or because?) the Middle Ages is really my specialty. It has just always seemed easier to find cohesive themes for the early modern course. I've taught the medieval course something like 10 times, half of them at this institution, and I've made significant changes nearly every time.

I discussed earlier stages of my thoughts on this revamp here and here. Ultimately, I decided to keep the reader I've been using, in combination with another primary source reader and two longer primary sources. (One of these will be the Song of Roland, because it's been too long since I've taught it.) We won't be reading all of either reader, but we'll be reading substantial pieces of both. The textbook is going to become an optional purchase, in the full awareness that most students will, therefore, opt not to purchase it. My hope is that, though I will need to lecture more often, that the lectures will allow me to establish my own narrative more clearly

As for written assignments, I'm planning to include some short skill-building assignments along with a couple of longer essays. I used a very minor research assignment in a fall class that I liked--basically, it requires students to look up something from a day's reading assignment in a few other sources (both print and online), and write up a brief version of what they learned along with an evaluation of the sources they used. Other assignments will focus on close reading of primary sources. I also regularly do a map quiz. A lot of American students know very little about modern European geography, let alone where regions like Burgundy are/were. Grades on the quiz are nearly always bimodal: students who studied get A's, students who didn't do very poorly. Hm, it occurs to me that students who did acquire the textbook may have an advantage since it has maps. I'll give the others a list of atlases to check.

Might need some more monks in this syllabus

I have a bit of an academic lull before final papers come in. So I was just doing some planning for spring classes.

I only realize now that I've arranged my workload rather oddly. This fall I've taught a first-year seminar (capped at 15) and two upper-level classes (each with about 12 students each). In the spring I'll be teaching one upper-level class (quite small) and two introductory ones, each of those with 25 students. I think I'm going to be doing a lot more grading in the spring than this fall.

The spring upper-level course is on medieval monasticism. And may be the only time I'll ever teach it, since the enrollment is pretty low. It's such a pleasure to put together a course where I actually have a deep knowledge base. However, I did realize as I put a tentative reading list together that most of the secondary scholarship I included is about nuns. Now, in my course on monasticism, nuns are not going to get just a day or a week on the syllabus, but are going to get integrated into our discussions of every development in monasticism. And most of the primary sources are by and for monks, so men are not going to be neglected. Still, a bit more scholarship on the monks and friars would probably be wise.

Medieval survey revamp, part 2

If I had a camera, I'd take a picture of my desk. It is covered in a pile of Penguin Classics, source collections, and other stuff. I pulled off the shelf just about every book that seemed possibly appropriate for a 100-level medieval history survey. Following the suggestion of Dr. Notorious, I made a list of themes, and jotted down both short and long sources that I'd like to teach related to those themes. One thing that became clear as I did this is how strongly this list deviates from what I've been teaching in this course. It is definitely time to freshen up the reading list (and probably the assignments). Of course, I've made a list of possible readings that is longer than I think the students can actually manage, so it'll need a bit of winnowing down.

Revamping the medieval survey

A couple of weeks into the new school year, I seem to have adjusted. For the first week or so, I felt keyed up all the time and wasn't sleeping that well. Now I seem to be back into the rhythm.

I have a class full of first-year students who are charmingly fresh and eager. I'm trying out some new assignments, although I'm already finding that some of them work better than others. The information literacy exercise I've asked them to do seems to work well, for example.

Because the bookstore is bugging me for book orders, I'm thinking again about my medieval survey course. I've now taught it three times here, and I've never been quite satisfied with it. I feel bored by the textbook and overly constrained by the reader. I find myself thinking about the equivalent course I took as an undergrad.

My undergrad medieval history professor (later my advisor) had a signature approach. He didn't use a regular textbook, per se, and didn't lecture. (Somehow I learned the dates of things anyway, but I don't quite remember when and how.) Our reading included some long primary sources, and packets of shorter sources put together by him. He organized the class around a series of polarizing questions, and forced us into arguing with each other. (His favorite rhetorical tactic in class was this: "So, John, [sums up what student just said], is that right? So you're saying that what Jane said earlier was wrong. Jane, do you have a response to that?") The essay prompts were, similarly, questions with yes-or-no answers that forced students to pick a side and state a thesis.

I've never quite been able to emulate his "pit them against each other" style of discussion leadership. But I do find myself seriously considering moving away from the books I've been using, ditching my usual reader, and trying to come up with a set of readings I (and, I hope, my students) will find more inspiring.

Summer to-do list

I am at home and done with major travel for the summer, after taking some time for conference and social time. There are a couple more trips on the horizon, but only short ones. My cats should be grateful.

So the time has come to figure out what needs to be done this summer. Here's the list I've come up with, in no particular priority order:

Writing Stuff

• Look over book manuscript and helpful people's comments


• Figure out how to revise / whether to keep it as book or slice into articles


• Revise recent conference paper


• Work on article idea (pulled together from two different conference papers and recent research stuff)


• Correspond with various people regarding another project

Teaching Stuff

• Think about tweaking survey classes, especially assignments (fall one a priority)


• Think about tweaking upper-level course that's a repeat


• Make a plan for upper-level course that's new


• Order books for fall classes (should happen real soon now)

That's all leaving aside stuff to be done around the house and yard, of course, as well as anything else I do to stay sane this summer. It seems like more than enough to keep me off the streets and out of trouble.

Accomplishments of the last few weeks

I have graded so many papers that I lost count.

I have evaluated and ranked students for various award opportunities.

I recommended that my independent study student read Judith Bennett's History Matters, and was delighted to find that she loved it.

Curriculum angst

I started and abandoned several posts in the last month. I hope to post a little more often this year, but we shall see.

I am teaching an advanced topics course next year and have not yet decided the topic. Now I'm down to the wire, to the point where the registrar is calling me at my office to tell me to get them the description. I have gone round and round about this course and overthought it just about every way I could overthink it.

I have had a lot of ideas for courses I could teach. A lot of them, although interesting subjects, are ones that I don't have the clearest idea how I'd teach. That is, I don't have a great sense of what questions or problems I'd organize the course around, and in most cases that would require me to do quite a bit of work to get up to speed on the scholarship in the area before I'd feel confident that I could do a good job teaching the course. If I felt a great and burning passion to teach a particular subject, I'd go for that, but I don't. Since I've already had opportunities to develop and teach advanced topical courses here, I've "used up" the ideas I once felt most intense about.

So in picking a subject, I'm trying to balance my interest in a topic against how much work it would take to prepare. I'm also worried about student interest. My courses have, by and large, drawn a lot of students, but this worry pushes me a bit toward "sexier" sounding courses. Unfortunately, those are often not the ones I feel best prepared to teach.

Finally, thinking about next year's courses forces me to think about my longer-term teaching plans. I teach 6 courses a year; half of those are bread-and-butter survey classes. So I have 3 upper-level courses a year to play around with. I want to have courses I repeat regularly, but I also want to have the freedom to introduce new topics as they interest me, and balancing the two gets tricky very quickly.

After spending weeks toying with one course idea after another, sketching out a five-year plan, feeling disgruntled with the five-year plan, worrying about how to balance my teaching among introductory, intermediate, and advanced courses, I throw up my hands. I think I'll propose a course on monasticism in the Middle Ages. It's... wait for it... actually my area of expertise, unlike 90% of the ideas I've come up with, and I already have a fairly strong idea of what sort of readings I'd assign. I do worry about how to sell it to students--but on the other hand, religious studies courses at my school are pretty well attended, so that might not be as difficult as I fear.

If you actually read through all that, thanks. If you're faculty, how do you decide what courses to teach? How much freedom do you have to make that decision? Have I missed some ways I could have agonized about and overthought this decision?

Observations of the last three weeks

I am supposed to be grading papers this weekend. But I had my students turn in their papers via an online system, which appears to be down.

Several of my advisees are lovely, poised individuals who have been a breeze to advise. Others have mysteriously vanished and missed key moments of the registration process.

My students have all been sick, and I fear I'm only narrowly avoiding getting sick myself.

Next week my file comes up for reappointment review.

More later.

I'm back from my research trip, and back at work. It's vaguely surreal to be back in the office and classroom.

Also, I am advising, and some of students have proposed schedules that are sadly delusional. No, you should not sign up for multivariable calculus if you have only taken high school algebra II.

The phrase I've been typing most often lately

(aside from basic opening and dating formulae):

in virtute sancte obediencie, et sub pena excommunis

I wish I could credibly put the same thing on my syllabi:

in virtue of holy obedience, and under penalty of excommunication, we order that you turn in your work on time and do not plagiarize, students!

Easing in

Class doesn't start for me until next week, but I'm going to have to be on campus every day this week. Faculty at SLAC are expected to attend opening receptions and new student orientation activities--we all got recruited to either lead a discussion on the campus's common reading or give a mini-lecture that gives them a taste of teaching. As a new advisor, I have an advising workshop to go to, and then I need to meet with my crew of new advisees and get them registered for fall classes.

This is maybe more involvement with new-student stuff than faculty have at larger institutions, no? But this is part of the atmosphere SLAC sells itself on. I'm actually hopeful that it will be a good way to get myself more used to a structured routine. I have been spending the summer sleeping late and having very unstructured time, and I need to get used to getting up earlier and paying attention to what time it is.

Summer projects

So one of my summer projects (one for which the college is actually paying me, hurrah) is to get up to speed on Crusades scholarship for a course I'm teaching in the fall.

There is a lot of Crusades scholarship, folks. Hoo boy. I ordered a huge stack of books which I'm now skimming. Some I'll assign for class, and others I'll order for the library, whose collection in this area is not very current.

When I started this reading, I had only a vague idea of what I wanted to do with this class, and the process of reading has sharpened my ideas considerably. I have rejected several books for class assignments as being, to me, "too magisterial." I want my students to get a handle on what happened, but I don't want them to be too influenced by a single narrative that proclaims This Is What Happened. I am much more drawn to books that explain differing interpretations, that talk explicitly about how they handle sources, and that don't pretend to be the single definitive account of events.

I've winnowed my giant pile into rejects and books I want to take a second, closer look at. I'd also welcome suggestions.

The first year on the tenure track

So, I have finished my first year on the tenure track. I am taking stock a bit, and figuring out how it feels to have passed this milestone.

Last fall I was struggling a bit to feel differently about this job than the one-year positions I've had for the last few years. (I wrote a bit about that here and here.) At some point, when I wasn't really paying attention, I found that I had successfully transitioned. On some level, I have recognized that I have committed to this place. In fact, I have had to restrain myself from worrying too much about proposed curriculum and policy changes.

In a lot of ways, I am glad to have had experience working at other schools before starting on the tenure track here. In my very first (visiting) job out of grad school, I encountered faculty politics that were contentious and a little dysfunctional. That has given me a better idea of what to look for. I have spent much of the past year observing politics here, as well as the quirks of faculty governance, and I think I'm developing the ability to hear what lies behind apparently innocuous comments made in faculty meetings. My senior colleagues have, I think, been a good guide for me.

My classes generally had good enrollments, except for one which was cancelled. I'm writing that one off as a fluke, as my preregistrations for next year also look good. I think I was more relaxed about fitting in with college norms in the spring, so I hope I'm getting adjusted.

I didn't get a ton of writing done this year, but I did give two conference papers, so I think I'm doing all right on the research front.

Next year will bring a considerable change in my responsibilities, since I'll have advisees and committee work. But I think I feel ready, more or less, for this new work.

Almost summer

I am not counting time as part of "summer" until after commencement this Saturday.

But I find that I am somehow, amazingly, almost done. Classes are over. Most of the grading is accomplished. I am waiting on a few late assignments before I submit grades.

Here, therefore, some summer goals (just the academic ones, there are others regarding yard, social life, etc.):

1) Earn my summer stipend by ordering and reading materials and making plans for my fall course on the Crusades.
2) Look over my old conference papers and prepare an article to submit by the end of the summer.
3) Look at my book manuscript, figure out what revisions it needs, and begin work on them.
4) Make plans for a research trip in the fall.
5) Make plans for my other new courses next year, plus start putting materials together for my review. (My school does a 2nd-year review and another in the 4th year.)

The Tyranny of Readers

I am starting to think about next year's courses. I have a number of tweaks to make to assignments, but the more pressing issue is what books to assign (because the bookstore wants me to order them soon).

In my intro classes I assign them a textbook for an overview of the period, and the rest is mostly primary sources. Much of that comes from a reader, or collection of primary sources with short editorial introductions. I find I have a love/hate relationship with most of the ones I am using.

Using the reader is convenient because it saves me the trouble of hunting down such a wide array of primary sources myself. The editors usually provide some handy background information on the document and its author. All the stuff is is one handy book, so students don't have to worry about losing handouts and the like.

The major problem I am having is that I feel like when I am using a reader, the book itself drives the content of the course more than I like. For example, for ages I have used Geary's Readings in Medieval History in my medieval survey. I like a lot of things about this book: I like that it uses long excerpts, or complete sources where possible; I like that it covers a broad range of topics; I like some of the specific sources included. But the last time I was using it, I felt frustrated. It seemed like we kept talking about kingship and institutions of power. It's not that I wanted to ignore these things entirely, but it felt like the book was sending us in that direction because of the materials it included. That is partly my issue, as I don't mind supplementing a reader with other materials, but I like to use as much of the selections in the reader as possible, so students get their money's worth from it.

So, I'm now trying to decide whether to continue using the book, substitute another reader (which might have similar issues), or put together my own slate of sources for the students. I'd welcome comments on what has worked for you.

Independent Study

OK, yesterday's frazzled feeling has been largely resolved. Later today I'll head off to a small conference. I'm hoping it'll be fun.

Students here are registering for next year, and I've already tentatively agreed to two independent studies. In both cases they're good students for whom the IS would fill an important spot in their overall program, so on the one hand I feel good about doing them. On the other hand, my dept. chair advises me not to take on too many, and I don't want to overload myself. I have had independent studies before--some of them turned out great, others were frustrating and took way too much time.

What do you think, readers? What makes me you more or less willing to supervise an independent study? Are there keys to both student and prof having a good experience with one?

December already?

Ugh. That was a longer-than-planned hiatus. I lost much of November to bronchitis.

Two weeks of class are left. Classes are going fine, the only hitch being a class full of shy, introverted first-year students who are afraid to say anything in class. Stimulating discussion, or even getting them to ask basic questions about assignments, is tough.

My college is hiring in an important campus-wide position, and all of the interviews will be in the next two weeks, so I need to fit in going to those presentations / receptions / Q&A sessions to get a sense of the candidates.

I'm also trying to finish up an abstract to submit to a conference within the next week, and finish up with the books I borrowed from interlibrary loan before the librarians come after me with sticks.

Add in getting ready for the holidays, illness and other drama in the family, and it's been a hectic few weeks.

Hanging in there

I'm taking a moment's break from grading jail this weekend for an update.

• The student I alluded to back in this post seems to be getting along ok. She stops by my office regularly for clarification on issues that confuse her, but the very questions she asks demonstrates that she does understand the basics. 
• I have another non-Christian student in my class on the Reformation whose outsider's perspective is really refreshing; he's not afraid to say things that challenge Christian students' ideas of what's normal, and that livens up discussion immensely.
• I'm not entirely happy with how I've organized the second half of the Renaissance-Reformation survey course, but we'll see how it goes; I'll teach it again in the spring, so I'll have opportunities to tweak it very soon.

My job requires that I teach every day; this is a very teaching-focused liberal arts college and essentially everyone has an every-day schedule. This is definitely been a shock to the system after the last couple years of part-time adjunct teaching. As tiring as that was, I was usually able to arrange to teach only on two or three, or at most four, days, and had some time during the week to recharge and work on other things. Being in the office and classroom every day is wearing. I need to figure out how to carve out some time mid-week to refresh myself, but I haven't quite managed yet...

No prior knowledge assumed?

This week I was talking to an international student about my 100-level history class. The class is a pretty broad survey of European history between c. 1300 and 1700. In theory, the class requires no prerequisites. But in talking to this student, I realized that isn't quite true. 

I do assume, when teaching an introductory class, that my students have had some history in high school. I assume that they've gotten a basic narrative of western history, that they've heard of feudalism, the Renaissance, and Martin Luther. My class is usually designed to take apart paradigms that I believe to be familiar, and to interrogate assumptions about what, for example, "the Renaissance" means.

This student, however, is Asian, and has had very little exposure to European history. It's kind of startling to me to think about how to teach in a way that genuinely did not assume any prior knowledge of the period being taught. How would I teach a whole class full of such students? I would really need to rethink the way I introduce all kinds of topics. With only one student in this situation, I'm less inclined to make major changes, but it's worthwhile to keep the lack of familiarity with the topic in mind. Perhaps I should even make fewer assumptions about what my American students may know.

Is it possible I might one day do research again?

My new job is time-intensive, but yesterday I managed to get a little ahead on class prep, and today I had some time to think. I wrote up an abstract and made some lists:

goals for the year

materials to get from the library

ideas I might want to pursue in the future

I keep most of such notes on the computer, and I have a terrible time keeping track of such stuff. On the list of goals, in fact, is "for the love of God, reorganize the files so I can find things." My system of electronic file-keeping broke down once I moved beyond my dissertation materials, and whenever I try to find an idea or reference I wrote down, I end up searching in five different folders, opening and closing a dozen different files before I find what I'm looking for. 

I think I have a pretty manageable agenda for the year, and we'll see how things go.

Now back to paper grading and class prep.