For your final project, please create a condensed version of an American Core Humanities class. Imagine that you have to teach a version of this course in only four sessions. Each session will be its own ‘unit’ for the course and should contain one reading. Your four units should be structured around a central theme for the course, which should be narrower than a regular class. In proposing your condensed version of the course, you should explain the relevance of this theme to the goalsl of the course and argue for the importance of the readings you choose for students in today’s world.
Your project should take the form of an evidenced, argumentative proposal and will need to include the specific evidence demonstrating…
why the readings you choose for your units are important,
why these four units are best designed to meet the goals of the course (the goals are written below),
how they fit in with your proposed theme for the course,
why this theme is important for students to understand today,
and how your proposed course interacts with the ideas and readings we have discussed this term
The goals of the course are
Express ideas clearly and persuasively, using relevant evidence to support their arguments
Analyze primary source texts with attention to content, historical and cultural context, and rhetorical techniques
Trace the sources and development of American intellectual traditions and cultural institutions, with attnetion to the diversity of experiences and voices that shaped the nation
Identify how significant artistic and cultural movements as well as scientific and technological developments influenced Americans’ changing sense of themselves and their society
Connect the beliefs, values, and actions of past generations to Americans to contemporary conditions in the United States
Identify the historical origins, philosophical foundations, core principles, and evolutions of the United
In constructing this argument, you should have citations from each of the four readings you are proposing that support their role in your course, as well as specific evidence from at least three of our course texts (texts that are attached) to discuss how your course engaged with or diverges from concepts we have considered.
A theme you will be proposing will be focused on activism. In addition, you should make an argument about why this theme and these readings remain relevant now. The explanation of the theme and argument for relevance will be in your intro and act as the argument for this assignment.
Your body paragraphs will support this argument in the following ways:
You will explain each of your four units and how they fit together to explore the theme, as well as why each unit is important historically.
Draw on your proposed weekly readings to support the importance of these units and their connections to the course as a whole.
Draw connections to the three course texts (that are attached) to discuss how your units engage with concepts that we have discussed.
Use evidence from both your proposed readings as well as our course readings to explain the continued relevance of the course materals and your theme. Be sure to analyze your proposed readings to show how they build out your theme and relate to other course texts.
The most successful of these assignments will build interesting and specific connections across texts that you will present as your course theme (so, not just, “this is all women stuff”) and do a nice analysis of specific moments from both our common course texts (that are attached) and your proposed readings to show their relevance to the theme you propose and students’ lives today.
The nitty gritty:
3-4 pages (not including the works cited page)
Propose a theme that is focused on activism
Make an argument for why this theme and your proposed historical texts matter to students today
Explain your 4 units, why they are important, and how they fit together
Reference 3 of our course readings (that are attached)
Include 4 outside sources that are posed as readings in your condensed course
Analyze your sources
Include MLA-style citations and works cited page for your sources (including the 3 readings that are attached andthe 4 readings that you are proposing)
