![\"Scot](\"https:\/\/cah.ucf.edu\/wac\/sites\/default\/files\/SAF-pic.jpeg#overlay-context=node\/189\")
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Scot French<\/u> is an associate professor in the Department of History. Dr. French is a digital public historian who specializes in the interpretation of cultural landscapes and sites of memory associated with African American, Southern, and Atlantic World history.<\/p>\n
“To date, I\u2019ve evaluated four WAC-inspired assignments, with very promising results.<\/em> My students are showing me how much they can learn about<\/u> history by \u201cdoing<\/u>\u201d history through finely tuned research and writing assignments. They\u2019re also revealing, through their written work, the strengths and weaknesses of each assignment and suggesting where I need to work harder as a teacher<\/em>.”<\/p>\n Last Spring I had the pleasure of working with WAC Director Pavel Zemliansky and WAC Coordinator Lindee Owens and two colleagues from the History Department \u2013 Emily Graham and Dan Murphree \u2013 on a WAC Faculty Fellows project called \u201cWAC for Historians: Designing Level-Specific Writing Assignments to Promote Discipline-Specific Learning Outcomes.\u201d Writing, we all agreed, is a critically important medium for communicating mastery of historical methods and content knowledge at all course levels \u2013 introductory, upper-level undergraduate, and graduate. Too often, however, we squander the full potential of our writing assignments by failing to establish their rhetorical context within specific course objectives or their larger purpose within the general curricular framework of undergraduate and graduate history education at UCF.<\/p>\n A series of Spring workshops and meetings, led by Pavel and Lindee, introduced us to new ways of thinking about the vital connection between writing and learning within a discipline-specific framework. How might we, as historians, use writing assignments to promote the critical reading of key texts or encourage the making of evidence-based arguments? What methods might we, as historians, borrow from specialists in Writing and Rhetoric to encourage student inquiry and discovery and eliminate writing-for-writing\u2019s-sake drudgery? As the first WAC Faculty Fellows in History cohort, Emily, Dan, and I set out to fine-tune our classroom writing assignments with clearly articulated, discipline-specific, level-appropriate learning outcomes in mind.<\/p>\n Fortunately, in taking up this challenge, we had good working models close at hand. At the national level, the American Historical Association has embarked on what it calls the \u201cHistory Tuning\u201d Project\u201c<\/a> to articulate the disciplinary core of historical study and to define what a student should understand and be able to do at the completion of a history degree program.\u201d At the department level, we set \u2013 and frequently update — general learning objectives as part of our annual assessment of the GEP, undergraduate, and graduate programs.<\/p>\n As a first step, Emily, Dan, and I identified four general learning outcomes, which we then translated into level-specific objectives. To \u201ckeep it real,\u201d we imagined a student advancing through the system — from survey-level to upper-level to graduate-level history courses \u2013 and gaining level-appropriate knowledge, skills, and abilities along the way.<\/p>\n Survey Level:<\/u> Student demonstrates ability to use provided materials to perform basic analysis for improved comprehension of primary and secondary sources.<\/em><\/p>\n Upper-Level:<\/u> Student demonstrates ability to locate and utilize range of secondary materials to contextualize and analyze primary sources; address major problems; and make evidence-based arguments.<\/em><\/p>\n Graduate Level:<\/u> Student demonstrates ability to locate and utilize range of secondary materials, recognize and critique abstract themes \/ major problems (historiography\/ methodology). Student also strengthens ability to prioritize information in order to write for varying audiences.<\/em><\/p>\n With these level-specific objectives in hand, Emily, Dan and I began \u201ctuning\u201d assignments for history courses we had taught in the past and planned to teach again in the future. For me, that meant revamping some old assignments and developing new ones for my Fall 2012 upper-level course, US South to 1865.<\/p>\n As a historian working at the intersection of traditional print and new media, I am always looking for ways to introduce my students to the web-based archives of primary sources \u2013maps, texts, databases, etc. — being developed by historians for use in the classroom and beyond. \u00a0As a WAC for Historians Faculty Fellow, I began to see new possibilities for integrating those online resources into research and writing assignments while advancing larger departmental and disciplinary goals for history education in the Digital Age.<\/p>\n My students did a great job, by and large, of answering the questions I put to them. They conducted original research in the virtual archive and raised intriguing questions about the circumstances surrounding specific voyages, such as that of The Wanderer \u2013 an American slave ship illegally trading in the South in 1859. What my students lacked \u2013 and what I am committed to providing them now and henceforth \u2013 was guidance on how to research supplemental information on specific voyages (like the Wanderer) beyond the scope of the Voyages site. How can they use JSTOR and other scholarly databases, freely available through UCF library, to find secondary literature? What steps should they follow, as historians, if they cannot find their specific voyage mentioned anywhere else on the web? Can they construct an interesting and meaningful narrative out of statistics and geospatial data alone?<\/p>\n For another assignment, I asked my students to investigate the lives and labors of English indentured servants in colonial Virginia using the Virtual Jamestown<\/a> and Virginia Runaways\/Geography of Slavery<\/a> websites. One student used an April 1796 advertisement in the Virginia Gazette to tell the story of a runaway apprentice — an 18-year-old French boy who had worked at the public armory in New London, Virginia. Dressed in \u201ca striped Nankeen coat, a striped pattern waistcoat, a black cloth ditto, a blue cloth jacket, trousers, a pair of worsted stockings, a pair of shoes, and plated belt buckles,\u201d the boy \u201ccarried with him a set of puppets, which he probably intends to support for his economic well-being.\u201d I had never heard of this case, and found the detail and analysis provided by my student extraordinarily compelling. Allowing the student to follow his own research agenda (within the general constraints of the assignment) produced new findings and expanded both his and my knowledge of the subject. I now use the example of this runaway servant\/puppeteer in my lectures to capture students\u2019 imaginations, illustrate the value of the \u201cVirginia Runaways\u201d database, and highlight the potential for new discoveries by students themselves as they embark on this assignment.<\/p>\n![\"wordle\"](\"https:\/\/cah.ucf.edu\/wac\/sites\/default\/files\/Wordle-WAC-for-Historians.png#overlay-context=node\/193\")
<\/p>\n![\"slave_voyages\"](\"https:\/\/cah.ucf.edu\/wac\/sites\/default\/files\/Screen%20shot%202013-01-28%20at%2011.44.39%20AM.png#overlay-context=node\/190\")
For example, Emory University\u2019s web-based Voyages: The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database<\/a> introduces students to the broader, global context of Atlantic World history through essays, timelines, and introductory maps. As importantly, it includes a wealth of data, drawn from a variety of archival sources, on 35,000 slaving voyages \u2013 each with its own story. \u00a0As a short writing assignment, I asked students to (1) choose a slaving voyage that ended in the Southern American colonies\/states; (2) place that voyage in historical context; and (3) address the strengths and weaknesses of the database as a source of information and insight.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/cah.ucf.edu\/wac\/sites\/default\/files\/Screen%20shot%202013-01-28%20at%2011.43.35%20AM.png#overlay-context=node\/191\")
Students devised individualized research agendas based on topics of special interest to them: gender, occupation, motivation for running away, etc. Then, using evidence gleaned from these \u201cweb-accessible archives,\u201d each student crafted an essay relating the history of indentured servitude as a quasi-free, contract labor system to the more personal experiences of servants who had run away, sometimes in company with slaves.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/cah.ucf.edu\/wac\/sites\/default\/files\/Screen%20shot%202013-01-28%20at%2011.47.46%20AM.png#overlay-context=node\/191\")
To date, I\u2019ve evaluated four WAC-inspired assignments, with very promising results. My students are showing me how much they can learn about<\/u> history by doing<\/u> history through finely tuned research and writing assignments. They\u2019re also revealing, through their written work, the strengths and weaknesses of each assignment and suggesting where I need to work harder as a