Wednesday October 31, 2012
Welp, this marks the last blog of the semester! I am VERY happy to not have to blog about each and every class after this! The rest of the semester is going to be spent only on our papers: reviewing them, editing, and finding any additional information. I am actually enjoying the new change in my topic focus because for the entire 1920s Aurora College worked hard to fund raise for their endowment and then it just disappears during the Great Depression. I like my topic more because it is actually about the school that I go to, rather than the city of Aurora as a whole. I have spent my mornings and afternoons doing research and I have started writing a little bit.
Today, we started off class by looking at one other student's introduction about African American midwives in the South. I never really understood the concept of a midwife, but LaSonya's paper makes me want to read more about it. She seems to have a great deal of information on her topic, but it seems a bit muddled in some places to me, though I am sure that she will do an awesome job.
After looking over the introduction, we began talking about our reading for the day from What Should I Do With My Life? Though it seemed like a lot to read it actually went quite fast. The main point of the reading was to never burn bridges in the workplace, have your jobs and priorities lined up, and how to really make yourself stand out among hundreds of people when applying for a job. Some people in the book had worked for the same company their entire life! Like the book states, my parents worked the same jobs for the majority of their lives, so I don't find it that strange, but now-a-days people do not stay with the same job for that long. I think its because people are always looking for something better and are willing to advance in their field even if it makes them unhappy (people will do anything for more money!). But this book talks again about people who are willing to give up big paychecks in order to do what they love and help others in the process. Many people are just ridding through life thinking that their happy and that they are somehow making a difference in the world until one day something major happens (like 9/11) and it throws some people into a state of shock which eventually makes them rethink their lives and their priorities. One story in the book, about Leela de Souza, talked about how she ended up doing something that she liked and was good at even though it wasn't the "perfect job." I often think of this because there is a wide variety of things that I could see myself doing in the future, many of which relate to history. The only problem is that some of the things that I absolutely HATE doing, I am very good at. For example, I love to experiment with artwork and create drawings and painting, but I am not any good (the picture in my mind is always so much better than what is actually produced). On the other hand, I have been told by many people that I am good at writing papers and reviewing/editing the work of others.......yea.....hate writing papers! It takes me forever to just finally settle down enough to be able to sit at the computer for like five hours to get a paper done, but once it is done I am usually satisfied with my work and I rarely ever go back and change things (just go back and make sure everything sounds okay and spelling/grammar is right). Editing is kinda fun because I get to read other people's work and learn something about a topic that I myself would never have thought to think about. Editing and reading other peoples' papers also helps me with my own writing because it exposes me to a variety of different forms of writing and helps me think outside the box and look at a topic from another perspective. I am really hoping that I will like what I do in the future (hopefully high school history teacher!) because then I can be creative in the different ways I teach, show students a variety of different viewpoints, and I can also read their papers and see what they think on certain matters. The only problems that I think I will have is, as I recall, high school classes never went into too much detail because there was so much information that needed to be covered each semester and not enough time, so students only get a broad/general idea of a topic without actually getting to see how interesting and significant it actually is. The other problem that I think I will have is the textbooks...they make history super boring by just throwing out dates and information, they do not really engage the students. So, when thinking of this, I think I will try out teaching high school for a while, but eventually my new goal is to go back to school and get my masters in history (probably 1900s to present) and teach at a community college or university. This way, I can still teach, but I can go into more detail and make students write papers (I never wrote a single paper for history in high school!). I think writing about historical events is important because when you actually sit down to write about a topic you have to think about it from a million different views and do research. It is way more fun when teachers let students put their own spin on a topic instead of just giving them a "write 5 pages about ____" kind of assignment. Ha, I seemed to have gotten a lil off topic...
We will not be meeting as a class for another two weeks because students are having their individual meetings with the professor. I can't wait for my meeting even though I have a TON of things to do before then. I am sure that I will get a lot more help on my paper and some constructive criticism. On November 12th I meet with the professor, the 14th is when our rough drafts are due and the 19th is our 15 minute long presentation to the class about out research. I am just so happy that 1.) this semester is almost over and 2.) I have no exams this semester because I have no time to do anything else except research, read, and write. Speaking of writing, I am done with this blog and must now go and write a 6-7 page paper for my Hitler and the Nazi Revolution class. So, finally, my last blog is done....
~fin
Wednesday, October 31, 2012
Monday, October 29, 2012
The Manchurian Candidate
Wednesday October 24, 2012 & Monday October 29, 2012
Today we began watching The Manchurian Candidate; a movie from 1962. The movie was adapted to from Richard Condon's novel that he wrote in 1959. The movie stars Frank Sinatra, Laurence Harvey, and Janet Leigh. The movie focuses on a rich and powerful right-winged political family who's son had went to Korea, but had been taken as a POW and then brainwashed by Communists. The film was released on October 24, 1962 at the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis. 2012 marks the 50 year anniversary. Frank Sinatra was very good friends with President Kennedy and when he was assassinated, Sinatra pulled the movie from theaters and it was not seen again for decades.
During the war, Soviets capture Raymond Shaw and his platoon and take them to Manchuria, China. While there, the men are completely broken down and reconstructed to not remember what happened and to think that Shaw was a big war hero who saved the platoon, a title which earns him the Medal of Honor upon returning home. All men that were in the platoon were trained to say that, Raymond Shaw is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being I've ever known in my life."
Also upon returning home, men from the platoon, including Major Marco (Sinatra) begin to have terrible nightmares in which they see Shaw kill other men of the platoon - men who were thought to have died during action in the war. When Shaw is killing these other men, the whole platoon is sitting in front of a group of people from different communist nations, such as China and Russia. Since Marco became a Major upon returning home, many of the men confide their intense dreams to him, explaining in great detail. Marco is somewhat concerned that all of the men had the same dreams, but Army Intelligence will not support the matter, so Marco just collects evidence on the matter himself.
The other major problem in the movie is the conflict between Raymond and his mother, Eleanor. His mother, similar to Mary Todd Lincoln, is trying to get her new husband (Raymond's step-father), Senator Iselin, to emerge as a political leader. In order to advance Iselin, Eleanor uses him as a puppet and makes him state that there are communists in the American Federal Government (this is totally a stab at McCarthy!). Throughout the movie, everyone thinks Iselin is a crazy man because every time he is asked how many communists are in the government, he comes back with a different number. That is, until Eleanor finally settles on one number, 57, that Iselin can remember because that is the number of different pickle varieties that the Heinz Company owns. Eleanor's plan is to get her husband to run, and win, the U.S. Presidency, so she can really be in control. It is not until the end of the movie that the audience figures out that Eleanor is actually a Communist spy who is working under cover! It was even Eleanor who asked her communist "friends" to train her an assassin that she can use to kill the competition so her husband can win.
Unfortunately, the assassin that is created is Eleanor's own son, Raymond. The "trigger" that puts Raymond into a state in which he will do anything is the queen of diamond from a deck of cards. So, when Eleanor wants Raymond to do something, she hands him a deck and tells him to play Solitaire. When the queen appears he transforms, she tells him what needs to be done, then he goes and does it. Raymond does not really remember what happens before he goes into this state and doesn't remember anything while he is in it, therefore, he could kill someone and not remember it or be held accountable for the murder.
The movie jumps around a bit, which is confusing, but after watching the entire movie, or even watching is a second time, things become more clear. As the movie progresses, Major Marco discovers more about what actually happened in Manchuria and how it affects the men that were there. Marco also finds a love interest while taking a small vacation. The woman even leaves her fiance and bails him out of jail for their "second date."
The brighter side of the movie is the romance between Raymond and Jocelyn. The two met a few years before and fell in love. They were actually engaged, but, as it happens, Jocelyn's father was a senator and Iselin's rival. In the end, Eleanor made Raymond break off the engagement (in rather a rude way), then Raymond joined the Army. Upon returned home, the two meet again and the romance is rekindled. Knowing that Raymond is trained to kill, Eleanor now lets the two be together and they eventually get married. VERY shortly after the wedding, Eleanor conditions Raymond and has him kill his new bride and her father. This leaves only one other person running for vice-president besides Iselin - eliminating the competition. After coming out of his hypnotic trance, Raymond is grief stricken and can't think of who would want to kill his new family.
Around the same time, Marco finds out that Raymond is not a war hero and it is the queen of diamonds that triggers him. Using his new found knowledge, Marco makes a deck of cards that only have queens of diamonds. He goes to see Raymond and is able to get all the information out of him such as who killed the Senator and Jocelyn, who brainwashed the platoon, and if the men who died really died from the war or if it was friendly fire. Marco also finds out that it is an American operator that is controlling Raymond. He orders Raymond to break all ties and tells him that the queen of diamonds will no longer have an effect on him. Raymond is free, but to the audience it doesn't really seem like it. Raymond goes to see his mother/operator where she tells him that at the presidential candidate nomination convention Raymond is to shoot the other opponent, leaving Iselin running along. Eleanor, thinking Raymond was still under her spell, tells him about how she is a communist and all her plans. She even plants a very nasty/strange kiss right on his lips! Talk about gross....! I thought it was kinda funny though because it was have been VERY hard for Raymond to act like he was under her spell and listen to her plans and let her kiss him like that. The only good thing that comes out of this little conversation is that Eleanor swears once she is in power she will get back at the people who screwed Raymond up. This is actually the only time during the whole movie where she actually seems like a real mother.
So at the convention, Raymond is to snipe the other candidate while being disguised as a priest. At this point the audience still thinks Raymond is under the spell because he is still walking and acting like a zombie. Marco figures out what is going on and also shows up...right after Raymond shoots his step-father and his own mother (initially saving the country from communism)...finally breaking free from their spell completely. As Marco enters the room Raymond turns the gun on himself and commits suicide, while wearing his ill-gotten medal of honor.
I, personally, was not surprised that Raymond came out of the trance and killed his mother because, like previously mentioned, this movie was created around the same time as the Cuban Missile Crisis, and there is no way that Hollywood would produce a movie in which the communists win! This movie actually is one of my new favorites because I have some personal feelings toward it. First, my grandpa served in the Air Force during the Korean War, so it was nice to see the time period in which he would have been returning home and living in. He is still alive, but doesn't like to talk about it much. Second, Timothy, my boyfriend, is currently in the Army as a Warrant Officer (WO1). Last February Tim went through extensive training, though he is not allowed to talk about the details, I can only image what he had to go through.....some of his training probably deals with similar issues like those from the movie. This movie also shows that the threat of communism was a real thing and that people were willing to do anything to gain political power during the time. As one who hopes to join the history profession, this movie will certainly go on my list of excellent movies!
Today we began watching The Manchurian Candidate; a movie from 1962. The movie was adapted to from Richard Condon's novel that he wrote in 1959. The movie stars Frank Sinatra, Laurence Harvey, and Janet Leigh. The movie focuses on a rich and powerful right-winged political family who's son had went to Korea, but had been taken as a POW and then brainwashed by Communists. The film was released on October 24, 1962 at the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis. 2012 marks the 50 year anniversary. Frank Sinatra was very good friends with President Kennedy and when he was assassinated, Sinatra pulled the movie from theaters and it was not seen again for decades.
During the war, Soviets capture Raymond Shaw and his platoon and take them to Manchuria, China. While there, the men are completely broken down and reconstructed to not remember what happened and to think that Shaw was a big war hero who saved the platoon, a title which earns him the Medal of Honor upon returning home. All men that were in the platoon were trained to say that, Raymond Shaw is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being I've ever known in my life."
Also upon returning home, men from the platoon, including Major Marco (Sinatra) begin to have terrible nightmares in which they see Shaw kill other men of the platoon - men who were thought to have died during action in the war. When Shaw is killing these other men, the whole platoon is sitting in front of a group of people from different communist nations, such as China and Russia. Since Marco became a Major upon returning home, many of the men confide their intense dreams to him, explaining in great detail. Marco is somewhat concerned that all of the men had the same dreams, but Army Intelligence will not support the matter, so Marco just collects evidence on the matter himself.
The other major problem in the movie is the conflict between Raymond and his mother, Eleanor. His mother, similar to Mary Todd Lincoln, is trying to get her new husband (Raymond's step-father), Senator Iselin, to emerge as a political leader. In order to advance Iselin, Eleanor uses him as a puppet and makes him state that there are communists in the American Federal Government (this is totally a stab at McCarthy!). Throughout the movie, everyone thinks Iselin is a crazy man because every time he is asked how many communists are in the government, he comes back with a different number. That is, until Eleanor finally settles on one number, 57, that Iselin can remember because that is the number of different pickle varieties that the Heinz Company owns. Eleanor's plan is to get her husband to run, and win, the U.S. Presidency, so she can really be in control. It is not until the end of the movie that the audience figures out that Eleanor is actually a Communist spy who is working under cover! It was even Eleanor who asked her communist "friends" to train her an assassin that she can use to kill the competition so her husband can win.
Unfortunately, the assassin that is created is Eleanor's own son, Raymond. The "trigger" that puts Raymond into a state in which he will do anything is the queen of diamond from a deck of cards. So, when Eleanor wants Raymond to do something, she hands him a deck and tells him to play Solitaire. When the queen appears he transforms, she tells him what needs to be done, then he goes and does it. Raymond does not really remember what happens before he goes into this state and doesn't remember anything while he is in it, therefore, he could kill someone and not remember it or be held accountable for the murder.
The movie jumps around a bit, which is confusing, but after watching the entire movie, or even watching is a second time, things become more clear. As the movie progresses, Major Marco discovers more about what actually happened in Manchuria and how it affects the men that were there. Marco also finds a love interest while taking a small vacation. The woman even leaves her fiance and bails him out of jail for their "second date."
The brighter side of the movie is the romance between Raymond and Jocelyn. The two met a few years before and fell in love. They were actually engaged, but, as it happens, Jocelyn's father was a senator and Iselin's rival. In the end, Eleanor made Raymond break off the engagement (in rather a rude way), then Raymond joined the Army. Upon returned home, the two meet again and the romance is rekindled. Knowing that Raymond is trained to kill, Eleanor now lets the two be together and they eventually get married. VERY shortly after the wedding, Eleanor conditions Raymond and has him kill his new bride and her father. This leaves only one other person running for vice-president besides Iselin - eliminating the competition. After coming out of his hypnotic trance, Raymond is grief stricken and can't think of who would want to kill his new family.
Around the same time, Marco finds out that Raymond is not a war hero and it is the queen of diamonds that triggers him. Using his new found knowledge, Marco makes a deck of cards that only have queens of diamonds. He goes to see Raymond and is able to get all the information out of him such as who killed the Senator and Jocelyn, who brainwashed the platoon, and if the men who died really died from the war or if it was friendly fire. Marco also finds out that it is an American operator that is controlling Raymond. He orders Raymond to break all ties and tells him that the queen of diamonds will no longer have an effect on him. Raymond is free, but to the audience it doesn't really seem like it. Raymond goes to see his mother/operator where she tells him that at the presidential candidate nomination convention Raymond is to shoot the other opponent, leaving Iselin running along. Eleanor, thinking Raymond was still under her spell, tells him about how she is a communist and all her plans. She even plants a very nasty/strange kiss right on his lips! Talk about gross....! I thought it was kinda funny though because it was have been VERY hard for Raymond to act like he was under her spell and listen to her plans and let her kiss him like that. The only good thing that comes out of this little conversation is that Eleanor swears once she is in power she will get back at the people who screwed Raymond up. This is actually the only time during the whole movie where she actually seems like a real mother.
So at the convention, Raymond is to snipe the other candidate while being disguised as a priest. At this point the audience still thinks Raymond is under the spell because he is still walking and acting like a zombie. Marco figures out what is going on and also shows up...right after Raymond shoots his step-father and his own mother (initially saving the country from communism)...finally breaking free from their spell completely. As Marco enters the room Raymond turns the gun on himself and commits suicide, while wearing his ill-gotten medal of honor.
I, personally, was not surprised that Raymond came out of the trance and killed his mother because, like previously mentioned, this movie was created around the same time as the Cuban Missile Crisis, and there is no way that Hollywood would produce a movie in which the communists win! This movie actually is one of my new favorites because I have some personal feelings toward it. First, my grandpa served in the Air Force during the Korean War, so it was nice to see the time period in which he would have been returning home and living in. He is still alive, but doesn't like to talk about it much. Second, Timothy, my boyfriend, is currently in the Army as a Warrant Officer (WO1). Last February Tim went through extensive training, though he is not allowed to talk about the details, I can only image what he had to go through.....some of his training probably deals with similar issues like those from the movie. This movie also shows that the threat of communism was a real thing and that people were willing to do anything to gain political power during the time. As one who hopes to join the history profession, this movie will certainly go on my list of excellent movies!
Monday, October 22, 2012
Introductions (Part Two)
Monday October 22, 2012
Today we sat down and immediately got started on finishing our critique of the rest of the class' introductions. I must say, I didn't think that we have so many good writers in our class! Everyone has their own writing style and everyone has good ideas for their introductions! It made me feel kinda bad because I didn't think that mine was very good - my intro definitely needs to be re-worked. Some started theirs off with a story, a description, a quote, or a question, but each was able to make it work for their paper topic. After reading each intro I wanted to read more because they intro made the topic seem interesting. I need to get my intro to this point because as it stands right now it seems kinda boring.
For today's class we were supposed to read chapter 6 from "Doing History." This chapter just goes into writing a five paragraph essay, annotations, article reviews, book reviews, and other short writing assignments. The book tells what should be included/excluded from each, what to look for, and how to do justice to the author/creator and the profession of history. This chapter also includes how to write a good resume (which we will have to bring to class Monday October 29th). Since the job market is very competitive, I was happy to see this in the textbook because it offers good information and ideas about how to make yourself more appealing to potential employers!
We spend almost the entire class finishing the introductions. Our annotated bibliographies are due on Wednesday and have to be at least five pages with one and a half spacing. I, again, went to the library and found more sources. I need to actually stay at the library for a while because there are a lot of local history books there that they don't let you take home, but by the time I get to the library it is like 20 minutes until they close, so I don't get much done. The only good thing about Wednesday is that we get to relax a little bit because we are watching a movie. However, we are gonna have to write about the movie in our blogs extensively. I was told that this movie will be more interesting than the last - I hope! I don't know what else I am supposed to blog about for today's class, so I am going to go and work on my annotated bibliography and get some reading/research done!
Today we sat down and immediately got started on finishing our critique of the rest of the class' introductions. I must say, I didn't think that we have so many good writers in our class! Everyone has their own writing style and everyone has good ideas for their introductions! It made me feel kinda bad because I didn't think that mine was very good - my intro definitely needs to be re-worked. Some started theirs off with a story, a description, a quote, or a question, but each was able to make it work for their paper topic. After reading each intro I wanted to read more because they intro made the topic seem interesting. I need to get my intro to this point because as it stands right now it seems kinda boring.
For today's class we were supposed to read chapter 6 from "Doing History." This chapter just goes into writing a five paragraph essay, annotations, article reviews, book reviews, and other short writing assignments. The book tells what should be included/excluded from each, what to look for, and how to do justice to the author/creator and the profession of history. This chapter also includes how to write a good resume (which we will have to bring to class Monday October 29th). Since the job market is very competitive, I was happy to see this in the textbook because it offers good information and ideas about how to make yourself more appealing to potential employers!
We spend almost the entire class finishing the introductions. Our annotated bibliographies are due on Wednesday and have to be at least five pages with one and a half spacing. I, again, went to the library and found more sources. I need to actually stay at the library for a while because there are a lot of local history books there that they don't let you take home, but by the time I get to the library it is like 20 minutes until they close, so I don't get much done. The only good thing about Wednesday is that we get to relax a little bit because we are watching a movie. However, we are gonna have to write about the movie in our blogs extensively. I was told that this movie will be more interesting than the last - I hope! I don't know what else I am supposed to blog about for today's class, so I am going to go and work on my annotated bibliography and get some reading/research done!
Wednesday, October 17, 2012
Introductions (Part One)
Wednesday October 17, 2012
Today was a busy day! We started off by doing some online research that pertains to our topics. There is a list of online website types in one of our textbooks: archive, electronic essay/exhibit, teaching resource, gateway, journal/web zine, organization, and virtual community. Our goal was to go online and find a good example of each of these that would help us with our Senior Seminar paper. I found some good websites that I have to look further at. One of these websites had a list of different words that came out in the 1930s, it was really interesting and even had some cartoons from the period, but I don't know how useful it will be to my paper (which is why I have to look at the website closer). Other websites were also interesting and I made a copy of each of them to look at them later when I have time. This activity took up about half of our class time.
The other half of the class was spent critiquing each others' introduction paragraphs. We were given a copy of everyone's intro, given time to read it and make marks/corrections, then we discussed them out loud. Mine was one of the first to be peer reviewed and the others did not hold back about what they liked, didn't like, and things that I need to improve on! I thought my paragraph was good, but now I have good feedback in order to fix it properly so that common people and other historians will understand it better. We only got about three or four introductions done before we were released for the day.
Today I got more books for my essay. I also made another appointment to go to the Aurora Historical Society. I most definitely need to start writing soon, but I keep finding more information! Before I can even start writing I need to organize all my sources, notes, and ideas. I am going to focus a lot on different groups and organizations in the city because many of them did things like food drives, clothing drives, and other things to help each other out during the Great Depression. I also plan to make an appointment with Susan Palmer to see if she has any other ideas or information for my paper. Martha made an appointment with her and got a lot of good information and ideas that really helped her put her paper into a proper order. I think I will work my self into the ground this week and start getting ready to write, then this weekend really hammer out some of the main ideas and fix my introduction. This just really sucks because I have a ton of other papers and readings and various assignments for my other classes that are coming due. I am having such a hard time with time management this semester! I can't wait for December 12th to get here!
Today was a busy day! We started off by doing some online research that pertains to our topics. There is a list of online website types in one of our textbooks: archive, electronic essay/exhibit, teaching resource, gateway, journal/web zine, organization, and virtual community. Our goal was to go online and find a good example of each of these that would help us with our Senior Seminar paper. I found some good websites that I have to look further at. One of these websites had a list of different words that came out in the 1930s, it was really interesting and even had some cartoons from the period, but I don't know how useful it will be to my paper (which is why I have to look at the website closer). Other websites were also interesting and I made a copy of each of them to look at them later when I have time. This activity took up about half of our class time.
The other half of the class was spent critiquing each others' introduction paragraphs. We were given a copy of everyone's intro, given time to read it and make marks/corrections, then we discussed them out loud. Mine was one of the first to be peer reviewed and the others did not hold back about what they liked, didn't like, and things that I need to improve on! I thought my paragraph was good, but now I have good feedback in order to fix it properly so that common people and other historians will understand it better. We only got about three or four introductions done before we were released for the day.
Today I got more books for my essay. I also made another appointment to go to the Aurora Historical Society. I most definitely need to start writing soon, but I keep finding more information! Before I can even start writing I need to organize all my sources, notes, and ideas. I am going to focus a lot on different groups and organizations in the city because many of them did things like food drives, clothing drives, and other things to help each other out during the Great Depression. I also plan to make an appointment with Susan Palmer to see if she has any other ideas or information for my paper. Martha made an appointment with her and got a lot of good information and ideas that really helped her put her paper into a proper order. I think I will work my self into the ground this week and start getting ready to write, then this weekend really hammer out some of the main ideas and fix my introduction. This just really sucks because I have a ton of other papers and readings and various assignments for my other classes that are coming due. I am having such a hard time with time management this semester! I can't wait for December 12th to get here!
Monday, October 15, 2012
Getting Started & Introductions
Monday October 15, 2012
Today we talked about getting started to begin writing our Senior Seminar essays. I am slightly freaked out about this because I am still doing research and still finding things that I find interesting and want to include in my paper. I know that at some point I will just need to start writing, but at the current moment I do not feel like I have a sufficient amount of material. I plan to spend ALL day on Friday at the Aurora Public Library going through their microfilms more and other information that they have. So, to start off today's discussion we began talking about things that we must keep in mind while writing: the audience and our writing style. The intended audience is our professor and our fellow classmates, while the unintended audience will be whoever decides to read it later. We then talked about our writing style. This means that we should write our paper like how we talk. This paper is not for super scholarly people, but more for the common people who do not know much about our topics, therefore, we need to use simple language and explain our arguments clearly. We must also remember to construct our argument, tie everything back to the argument, and demonstrate perspective.
We then moved on to talking about introductions. I, personally, always write my introduction first, but then usually go back after the entire paper is written and tweak some things. The first thing we did was look at some examples of other people's introductions from books and papers. We read them, then evaluated what kind of introduction it was. Some people told stories or gave a brief background of the topic, then the second paragraph has the thesis. One intro was horrible because it opened up the topic, but then just started listing things and I got bored before I was even done with the paragraph. For my paper, I am planning on starting out with a brief history of the City of Aurora, then a brief description of the Great Depression (in general), then go into what my paper will be about. I am still trying to think of an interesting way to get the audience's attention right at the beginning. Also, the first page or two of our paper should have a long footnote that tells the reader the type of sources used, shows that the author is knowledgeable, and also shows that the reader can look other places for similar information on the topic.
This conversation moved on to talking about our overall writing. Obviously, every sentence needs to have a subject and a verb, no run on sentences, have proper transitions, and every point must relate back to the main argument. We were also told that a thesaurus will be our best friend for writing this paper. I LOVE the online thesaurus because it has a ton of different examples and other places to look. Ha, I didn't even know what a thesaurus was until I entered college (thanks high school for preparing me for the real world *sarcasm*). We were also told to watch our choice of words, not to use slang/jargon, and that everything needs to be in the past-tense.
There are four types of writing. Narration is storytelling. This includes describing an event in a way that attracts the readers, using multiple perspectives, but not too much detail. Description is writing in a way that brings the people back to the event and making them feel that they are actually there. One must be careful when writing this because it is easy to make things up that might not have been true back during the event. The third type of writing is interpretation. This is where the focus on primary sources comes in. Under this type of writing, the author must give their interpretation of a source, but not to make it seem like that is the only way to look at a source. The last type of writing is persuasion. This is what our argument will be, everything has to help the argument. Our papers will use all four of these writing styles, some more than others.
The more we talk about writing our papers, the more excited I get. I don't feel like I have enouggh information to start writing because I only have the brief history of the Great Depression as a whole, some info on the City of Aurora, and just random information on the different clubs, organizations, etc. that were around in Aurora in the 1930s. I am planning on looking further at education this week. I have two other classes, each with papers constantly due, so I really need to start micro-managing my time in order to get all of this done in time! I am still kicking myself in the butt for not doing any research over the summer! I could have had the majority of this paper researched and written!!! Ugh....well, next time I will know to just jump-start any and all projects that I know I will have to do for the semester, including reading, researching, and writing!
Today we talked about getting started to begin writing our Senior Seminar essays. I am slightly freaked out about this because I am still doing research and still finding things that I find interesting and want to include in my paper. I know that at some point I will just need to start writing, but at the current moment I do not feel like I have a sufficient amount of material. I plan to spend ALL day on Friday at the Aurora Public Library going through their microfilms more and other information that they have. So, to start off today's discussion we began talking about things that we must keep in mind while writing: the audience and our writing style. The intended audience is our professor and our fellow classmates, while the unintended audience will be whoever decides to read it later. We then talked about our writing style. This means that we should write our paper like how we talk. This paper is not for super scholarly people, but more for the common people who do not know much about our topics, therefore, we need to use simple language and explain our arguments clearly. We must also remember to construct our argument, tie everything back to the argument, and demonstrate perspective.
We then moved on to talking about introductions. I, personally, always write my introduction first, but then usually go back after the entire paper is written and tweak some things. The first thing we did was look at some examples of other people's introductions from books and papers. We read them, then evaluated what kind of introduction it was. Some people told stories or gave a brief background of the topic, then the second paragraph has the thesis. One intro was horrible because it opened up the topic, but then just started listing things and I got bored before I was even done with the paragraph. For my paper, I am planning on starting out with a brief history of the City of Aurora, then a brief description of the Great Depression (in general), then go into what my paper will be about. I am still trying to think of an interesting way to get the audience's attention right at the beginning. Also, the first page or two of our paper should have a long footnote that tells the reader the type of sources used, shows that the author is knowledgeable, and also shows that the reader can look other places for similar information on the topic.
This conversation moved on to talking about our overall writing. Obviously, every sentence needs to have a subject and a verb, no run on sentences, have proper transitions, and every point must relate back to the main argument. We were also told that a thesaurus will be our best friend for writing this paper. I LOVE the online thesaurus because it has a ton of different examples and other places to look. Ha, I didn't even know what a thesaurus was until I entered college (thanks high school for preparing me for the real world *sarcasm*). We were also told to watch our choice of words, not to use slang/jargon, and that everything needs to be in the past-tense.
There are four types of writing. Narration is storytelling. This includes describing an event in a way that attracts the readers, using multiple perspectives, but not too much detail. Description is writing in a way that brings the people back to the event and making them feel that they are actually there. One must be careful when writing this because it is easy to make things up that might not have been true back during the event. The third type of writing is interpretation. This is where the focus on primary sources comes in. Under this type of writing, the author must give their interpretation of a source, but not to make it seem like that is the only way to look at a source. The last type of writing is persuasion. This is what our argument will be, everything has to help the argument. Our papers will use all four of these writing styles, some more than others.
The more we talk about writing our papers, the more excited I get. I don't feel like I have enouggh information to start writing because I only have the brief history of the Great Depression as a whole, some info on the City of Aurora, and just random information on the different clubs, organizations, etc. that were around in Aurora in the 1930s. I am planning on looking further at education this week. I have two other classes, each with papers constantly due, so I really need to start micro-managing my time in order to get all of this done in time! I am still kicking myself in the butt for not doing any research over the summer! I could have had the majority of this paper researched and written!!! Ugh....well, next time I will know to just jump-start any and all projects that I know I will have to do for the semester, including reading, researching, and writing!
Wednesday, October 10, 2012
Research Day
Wednesday October 10, 2012
Today we have off of class because Professor Butters has a meeting or lecture to go to. So, instead of having class we are free to spend the time doing our research and writing. I will be going to the Aurora Public Library after my noon to one o'clock class. I plan to spend at least four hours there looking at their newspapers on microfilm and there other documents. They actually have a great deal of information at the library that the historical society does not have, so I must utilize my time well to get through it all. I have been going to the historical society on Monday and Wednesday mornings and the library on Friday afternoons and any time over the weekends that I have free. I feel very bad because I know several other students already have a great deal of information for their topic, but I am really struggling trying to find useful information that pertains to my topic. So far, I have done a great deal of research from the stock market crash in 1929 until about 1933 and I haven't really found anything to support my thesis that the city of Aurora was greatly effected by the Great Depression, so I might have to change my thesis. Most of the information that I find is people commenting on the stock markets in New York and Chicago and for most of the information, only the big cities are discussed. I plan to get through more information from the later years to figure out if the depression stifled the social growth of the city. I also plan to get to a nursing home to do an interview or two and possibly go to Phillips Park to see what all the Civilian Conservation Corps. did.
Today we have off of class because Professor Butters has a meeting or lecture to go to. So, instead of having class we are free to spend the time doing our research and writing. I will be going to the Aurora Public Library after my noon to one o'clock class. I plan to spend at least four hours there looking at their newspapers on microfilm and there other documents. They actually have a great deal of information at the library that the historical society does not have, so I must utilize my time well to get through it all. I have been going to the historical society on Monday and Wednesday mornings and the library on Friday afternoons and any time over the weekends that I have free. I feel very bad because I know several other students already have a great deal of information for their topic, but I am really struggling trying to find useful information that pertains to my topic. So far, I have done a great deal of research from the stock market crash in 1929 until about 1933 and I haven't really found anything to support my thesis that the city of Aurora was greatly effected by the Great Depression, so I might have to change my thesis. Most of the information that I find is people commenting on the stock markets in New York and Chicago and for most of the information, only the big cities are discussed. I plan to get through more information from the later years to figure out if the depression stifled the social growth of the city. I also plan to get to a nursing home to do an interview or two and possibly go to Phillips Park to see what all the Civilian Conservation Corps. did.
Monday, October 8, 2012
Quotations & Citations
Monday October 8, 2012
Today was a challenging day! We started off talking about quotations. Some things I already knew, such as to use a block quote is the quote is longer than three sentences or three lines on the page, but some things were new to me, such as using a colon before the block quote. We were also told that you can either indent five or ten spaces when doing a block quote, but you have to pick one and use it throughout the paper; you can't use five spaces here and ten spaces there - things must all follow a pattern! Then we talked about something that I have always found a bit strange: using brackets in quotations. Brackets can be used for several different reasons, such as if the author of a paper is using a quote and has to add extra information to make the quote make sense, especially if it is kinda taken out of context. For example, an author might write "They [Native Americans] were exposed to several life-threatening diseases after the first contact with Europeans." An author can also put "(sic)" after a misspelled word in a quote to show the readers that the author knows that the word is spelled wrong and that it was not just a typo. The order that a writer must remember when using quotes is: punctuation mark, quote, footnote number.
We then moved on and talked about when to use footnotes. I always thought that footnotes made a paper look funny because it seemed to me like they took up too much space on a page. Since coming to Aurora University, I have learned that footnotes are a good thing! The more footnotes, the better! Especially because footnotes in Chicago Style are easier to use than MLA or APA. Footnotes show that an author is experiences and well-read on the topic in which they are writing about. It also shows that they are not afraid to use other people's work within their own and give them appropriate credit. The six main times that footnoting should be used is:
1.) writing an opinion
2.) using a direct quote
3.) using uncommon facts (common facts/knowledge do not need to be footnoted)
4.) paraphrasing
5.) summarizing a piece of work
6.) borrowing ideas from someone else (either directly or indirectly)
After discussing this we moved on to a footnoting exercise. This was BRUTAL!!!!! We were broken up into groups and then given seven different sources and were told to put them in the proper format for footnoting. I thought that this was going to be easy and I started writing the information down, then Scott and Martha pointed out to me that I was doing the sources for a bibliography, not a footnote. So, we work together as a group to guess what order we should put the information in. After we did this, we were told to put the seven sources on the board. Well, once all three groups did this we saw that everyone did it differently and no one was 100% correct. After we failed at this, we were given five more sources to do the same thing with. This activity was harder still because they were sources such as things from archives, speeches, and interviews. I had absolutely no idea as to what order or what punctuation was supposed to be used! Again, after all three groups put their answers on the board, no one had any correct. The whole point to these exercises was to show us that footnoting is DIFFICULT! We should always have our Chicago Style manuals in front of us when we are working on our papers so we can cite and footnote our sources properly. This is as much for our own benefit as for the readers. Sources need to be properly done in case someone wants to go back and check your research or start their own research using yours as a secondary source. So not only is the information being correct is important, but so are the footnotes and bibliographies!! I know that I will have a lot of trouble doing this, so I have two different Chicago Style manuals in my backpack with all my other Senior Seminar paper stuff!
Today was a challenging day! We started off talking about quotations. Some things I already knew, such as to use a block quote is the quote is longer than three sentences or three lines on the page, but some things were new to me, such as using a colon before the block quote. We were also told that you can either indent five or ten spaces when doing a block quote, but you have to pick one and use it throughout the paper; you can't use five spaces here and ten spaces there - things must all follow a pattern! Then we talked about something that I have always found a bit strange: using brackets in quotations. Brackets can be used for several different reasons, such as if the author of a paper is using a quote and has to add extra information to make the quote make sense, especially if it is kinda taken out of context. For example, an author might write "They [Native Americans] were exposed to several life-threatening diseases after the first contact with Europeans." An author can also put "(sic)" after a misspelled word in a quote to show the readers that the author knows that the word is spelled wrong and that it was not just a typo. The order that a writer must remember when using quotes is: punctuation mark, quote, footnote number.
We then moved on and talked about when to use footnotes. I always thought that footnotes made a paper look funny because it seemed to me like they took up too much space on a page. Since coming to Aurora University, I have learned that footnotes are a good thing! The more footnotes, the better! Especially because footnotes in Chicago Style are easier to use than MLA or APA. Footnotes show that an author is experiences and well-read on the topic in which they are writing about. It also shows that they are not afraid to use other people's work within their own and give them appropriate credit. The six main times that footnoting should be used is:
1.) writing an opinion
2.) using a direct quote
3.) using uncommon facts (common facts/knowledge do not need to be footnoted)
4.) paraphrasing
5.) summarizing a piece of work
6.) borrowing ideas from someone else (either directly or indirectly)
After discussing this we moved on to a footnoting exercise. This was BRUTAL!!!!! We were broken up into groups and then given seven different sources and were told to put them in the proper format for footnoting. I thought that this was going to be easy and I started writing the information down, then Scott and Martha pointed out to me that I was doing the sources for a bibliography, not a footnote. So, we work together as a group to guess what order we should put the information in. After we did this, we were told to put the seven sources on the board. Well, once all three groups did this we saw that everyone did it differently and no one was 100% correct. After we failed at this, we were given five more sources to do the same thing with. This activity was harder still because they were sources such as things from archives, speeches, and interviews. I had absolutely no idea as to what order or what punctuation was supposed to be used! Again, after all three groups put their answers on the board, no one had any correct. The whole point to these exercises was to show us that footnoting is DIFFICULT! We should always have our Chicago Style manuals in front of us when we are working on our papers so we can cite and footnote our sources properly. This is as much for our own benefit as for the readers. Sources need to be properly done in case someone wants to go back and check your research or start their own research using yours as a secondary source. So not only is the information being correct is important, but so are the footnotes and bibliographies!! I know that I will have a lot of trouble doing this, so I have two different Chicago Style manuals in my backpack with all my other Senior Seminar paper stuff!
Wednesday, October 3, 2012
Antonio Delgado
Wednesday October 3, 2012
Today instead of having class we were supposed to go see Antonio Delgado in Perry Theater. Delgado had a PhD in Urban Planning and Public Policy from the University of Illinois at Chicago. He focuses his work on immigrants, mainly Hispanics, in the Chicago area. Chicago has the second largest Mexican population in the U.S. Delgado wants to inform the public, and other Hispanics about the traditions, culture, and struggles that many face. When talking with Martha, I found out that many Hispanics are interested in history, but mainly only the history that relates to their lives or the lives of their relatives; they don't really focus on the history of Hispanics in general. Martha had to go to this because it was so important to her Senior Seminar paper about the churches and immigrants in the Aurora area.
Unfortunately, I had to work from 6:15 until close today, so I was unable to go to the presentation. When doing some research at home about Delgado I found this website that gives some more brief information. Delgado was from Chicago and became interested in learning at a young age when he would always be reading. When doing research of his own he found that several stories and things that he learned growing up were not represented in museums and libraries throughout the city. He felt that his culture was being underrepresented. He set out to not only learn more about his own culture, but to teach others about it and about how multi cultured many cities throughout the U.S. are, especially Chicago. Delgado has lived in several different cities throughout the U.S., but he still says that he loves Chicago the best. This article talks about Delgado and his work in the field. The author, Cara Jepsen, talks about how Delgado makes an interesting point saying that there have been Hispanics in Chicago since the 1920s, but were not a recognized population. Delgado has given several lectures throughout the state of Illinois on Early Mexican Chicago.
Today instead of having class we were supposed to go see Antonio Delgado in Perry Theater. Delgado had a PhD in Urban Planning and Public Policy from the University of Illinois at Chicago. He focuses his work on immigrants, mainly Hispanics, in the Chicago area. Chicago has the second largest Mexican population in the U.S. Delgado wants to inform the public, and other Hispanics about the traditions, culture, and struggles that many face. When talking with Martha, I found out that many Hispanics are interested in history, but mainly only the history that relates to their lives or the lives of their relatives; they don't really focus on the history of Hispanics in general. Martha had to go to this because it was so important to her Senior Seminar paper about the churches and immigrants in the Aurora area.
Unfortunately, I had to work from 6:15 until close today, so I was unable to go to the presentation. When doing some research at home about Delgado I found this website that gives some more brief information. Delgado was from Chicago and became interested in learning at a young age when he would always be reading. When doing research of his own he found that several stories and things that he learned growing up were not represented in museums and libraries throughout the city. He felt that his culture was being underrepresented. He set out to not only learn more about his own culture, but to teach others about it and about how multi cultured many cities throughout the U.S. are, especially Chicago. Delgado has lived in several different cities throughout the U.S., but he still says that he loves Chicago the best. This article talks about Delgado and his work in the field. The author, Cara Jepsen, talks about how Delgado makes an interesting point saying that there have been Hispanics in Chicago since the 1920s, but were not a recognized population. Delgado has given several lectures throughout the state of Illinois on Early Mexican Chicago.
Monday, October 1, 2012
Writing History Faithfully
Monday October 1, 2012
Today we talked about when to cite information in a paper. Today's class went along with chapters three and four out of our "Writing History" book. Chapter three was about accurately gathering and citing sources. The text put a great deal of emphasis on making sure to make a clear distinction between your words and ideas and those of someone else. The book says to use an even amount of summarizing and paraphrasing and to use quotes occasionally. While some writers do this, I know that I tend to use quotes and paraphrasing whenever I know that it will make my argument stronger because it is a good piece of evidence/a good source.
We did several exercises in class that helped us to understand how to cite, paraphrase, and quote things. One exercise had us looking at the colonies' problems with the king. This had us looking at old English and we had to figure out what the colonists were trying to say in order to summarize the ideas. Then, things got interesting. The professor gave us a photocopy that came from a book about Lewis and Clark's expedition, but it was written through the eyes of Indians. We read three different paragraphs and we were supposed to paraphrase the content of each paragraph in groups. Once the group agreed on a good sentence or two to paraphrase the entire paragraph, one person went up to the board and wrote out the answers. After all groups had done this we voted on who's we thought did the best job. Everyone did a pretty good job and it was interesting to see that each group used something different; no two paraphrases were the same.
After that exercise, we were given another photocopy about lawn care in Victorian America. Again, we worked in the same groups and were supposed to read five different paragraphs. This time, instead of paraphrasing, we were supposed to summarize the contents of each paragraph. The catch, however, was to turn an entire paragraph of about five to eight sentences into one. I found this quite challenging because there was a lot of good information that I wanted to include, but couldn't. After we made out sentences were put them back up on the board. By this time the class was getting pretty competitive about who had the best sentences. The voting was actually pretty close, I don't remember who won, but everyone had good sentences. Like I said earlier, every group came up with different sentences based on what they found most important in the paragraphs.
These activities tied into the idea of our Senior Seminar papers. Since the paper is quite lengthy, we will need to figure out which information we want to summarize, paraphrase, or quote. Since I will be looking at newspaper articles I think I will be using a bit of all of these. I think I will only use quotes when the information is written in a very organized manner or if it is better than anything that I could come up with to relate the same information.
Today we talked about when to cite information in a paper. Today's class went along with chapters three and four out of our "Writing History" book. Chapter three was about accurately gathering and citing sources. The text put a great deal of emphasis on making sure to make a clear distinction between your words and ideas and those of someone else. The book says to use an even amount of summarizing and paraphrasing and to use quotes occasionally. While some writers do this, I know that I tend to use quotes and paraphrasing whenever I know that it will make my argument stronger because it is a good piece of evidence/a good source.
We did several exercises in class that helped us to understand how to cite, paraphrase, and quote things. One exercise had us looking at the colonies' problems with the king. This had us looking at old English and we had to figure out what the colonists were trying to say in order to summarize the ideas. Then, things got interesting. The professor gave us a photocopy that came from a book about Lewis and Clark's expedition, but it was written through the eyes of Indians. We read three different paragraphs and we were supposed to paraphrase the content of each paragraph in groups. Once the group agreed on a good sentence or two to paraphrase the entire paragraph, one person went up to the board and wrote out the answers. After all groups had done this we voted on who's we thought did the best job. Everyone did a pretty good job and it was interesting to see that each group used something different; no two paraphrases were the same.
After that exercise, we were given another photocopy about lawn care in Victorian America. Again, we worked in the same groups and were supposed to read five different paragraphs. This time, instead of paraphrasing, we were supposed to summarize the contents of each paragraph. The catch, however, was to turn an entire paragraph of about five to eight sentences into one. I found this quite challenging because there was a lot of good information that I wanted to include, but couldn't. After we made out sentences were put them back up on the board. By this time the class was getting pretty competitive about who had the best sentences. The voting was actually pretty close, I don't remember who won, but everyone had good sentences. Like I said earlier, every group came up with different sentences based on what they found most important in the paragraphs.
These activities tied into the idea of our Senior Seminar papers. Since the paper is quite lengthy, we will need to figure out which information we want to summarize, paraphrase, or quote. Since I will be looking at newspaper articles I think I will be using a bit of all of these. I think I will only use quotes when the information is written in a very organized manner or if it is better than anything that I could come up with to relate the same information.
Wednesday, September 26, 2012
Primary Sources
Wednesday September 26, 2012
Today we discussed different types of sources. Apparently there are several different degrees of sources such as intentional and unintentional. An intentional source is something that is created to be used later or to record an event, belief, or opinion. Intentional sources are things such as court cases. An unintentional source is something that was create for personal use and the creator did not think that it would later be used as a source. Unintentional sources can be things like works of art, letters, and diaries. The diary of Anne Frank is one of the most well-known unintentional sources that almost everyone knows about.
We also talked about the difference between external and internal sources and how to evaluate the validity of a primary source. Before deciding to use a source a historian must make sure that they are aware of a few things. The historian must know some basic information about the author such as how long after an event was the source written, the author's point of view, and the candor. A historian must also be aware of the audience that the work is supposed to be aimed at. The intended audience can often explain the use of language. For example, if an author is writing a book for people who have never been taught about the Great Depression the book will be very basic and will go into details explaining the definitions and key players and events. Now, if a book was written on the same topic but was aimed at people who primarily study that time period, the book will go into much more detail and it will not explain key terms or definitions because it is assumed that the audience is already familiar and knowledgeable about the topic.
For today's class we were also supposed to read chapter four of "Doing History." This chapter directly goes along with what we discussed in class, but in more detail. The book explains that it is important to identify an author's purpose for writing, their tone and language, and the significance of what the writing is about. It also talks about evaluating pieces of oral evidence, such as interviews and speeches. The same things should also be considered (purpose, tone, point of view, author's background), but it should also include why the oral source was produced and why/how it has survived the test of time. It also focuses on dissecting parts that people play, such as why a person is interviewing another person. One of the most important things to remember is that you should always try to gain as much information about a source before you use it in your writing because it could actually contradict your argument, or not even be a valid piece of evidence.
Today we discussed different types of sources. Apparently there are several different degrees of sources such as intentional and unintentional. An intentional source is something that is created to be used later or to record an event, belief, or opinion. Intentional sources are things such as court cases. An unintentional source is something that was create for personal use and the creator did not think that it would later be used as a source. Unintentional sources can be things like works of art, letters, and diaries. The diary of Anne Frank is one of the most well-known unintentional sources that almost everyone knows about.
We also talked about the difference between external and internal sources and how to evaluate the validity of a primary source. Before deciding to use a source a historian must make sure that they are aware of a few things. The historian must know some basic information about the author such as how long after an event was the source written, the author's point of view, and the candor. A historian must also be aware of the audience that the work is supposed to be aimed at. The intended audience can often explain the use of language. For example, if an author is writing a book for people who have never been taught about the Great Depression the book will be very basic and will go into details explaining the definitions and key players and events. Now, if a book was written on the same topic but was aimed at people who primarily study that time period, the book will go into much more detail and it will not explain key terms or definitions because it is assumed that the audience is already familiar and knowledgeable about the topic.
For today's class we were also supposed to read chapter four of "Doing History." This chapter directly goes along with what we discussed in class, but in more detail. The book explains that it is important to identify an author's purpose for writing, their tone and language, and the significance of what the writing is about. It also talks about evaluating pieces of oral evidence, such as interviews and speeches. The same things should also be considered (purpose, tone, point of view, author's background), but it should also include why the oral source was produced and why/how it has survived the test of time. It also focuses on dissecting parts that people play, such as why a person is interviewing another person. One of the most important things to remember is that you should always try to gain as much information about a source before you use it in your writing because it could actually contradict your argument, or not even be a valid piece of evidence.
Monday, September 24, 2012
Secondary Sources
Monday September 24, 2012
Today we were told to bring in a secondary source that relates to our topic. If we did not bring in a source, we would have been forced to sing "Call Me Maybe." Unfortunately, our class is always on top of their game and no one ended up singing. At the beginning of class we started talking about internet sources. Using the internet as a source was a new thing in the lat 1990s. These sources were mostly credible because they were peer reviewed, meaning they went through an extensive routine of being changed, formatted, etc. First, the person must write an article and do their citations. Then the author must send it to a magazine, newspaper, journal, etc. These people would usually give the paper/article to an editor to make sure it is even worth their time messing with. Then from there, the editor would give the article/paper to 2-3 experts in the field that the paper is about. These experts would check the facts, offer further insight, and offer changes. The paper would have to go back to the author for revision, then eventually back to the editor. This whole process can take anywhere from two to four years! Because this process took so long there were not many secondary sources on the internet. However! Back in 2005/2006 a new innovation came to the internet! It is called Youtube.com! Anyone can make videos or powerpoints and post them on the internet! Some things on youtube are quite credible, while others are just a laugh. It seems like youtube has been around forever! Anyway, youtube made it possible for people to imbed clips of film or movies into their online journals and articles. These clips can make a paper much more exciting and give the reader a break.
We also talked about how to figure out if a secondary online source is credible. When one is looking at a website they must keep in mind:
-Author: are they credible? what are their connections to the topic?
-Audience: who is this text written for?
-Publisher: is it a academic or popular press? what other things have they published?
-Historical Argument: what's the main topic/argument that the author is trying to make? (this is usually
found in the preface, introduction, or conclusion, but one should not have to hunt for it!)
-Author's point-of-view: what stance are they taking on the topic? are there any biases? (usually a person
has to read a little bit into the text to get a sense of the point-of-view)
-Author's Sources: it is important to check an author's sources to see where they got their information
from! if the source has several footnotes/end notes and a long bibliography it means that the author
did their research and are well-rounded and informed on the topic)
A person must/should check all of these criteria when deciding to use a secondary source. This check list makes sure that the source is credible and that the author has experience/information about the topic.
We actually did an activity with our "Doing History" book today as well. This activity helped me to figure out if my source was credible and worth using in my paper. These questions asked us to look at our source by asking questions such as:
-What is the author's background?
-Who published the monograph?
-What is the author's point of view?
-What is the historical argument?
-What primary sources are used in the monograph?
...and more questions like that.
My book was called "The Tree Army" and was about the different CCC groups throughout the United States during the Great Depression. It actually had more pictures than it had writing because it was a pictorial. This book seems very credible though because there were not only primary sources in the form of pictures, but there were stories and interviews from people who worked for the CCC. Wednesday we are supposed to bring a primary source to class. I think I will be bringing an article from the Chicago Tribune if I don't find another source from now until then.
Today we were told to bring in a secondary source that relates to our topic. If we did not bring in a source, we would have been forced to sing "Call Me Maybe." Unfortunately, our class is always on top of their game and no one ended up singing. At the beginning of class we started talking about internet sources. Using the internet as a source was a new thing in the lat 1990s. These sources were mostly credible because they were peer reviewed, meaning they went through an extensive routine of being changed, formatted, etc. First, the person must write an article and do their citations. Then the author must send it to a magazine, newspaper, journal, etc. These people would usually give the paper/article to an editor to make sure it is even worth their time messing with. Then from there, the editor would give the article/paper to 2-3 experts in the field that the paper is about. These experts would check the facts, offer further insight, and offer changes. The paper would have to go back to the author for revision, then eventually back to the editor. This whole process can take anywhere from two to four years! Because this process took so long there were not many secondary sources on the internet. However! Back in 2005/2006 a new innovation came to the internet! It is called Youtube.com! Anyone can make videos or powerpoints and post them on the internet! Some things on youtube are quite credible, while others are just a laugh. It seems like youtube has been around forever! Anyway, youtube made it possible for people to imbed clips of film or movies into their online journals and articles. These clips can make a paper much more exciting and give the reader a break.
We also talked about how to figure out if a secondary online source is credible. When one is looking at a website they must keep in mind:
-Author: are they credible? what are their connections to the topic?
-Audience: who is this text written for?
-Publisher: is it a academic or popular press? what other things have they published?
-Historical Argument: what's the main topic/argument that the author is trying to make? (this is usually
found in the preface, introduction, or conclusion, but one should not have to hunt for it!)
-Author's point-of-view: what stance are they taking on the topic? are there any biases? (usually a person
has to read a little bit into the text to get a sense of the point-of-view)
-Author's Sources: it is important to check an author's sources to see where they got their information
from! if the source has several footnotes/end notes and a long bibliography it means that the author
did their research and are well-rounded and informed on the topic)
A person must/should check all of these criteria when deciding to use a secondary source. This check list makes sure that the source is credible and that the author has experience/information about the topic.
We actually did an activity with our "Doing History" book today as well. This activity helped me to figure out if my source was credible and worth using in my paper. These questions asked us to look at our source by asking questions such as:
-What is the author's background?
-Who published the monograph?
-What is the author's point of view?
-What is the historical argument?
-What primary sources are used in the monograph?
...and more questions like that.
My book was called "The Tree Army" and was about the different CCC groups throughout the United States during the Great Depression. It actually had more pictures than it had writing because it was a pictorial. This book seems very credible though because there were not only primary sources in the form of pictures, but there were stories and interviews from people who worked for the CCC. Wednesday we are supposed to bring a primary source to class. I think I will be bringing an article from the Chicago Tribune if I don't find another source from now until then.
Wednesday, September 19, 2012
Bibliographies Due
Wednesday September 19, 2012
Today our bibliographies were due! I was very nervous because it seemed like everyone else had more sources than I did, then again, I was not able to get into the archives at the Aurora Historical Society or schedule an appointment at the Aurora Library. I most definitely need to find more sources than what I have and really buckle down and get crackin' on this paper. After we handed in our bibliographies we did some exercises to get us thinking. Today we were also supposed to read chapter one of "Writing History." Chapter One was all about starting to write a history paper, the different types of papers, how to search for information, and more. The book makes a good point when it discusses how to develop and explore your interests. I know from experience that I find it much easier to write about something that I find interesting rather than just have a teacher/professor give me a topic to write about. The topics on how to research information was very interesting, but it did not help me very much. My senior seminar paper is too narrow for online databases to be of any real help. I will have to basically completely rely on the historical society, the library, and and other primary sources that I can find, like interviews. I want to see if I can go to a nursing home and find an old person that I can interview about their experience with the Great Depression. I was thinking about it and they wouldn't even necessarily have to be from the Aurora area, just as long as they came from a small town similar to Aurora. This would give me personal first-hand experience. The only problem is that nursing homes now-a-days are very strict, it might be difficult for me to get in to talk to someone I don't know and I can't just call up the place and ask if they have any old people that were born around 1910-1925 (old enough to remember the Great Depression). But still, this is a theory that I will definitely be trying out because I know that once I get into a nursing home I will be sure to be able to find someone to talk with (old people love to tell youngsters about the "good ol' days!).
The book talks about using reference material, but I have already looked in a couple just to get an idea of my topic. Reference books are not that helpful for my topic because it is so specific, but some books do a good job giving a brief overview of the before, during, and after situation. I would probably not use a reference book, like a dictionary, because like we talked about in class, it should only be used when trying to define any terms that the reader may not be informed about.
One thing that we did in class today really helped me! Professor Butters had us do some writing exercises that helped us bring our papers into perspective. We were told to write about the main argument of our papers and then to create a basic outline. Ever since I had this awesome English teacher at Waubonsee, I LOVE OUTLINING!!! So I think I have a pretty good outline going, of course, it all depends on what kind of information that I can find. I just have to make sure that I stay focused on the cultural/social aspect of the Great Depression and not go too much into the business/economy part of it. I think I will give a section of my paper to workers programs (CCC & WPA) and federal/state aid. I was also thinking that I can look into the Elk Lodge and the American Legion of Aurora and see when they were established and if they did anything during the Great Depression. I am really REALLY not looking forward to writing my annotated bibliography! But, alas! It must be done! The one thing that made me laugh about this chapter "If you have to abandon your topic, do it early." HA! we are married to our topics and definitely not allowed to change it now! Paper is due in about 80 days, time to get crackin!!!
Today our bibliographies were due! I was very nervous because it seemed like everyone else had more sources than I did, then again, I was not able to get into the archives at the Aurora Historical Society or schedule an appointment at the Aurora Library. I most definitely need to find more sources than what I have and really buckle down and get crackin' on this paper. After we handed in our bibliographies we did some exercises to get us thinking. Today we were also supposed to read chapter one of "Writing History." Chapter One was all about starting to write a history paper, the different types of papers, how to search for information, and more. The book makes a good point when it discusses how to develop and explore your interests. I know from experience that I find it much easier to write about something that I find interesting rather than just have a teacher/professor give me a topic to write about. The topics on how to research information was very interesting, but it did not help me very much. My senior seminar paper is too narrow for online databases to be of any real help. I will have to basically completely rely on the historical society, the library, and and other primary sources that I can find, like interviews. I want to see if I can go to a nursing home and find an old person that I can interview about their experience with the Great Depression. I was thinking about it and they wouldn't even necessarily have to be from the Aurora area, just as long as they came from a small town similar to Aurora. This would give me personal first-hand experience. The only problem is that nursing homes now-a-days are very strict, it might be difficult for me to get in to talk to someone I don't know and I can't just call up the place and ask if they have any old people that were born around 1910-1925 (old enough to remember the Great Depression). But still, this is a theory that I will definitely be trying out because I know that once I get into a nursing home I will be sure to be able to find someone to talk with (old people love to tell youngsters about the "good ol' days!).
The book talks about using reference material, but I have already looked in a couple just to get an idea of my topic. Reference books are not that helpful for my topic because it is so specific, but some books do a good job giving a brief overview of the before, during, and after situation. I would probably not use a reference book, like a dictionary, because like we talked about in class, it should only be used when trying to define any terms that the reader may not be informed about.
One thing that we did in class today really helped me! Professor Butters had us do some writing exercises that helped us bring our papers into perspective. We were told to write about the main argument of our papers and then to create a basic outline. Ever since I had this awesome English teacher at Waubonsee, I LOVE OUTLINING!!! So I think I have a pretty good outline going, of course, it all depends on what kind of information that I can find. I just have to make sure that I stay focused on the cultural/social aspect of the Great Depression and not go too much into the business/economy part of it. I think I will give a section of my paper to workers programs (CCC & WPA) and federal/state aid. I was also thinking that I can look into the Elk Lodge and the American Legion of Aurora and see when they were established and if they did anything during the Great Depression. I am really REALLY not looking forward to writing my annotated bibliography! But, alas! It must be done! The one thing that made me laugh about this chapter "If you have to abandon your topic, do it early." HA! we are married to our topics and definitely not allowed to change it now! Paper is due in about 80 days, time to get crackin!!!
Monday, September 17, 2012
Library Day!
Monday September 17, 2012
Today was a library day. I finally got some time to work on my paper! I went to the Aurora Historical Society earlier today and I was looking up some information from my paper and I discovered that I am not really interested in the business/economic side of how the Great Depression effected Aurora. Instead, I think I am going to focus on the cultural aspects of the Great Depression, such as music, education, family status, population, suicides/deaths, civilian programs, and programs that the state or federal government started (like the CCC of WPA). I think, for me anyway, that it would be more interesting and that I could look at diaries and newspapers articles to kind of get the "feel" of how the depression personally effected people. Since we had time in class today, I found a nice list of books about Illinois and the Great Depression on the Aurora University Library website, then I went and hunted a lot of them down. I wanted to see if the librarians could hold the books for me so then I don't have to pull the books each time I want to look something up. This brought up an interesting idea/conversation between the librarian and I: Why doesn't the library hold books for students like the do for teachers? (especially those students in senior seminar!?) The librarian told me that she was going to talk to her superior in order to see what they could do for me. I was very relieved that, finally, someone was willing to help me with my paper! The historical society has not been that helpful, or friendly, with me, but I am just going to start going there whenever I know they are open because I really need to put a dent in my paper/research! I know what kinds of sources that I want to use and I have a good list started, but I want to actually start acquiring information this week. I have a meeting with Lizzie tomorrow and I hope that I can get more sources! I just hope that she doesn't tell me to go to the Aurora Library or the historical society because I already know that I need to do that. Our bibliographies are due Wednesday, so I hope I can get more primary sources (I only have about three, but I don't even know if I am going to use them in my paper). I don't know what else we are supposed to blog about for today's class, so I am going to end here....
Today was a library day. I finally got some time to work on my paper! I went to the Aurora Historical Society earlier today and I was looking up some information from my paper and I discovered that I am not really interested in the business/economic side of how the Great Depression effected Aurora. Instead, I think I am going to focus on the cultural aspects of the Great Depression, such as music, education, family status, population, suicides/deaths, civilian programs, and programs that the state or federal government started (like the CCC of WPA). I think, for me anyway, that it would be more interesting and that I could look at diaries and newspapers articles to kind of get the "feel" of how the depression personally effected people. Since we had time in class today, I found a nice list of books about Illinois and the Great Depression on the Aurora University Library website, then I went and hunted a lot of them down. I wanted to see if the librarians could hold the books for me so then I don't have to pull the books each time I want to look something up. This brought up an interesting idea/conversation between the librarian and I: Why doesn't the library hold books for students like the do for teachers? (especially those students in senior seminar!?) The librarian told me that she was going to talk to her superior in order to see what they could do for me. I was very relieved that, finally, someone was willing to help me with my paper! The historical society has not been that helpful, or friendly, with me, but I am just going to start going there whenever I know they are open because I really need to put a dent in my paper/research! I know what kinds of sources that I want to use and I have a good list started, but I want to actually start acquiring information this week. I have a meeting with Lizzie tomorrow and I hope that I can get more sources! I just hope that she doesn't tell me to go to the Aurora Library or the historical society because I already know that I need to do that. Our bibliographies are due Wednesday, so I hope I can get more primary sources (I only have about three, but I don't even know if I am going to use them in my paper). I don't know what else we are supposed to blog about for today's class, so I am going to end here....
Wednesday, September 12, 2012
Bibliographies
Wednesday September 12, 2012
Today was a pretty easy-going class. We discussed how to do our bibliographies. For this paper we will be putting secondary sources first in alphabetical order, then primary sources. I think this will not only make it easier on the reader, but it will also make it easier on me while I write my paper and refer back to my notes. After talking about our senior seminar paper, we discussed our reading for the day, pages 3-63ish in "What Should I Do With My Life?" At first I thought this book was pretty uninteresting, it was just a bunch of people who were unsatisfied with their life, so they set out to change it for the better. To be honest, I don't really see how this book fits into our class. If I end up not liking my job I will change it to something that I do like, I am always prepared and I shall always have a back up plan! Then we were given the assignment to write one solid page about what our dream job entails, I wrote about working as a high school history teacher. In this job I can plan things out how I want them, educate kids, and show them that learning and history are fun. After writing this, we were told again to write another page about what our second dream job would be. On this page I wrote how I would like to work for something like the History Channel where I could conduct research on certain events, places, or people and then host an episode of the show. Not only could I choose the topics that are of interest to me, I would be able to travel, meet awesome people, and teach people about what I know. I still think if neither of these two options work out, I think I would either go back to school to study literature, or I would try to get a job at an aquarium. I really think marine biology is awesome, but I am horrible in science.
After talking about our dream jobs, the class walked to the library. We were told to go to some website that asks us questions and then based on our answers, it was going to tell us what kind of job would be right for us. Well, sad to say, the website didn't work as it was supposed to because after we were done answering the questions, the website wanted us to fill in our personal information in order to get our test results (a typical research-wanting website). So that activity was kind of a bust! With that activity not working, we were released early because the teacher had some meeting to attend. We were told to meet back in the library on Monday and bring ALL of our senior seminar paper stuff with us because we would be having a library day! I definitely need this time because I have been having a very difficult time finding information for my paper. The Aurora Historical Society will not answer my calls and then when I did get to talk to someone, she was very rude and said no one could help me. Great.....like 97% of my paper will be coming from there and no one is willing to help me! This paper just got a lot more frustrating and hard. So tomorrow I am just going to show up at the Historical Society! I know from a secret source that people will be there at 9:00 am ;) (hopefully I will be able to get some work done!)
Today was a pretty easy-going class. We discussed how to do our bibliographies. For this paper we will be putting secondary sources first in alphabetical order, then primary sources. I think this will not only make it easier on the reader, but it will also make it easier on me while I write my paper and refer back to my notes. After talking about our senior seminar paper, we discussed our reading for the day, pages 3-63ish in "What Should I Do With My Life?" At first I thought this book was pretty uninteresting, it was just a bunch of people who were unsatisfied with their life, so they set out to change it for the better. To be honest, I don't really see how this book fits into our class. If I end up not liking my job I will change it to something that I do like, I am always prepared and I shall always have a back up plan! Then we were given the assignment to write one solid page about what our dream job entails, I wrote about working as a high school history teacher. In this job I can plan things out how I want them, educate kids, and show them that learning and history are fun. After writing this, we were told again to write another page about what our second dream job would be. On this page I wrote how I would like to work for something like the History Channel where I could conduct research on certain events, places, or people and then host an episode of the show. Not only could I choose the topics that are of interest to me, I would be able to travel, meet awesome people, and teach people about what I know. I still think if neither of these two options work out, I think I would either go back to school to study literature, or I would try to get a job at an aquarium. I really think marine biology is awesome, but I am horrible in science.
After talking about our dream jobs, the class walked to the library. We were told to go to some website that asks us questions and then based on our answers, it was going to tell us what kind of job would be right for us. Well, sad to say, the website didn't work as it was supposed to because after we were done answering the questions, the website wanted us to fill in our personal information in order to get our test results (a typical research-wanting website). So that activity was kind of a bust! With that activity not working, we were released early because the teacher had some meeting to attend. We were told to meet back in the library on Monday and bring ALL of our senior seminar paper stuff with us because we would be having a library day! I definitely need this time because I have been having a very difficult time finding information for my paper. The Aurora Historical Society will not answer my calls and then when I did get to talk to someone, she was very rude and said no one could help me. Great.....like 97% of my paper will be coming from there and no one is willing to help me! This paper just got a lot more frustrating and hard. So tomorrow I am just going to show up at the Historical Society! I know from a secret source that people will be there at 9:00 am ;) (hopefully I will be able to get some work done!)
Monday, September 10, 2012
Film Day: Rashomon
Monday September 10, 2012
So today we spent the class time watching "Rashomon," a film from 1950. The film is in black and white and all in Japanese, but thankfully there are subtitles. At first, I was completely lost as to what was going on in the movie and how this movie pertained to my senior seminar paper, but I soon discovered the film's significance.
The film tells the story of a murder of a man, but all witnesses have a different story as to what actually happened at the time of the murder. The story starts with a darkened sky and two men are huddled in a ruined gate and are soon joined by another man. They woodcutter keeps saying, "I don't understand" which is a reference to what happened to Japan in World War II and the many problems that the country was facing. The men start talking about a court case that was going on at the time. A man was found dead in the forest by a woodcutter and the authorities were trying to find the killer by conducting trials of the people that were at the scene. The woodcutter begins to tell the others of the story he saw at the court. He remembered listening to a bandit tell his story, then the man's wife, then the man through a medium (speaking from the grave), then the woodcutter told his own story to the murder at the courthouse.
According to the bandit, he was sleeping in the woods and saw the samurai walking past with his wife on a horse. The wife was so beautiful he thought she was a goddess and wanted to make her his. He followed the couple and tricked the samurai to get him into the forest, where the bandit tied him up. Then the bandit raped the samurai's wife in front of him. The bandit also said that the wife "fell in love" with him then asked him to kill her husband/duel with him because she was disgraced.
Then the wife tells her story. She tells of the rape, but after the bandit ran away. She ran over to her husband and was weeping. She begged forgiveness, but the man only stared at her. She started crying because he wouldn't stop looking at her in this weird way. The wife cut his ropes but he just stayed where he was. The wife fainted because she couldn't handle what happened to her. When she woke up her husband was dead, so she tried to kill herself (by throwing herself in the pond), but she couldn't handle it.
Then at the court, the wife is used as a medium so her husband could recall his tale. The men talking at the ruins had a debate that a dead man could not tell a lie, but the samurai's story was different than the others, so no one knows if he was telling the truth or not. Again, the same rape was portrayed as before, but the bandit wanted the wife to leave her husband and marry him instead. The bandit said that she could either marry him or dye. The wife said that she would go with the bandit, but then the bandit was mad because the woman so easily cast aside her husband, so he asked the samurai if he wanted his wife to live or dye. The samurai said that when he was asked this, he actually forgave the bandit for raping his wife!!!!!! Later, the woman ran away from both men, the bandit left, and the samurai killed himself with his wife's dagger that she left on the forest floor.
The last account was the woodcutter. He said that he had been walking through the woods and heard the woman scream, then stayed behind a bush and watched the entire thing. This was different from his earlier story where he said he was walking in the woods and just found the body. The woodcutter explained that every explanation was a lie because he saw the real thing, but lied during the court case because he didn't want to get involved in a murder. The woodcutter said that the bandit asked the samurai's wife to marry him. The husband was left go and both the husband and bandit fought til the death (bandit killed the samurai), while the wife just watched. The wife had actually fooled them both into fighting each other for her own sick, twisted pleasure (her life must have been quite boring). The fight was actually quite lame because it seemed like neither man wanted to die, nor kill the other, so they just swung their swords around and were jumping around (it actually looked like a VERY poorly choreographed fight). In the end, the wife ran away, the bandit went after her, and the samurai was left dead on the ground.
It was actually interesting to watch this movie once I got the "jist" of it. Everyone told a different story of the same event; everyone had their own perspective. Many of the things that were told differently were told so that the teller would look better. All stories were mutually contradictory and this gives into the idea of multiple realities. Each story was told of the same account, but all were different!
After the movie we had a discussion of not only the movie itself, we talked about the time period in which the movie was created. The movie came out in 1950, after World War II ended, the Japanese economy and government was having problems, and the US dropped an atomic bomb on the country. The director wanted to portray the idea of multiple realities in this movie and how it relates to everything we do, especially history. In the beginning, the man kept saying, "I don't understand" because many Japanese did not know what happened to their country during and after the war. At the end of the movie the three men in the ruins find a baby, which is supposed to show a new beginning and hope for a brighter future for Japan. This whole movie is an allegory for Japan: things went wrong, people died, there are different perspectives/interpretations of it, but in the end there is a new beginning on the horizon.
This movie created a movement throughout the world, showing that there is no one "true" story of an event. I can see why this movie is important to keep in mind when doing research on my paper because there will always be many different interpretations, but a good historian will take all of them and come to a solid conclusion. No matter what a person writes, someone will always disagree with it and offer their own insight, so it is important to keep in mind that history is always changing based on how you look at it.
So today we spent the class time watching "Rashomon," a film from 1950. The film is in black and white and all in Japanese, but thankfully there are subtitles. At first, I was completely lost as to what was going on in the movie and how this movie pertained to my senior seminar paper, but I soon discovered the film's significance.
The film tells the story of a murder of a man, but all witnesses have a different story as to what actually happened at the time of the murder. The story starts with a darkened sky and two men are huddled in a ruined gate and are soon joined by another man. They woodcutter keeps saying, "I don't understand" which is a reference to what happened to Japan in World War II and the many problems that the country was facing. The men start talking about a court case that was going on at the time. A man was found dead in the forest by a woodcutter and the authorities were trying to find the killer by conducting trials of the people that were at the scene. The woodcutter begins to tell the others of the story he saw at the court. He remembered listening to a bandit tell his story, then the man's wife, then the man through a medium (speaking from the grave), then the woodcutter told his own story to the murder at the courthouse.
According to the bandit, he was sleeping in the woods and saw the samurai walking past with his wife on a horse. The wife was so beautiful he thought she was a goddess and wanted to make her his. He followed the couple and tricked the samurai to get him into the forest, where the bandit tied him up. Then the bandit raped the samurai's wife in front of him. The bandit also said that the wife "fell in love" with him then asked him to kill her husband/duel with him because she was disgraced.
Then the wife tells her story. She tells of the rape, but after the bandit ran away. She ran over to her husband and was weeping. She begged forgiveness, but the man only stared at her. She started crying because he wouldn't stop looking at her in this weird way. The wife cut his ropes but he just stayed where he was. The wife fainted because she couldn't handle what happened to her. When she woke up her husband was dead, so she tried to kill herself (by throwing herself in the pond), but she couldn't handle it.
Then at the court, the wife is used as a medium so her husband could recall his tale. The men talking at the ruins had a debate that a dead man could not tell a lie, but the samurai's story was different than the others, so no one knows if he was telling the truth or not. Again, the same rape was portrayed as before, but the bandit wanted the wife to leave her husband and marry him instead. The bandit said that she could either marry him or dye. The wife said that she would go with the bandit, but then the bandit was mad because the woman so easily cast aside her husband, so he asked the samurai if he wanted his wife to live or dye. The samurai said that when he was asked this, he actually forgave the bandit for raping his wife!!!!!! Later, the woman ran away from both men, the bandit left, and the samurai killed himself with his wife's dagger that she left on the forest floor.
The last account was the woodcutter. He said that he had been walking through the woods and heard the woman scream, then stayed behind a bush and watched the entire thing. This was different from his earlier story where he said he was walking in the woods and just found the body. The woodcutter explained that every explanation was a lie because he saw the real thing, but lied during the court case because he didn't want to get involved in a murder. The woodcutter said that the bandit asked the samurai's wife to marry him. The husband was left go and both the husband and bandit fought til the death (bandit killed the samurai), while the wife just watched. The wife had actually fooled them both into fighting each other for her own sick, twisted pleasure (her life must have been quite boring). The fight was actually quite lame because it seemed like neither man wanted to die, nor kill the other, so they just swung their swords around and were jumping around (it actually looked like a VERY poorly choreographed fight). In the end, the wife ran away, the bandit went after her, and the samurai was left dead on the ground.
It was actually interesting to watch this movie once I got the "jist" of it. Everyone told a different story of the same event; everyone had their own perspective. Many of the things that were told differently were told so that the teller would look better. All stories were mutually contradictory and this gives into the idea of multiple realities. Each story was told of the same account, but all were different!
After the movie we had a discussion of not only the movie itself, we talked about the time period in which the movie was created. The movie came out in 1950, after World War II ended, the Japanese economy and government was having problems, and the US dropped an atomic bomb on the country. The director wanted to portray the idea of multiple realities in this movie and how it relates to everything we do, especially history. In the beginning, the man kept saying, "I don't understand" because many Japanese did not know what happened to their country during and after the war. At the end of the movie the three men in the ruins find a baby, which is supposed to show a new beginning and hope for a brighter future for Japan. This whole movie is an allegory for Japan: things went wrong, people died, there are different perspectives/interpretations of it, but in the end there is a new beginning on the horizon.
This movie created a movement throughout the world, showing that there is no one "true" story of an event. I can see why this movie is important to keep in mind when doing research on my paper because there will always be many different interpretations, but a good historian will take all of them and come to a solid conclusion. No matter what a person writes, someone will always disagree with it and offer their own insight, so it is important to keep in mind that history is always changing based on how you look at it.
Wednesday, September 5, 2012
Presentation from Lizzie
Wednesday September 5, 2012
Today was a light, but interesting day. During the first half of class Professor Butters talked about the New Left. This was created in the 1960s and 70s and was inspired by the Annales. It was also inspired by events such as Vietnam, Women's Rights Movement, the Civil Rights Movement, and other events. This group believed that truth is relative (there are different views: "history is written by the winner"). People must understand that there is no "truth" in history because everything is a type of interpretation. There are, however, accepted truths, such as the date of Abraham Lincoln's assassination. Things that historians must always keep in mind are that some concepts/truths can change over time. For example, the idea of liberty had drastically different meanings in the 1700s than it does today. Historians also must keep in mind that books, articles, newspapers, etc. are written for an audience, and, therefore, can have some biases or points that the writer is trying to make. Historians must always make sure to take nothing at face value because there could always be some sort of bias or angle at which authors try to make. Even people change their stories during interviews to make themselves seem more interesting.....historians are always on the watch!
The second half of class was a presentation/demonstration from Lizzie M. from the library. She showed the class how to look up information for their topics on the library's online databases. This includes books, articles, newspapers, and anything else that can help us write our papers! These databases are HUGE! I was happy to see some things on the Great Depression online. I signed up to meet with Lizzie on September 13th at 6:00p.m. to talk with her about my topic. Meanwhile, I am going to spend some time in the library online finding and printing some of the articles that I find. I think these data bases will be very helpful for my research. I also plan to call the Aurora Historical Society tomorrow and schedule an appointment with someone who can walk me through what I need to do and what information I can use in my research. I, hopefully, will be able to spend Tuesday and Thursday mornings at the Aurora Historical Society (they are only open 9-12 those days) finding information and then on the weekends I can gather the information and start typing my paper out, or at least making an outline. I am quite excited to start, but I am sure that once I do I will get stressed out with all the information that I find! I must make sure to narrow down my topics because I am sure that I will find enough information to write my 25 page paper. The only problem that I foresee myself having is how to cite these sources, such as pictures and other artifacts, but I bet there is something in our very large Chicago Style Manual book that will help!
Today was a light, but interesting day. During the first half of class Professor Butters talked about the New Left. This was created in the 1960s and 70s and was inspired by the Annales. It was also inspired by events such as Vietnam, Women's Rights Movement, the Civil Rights Movement, and other events. This group believed that truth is relative (there are different views: "history is written by the winner"). People must understand that there is no "truth" in history because everything is a type of interpretation. There are, however, accepted truths, such as the date of Abraham Lincoln's assassination. Things that historians must always keep in mind are that some concepts/truths can change over time. For example, the idea of liberty had drastically different meanings in the 1700s than it does today. Historians also must keep in mind that books, articles, newspapers, etc. are written for an audience, and, therefore, can have some biases or points that the writer is trying to make. Historians must always make sure to take nothing at face value because there could always be some sort of bias or angle at which authors try to make. Even people change their stories during interviews to make themselves seem more interesting.....historians are always on the watch!
The second half of class was a presentation/demonstration from Lizzie M. from the library. She showed the class how to look up information for their topics on the library's online databases. This includes books, articles, newspapers, and anything else that can help us write our papers! These databases are HUGE! I was happy to see some things on the Great Depression online. I signed up to meet with Lizzie on September 13th at 6:00p.m. to talk with her about my topic. Meanwhile, I am going to spend some time in the library online finding and printing some of the articles that I find. I think these data bases will be very helpful for my research. I also plan to call the Aurora Historical Society tomorrow and schedule an appointment with someone who can walk me through what I need to do and what information I can use in my research. I, hopefully, will be able to spend Tuesday and Thursday mornings at the Aurora Historical Society (they are only open 9-12 those days) finding information and then on the weekends I can gather the information and start typing my paper out, or at least making an outline. I am quite excited to start, but I am sure that once I do I will get stressed out with all the information that I find! I must make sure to narrow down my topics because I am sure that I will find enough information to write my 25 page paper. The only problem that I foresee myself having is how to cite these sources, such as pictures and other artifacts, but I bet there is something in our very large Chicago Style Manual book that will help!
Wednesday, August 29, 2012
Doing History, Chapter One
Wednesday August 29, 2012
Second day back with the old group! It was quite relaxing to have the same people as last semester, group discussions flow so much easier! Today we talked more about our papers (which we will be doing all semester). Already, on September 10th, we need to submit our main paper topic, including 3 minor historical questions. We will not be able to change our topic, so once we choose, that it, that topic is ours for the entire semester! This makes me so nervous because I don't want to end up not being able to find enough information about my topic, or end up not liking it. I find it much easier to write about things that I find interesting for/have a passion for. I was thinking about doing something on the Titanic or Nazism, but both of those things have been so overdone that I think I would like to work on something that I haven't before (even though I already have about a 10 page paper on the Titanic that I could just vamp-up, lol). I have made up my mind to do my paper on how the Great Depression effected Aurora. I think this is a good idea because there are so many aspects in which I can write about: politics, education, housing, business, industry, federal and state aid, transportation, population changes, family statuses, and more! The only thing is that I will have to choose which topics I want to focus on because I cannot do more because there would be too much information. Butters made a comment saying that if I do a good job on this paper I might be able to get it published! That makes me want to do an even better job! I was also thinking that I could just focus on a few topics now for this paper and class, but then I can always add more information onto it in later years. I do plan on going to graduate school (eventually) and most schools want to see samples of student's work, so this would be the perfect thing! Especially if I continue to work on it even after this semester is over.
Today in class we talked about chapter one in our book "Doing History." The book talks about the basics of reading, writing, and researching history. We talked about things such as making sure there is enough evidence to back up our arguments in our papers and historical consciousness (different ways of thinking). We also went over a brief history of history, so-to-speak. One of the things we discussed was historical consciousness. This started to become big between 1800 and 1900. This is was brought on by technological revolutions, creation of nation-states, universities, museums/archives/libraries, and the profession of the historian. During this time people, began to realize that they needed to preserve history and learn from it. By the early 19th century nationalism was playing a big role in peoples' lives. This also led to romanticism (the thought that people are NOT rational, but are creative). These types of ideas go against the Enlightenment which said that people were rational. This was brought about by the World Wars and other events that caused people to take a second look at their lives and the lives of others. We then talked about Marxist Historians. These types of historians look at history through social classes and revolutions. This started in the 1960s and 70s in Britain, but then gained strength. During this time period there were several problems going on such as civil rights and other equality struggles. Other topics were also discussed such as present-ism, the New Left, and the different types of history (political, intellectual, religious, economic, social, cultural, etc). Professor Butters was a little all over the board when it came to writing notes and what-not because he was just trying to give us a brief history of the different types of history and why/how they came about.
Second day back with the old group! It was quite relaxing to have the same people as last semester, group discussions flow so much easier! Today we talked more about our papers (which we will be doing all semester). Already, on September 10th, we need to submit our main paper topic, including 3 minor historical questions. We will not be able to change our topic, so once we choose, that it, that topic is ours for the entire semester! This makes me so nervous because I don't want to end up not being able to find enough information about my topic, or end up not liking it. I find it much easier to write about things that I find interesting for/have a passion for. I was thinking about doing something on the Titanic or Nazism, but both of those things have been so overdone that I think I would like to work on something that I haven't before (even though I already have about a 10 page paper on the Titanic that I could just vamp-up, lol). I have made up my mind to do my paper on how the Great Depression effected Aurora. I think this is a good idea because there are so many aspects in which I can write about: politics, education, housing, business, industry, federal and state aid, transportation, population changes, family statuses, and more! The only thing is that I will have to choose which topics I want to focus on because I cannot do more because there would be too much information. Butters made a comment saying that if I do a good job on this paper I might be able to get it published! That makes me want to do an even better job! I was also thinking that I could just focus on a few topics now for this paper and class, but then I can always add more information onto it in later years. I do plan on going to graduate school (eventually) and most schools want to see samples of student's work, so this would be the perfect thing! Especially if I continue to work on it even after this semester is over.
Today in class we talked about chapter one in our book "Doing History." The book talks about the basics of reading, writing, and researching history. We talked about things such as making sure there is enough evidence to back up our arguments in our papers and historical consciousness (different ways of thinking). We also went over a brief history of history, so-to-speak. One of the things we discussed was historical consciousness. This started to become big between 1800 and 1900. This is was brought on by technological revolutions, creation of nation-states, universities, museums/archives/libraries, and the profession of the historian. During this time people, began to realize that they needed to preserve history and learn from it. By the early 19th century nationalism was playing a big role in peoples' lives. This also led to romanticism (the thought that people are NOT rational, but are creative). These types of ideas go against the Enlightenment which said that people were rational. This was brought about by the World Wars and other events that caused people to take a second look at their lives and the lives of others. We then talked about Marxist Historians. These types of historians look at history through social classes and revolutions. This started in the 1960s and 70s in Britain, but then gained strength. During this time period there were several problems going on such as civil rights and other equality struggles. Other topics were also discussed such as present-ism, the New Left, and the different types of history (political, intellectual, religious, economic, social, cultural, etc). Professor Butters was a little all over the board when it came to writing notes and what-not because he was just trying to give us a brief history of the different types of history and why/how they came about.
Monday, August 27, 2012
First Day of School
Monday August 27, 2012
Well, today was the first day of school! The entire summer I have dreaded this day.... I am excited to be back at school, yet VERY nervous for Senior Seminar. I had several ideas over the summer on what to do my paper on, but I think I got it narrowed down to two topics: how the Great Depression effected Aurora, IL, or how the railroads helped to establish the city of Aurora. I think the first option would be easier and more interesting because there would be several different angles to attack it from. I am SO NERVOUS!!! I want to do an awesome job on this, but at the same time, a 23 (at least!) page paper makes me want to cry.
I am very happy that our class is small and everyone from Problems In History is in it! This makes things less awkward and I already have strong friendships with Martha and Micheal. Scott is in all three of my classes this semester, so I am sure we will be able to help each other out too. I am looking forward to getting started on my paper, but I know I won't be able to do that until I gather a sufficient amount of sources first. I hope to utilize the Aurora Historical Society, the AU library, data bases, and any other sources that I can think of.
Today in class, we basically went over the gist of the class, went over what was expected, and had a light day. I am sure things will pick up and get pretty stressful quickly with all my papers, readings, and deadlines! However, I am still looking forward to a challenging and fun semester!
Well, today was the first day of school! The entire summer I have dreaded this day.... I am excited to be back at school, yet VERY nervous for Senior Seminar. I had several ideas over the summer on what to do my paper on, but I think I got it narrowed down to two topics: how the Great Depression effected Aurora, IL, or how the railroads helped to establish the city of Aurora. I think the first option would be easier and more interesting because there would be several different angles to attack it from. I am SO NERVOUS!!! I want to do an awesome job on this, but at the same time, a 23 (at least!) page paper makes me want to cry.
I am very happy that our class is small and everyone from Problems In History is in it! This makes things less awkward and I already have strong friendships with Martha and Micheal. Scott is in all three of my classes this semester, so I am sure we will be able to help each other out too. I am looking forward to getting started on my paper, but I know I won't be able to do that until I gather a sufficient amount of sources first. I hope to utilize the Aurora Historical Society, the AU library, data bases, and any other sources that I can think of.
Today in class, we basically went over the gist of the class, went over what was expected, and had a light day. I am sure things will pick up and get pretty stressful quickly with all my papers, readings, and deadlines! However, I am still looking forward to a challenging and fun semester!
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