Description
Time
July 5th-16th
Monday-Friday
10:30 a.m.- 4:30 p.m. EDT
60 hours in total.
Class Size
8 Students.
Student Requirements
Recommended for students Grades 9-11, has writing experience and are interested in history.
Teacher
Dr. James Johnson & Dr. Chelsea Reutcke
Dr James Johnson is currently completing his PhD in History at the University of Stirling. In addition, he also writes for history magazines, and teaches at the Museum.
Dr Chelsea Reutcke completed her PhD in History at the University of St Andrews, Scotland. She develops tours of digital reconstructions of historic sites and teaches academic skills.
Course Information
This two-week workshop is designed to have students compose a first draft of an historical research paper on a topic of their choice.
A day starts with a 1-hour lecture at the beginning devoted to instruction on methods required for the historian’s craft. Students then spend the better part of each day, and the middle weekend, exercising those methods in their own research and writing. Each student has a daily one-on-one conference with an instructor. Each day concludes in the late afternoon with another full class Zoom session.
Each student prepares for the workshop, in advance, by choosing a topic, procuring at least 3-5 books on that topic. During the one-on-one hours, students are coached to do the research and writing process: formulating productive research questions; finding and making discerning use of primary and secondary sources; taking accurate notes; analyzing evidence, formulating a provisional narrative and testing it with more research; marshalling evidence to support one’s position or narrative; puzzling together a narrative structure for one’s essay; documenting evidence with University of Chicago-style source citations; writing and rewriting.
