Miscellaneous Announcements

1. On Tuesday we will discuss both the reading I’d assigned for the trip, and also the scheduled reading on the myth of black Confederates. I have deleted the blog posts on black Confederates that had been assigned (to help us stay on schedule), but I will show you a few in class.

2. I am going to give you an extension on the blog post that is due April 14. I think we can safely move that to April 16 instead (due by 5pm). You are free to choose your own topic, or, you can reflect on your experience at the battlefield. Questions to consider if you choose that route might include: How would you evaluate the NPS’s treatment of Civil War memory through their interpretive signs? Looking at this from a public history perspective, are they adequately educating visitors? What did you think of the goals and challenges that the park ranger outlined for us? Looking at some of the pictures we took, maybe you would analyze the poem on the monument, etc. etc.

3. We don’t have class on April 16. Take this opportunity to catch up on research for your final project. In addition to making the corrections/improvements I outlined, make sure you flesh out the project and locate a couple of pictures to include since it will be posted on your blog. I will get you a more detailed description of the final soon, but it is basically a longer, more nuanced, polished version of your rough draft (6-9 pages). I want to see that students paid attention to my comments, but I also want to see some initiative in terms of improving and editing one’s own work to make it stronger.

4. In the last week of class, we have two days scheduled for presentations, but since we ended up having a small class, everyone can fit into one day. So, let’s cancel class on April 21 and have all our presentations on April 23. I will post a more detailed description, but see the syllabus for the short version.