In addition to those shown in class, here are the other narratives that have been uploaded to YouTube.  Feel free to see what your fellow students have been up to this semester!

1.  “The Shawnee Mission” by Dan R.

2.  “Jotham Meeker: His Effect of Indian Nations in Kansas” by Tracy F.

3.  “Hardships on the Oregon Trail” by Jordan P.

4.  “The Legend of John Brown” by Jeff A.

5.  “Bleeding Kansas” by Sammy G.

6.  “The Life of Wild Bill Hickok” by Jenny J.

7.  “Symbolism and the Wonderful Wizard of Oz” by Shelley S.

8.  “How the Air Capital of the World Got Its Roots” by Ryan D.

9.  “James Naismith: More Than Just Basketball” by Taylor C.

10.  “The Great Depression in Kansas” by Talia K.

11.  “The Man With the Plan: Dwight D. Eisenhower” by Kelsey H.

12.  “Brown v. Topeka Board of Education” by Eric W.

13.  “Coleman Hawkins: A Life of Jazz” by Todd M.

14.  “The 1966 Topeka Tornado” by Kyle B.

15.  “1970: A Year of Mayhem in Lawrence” by Michelle D.

Here are the YouTube links for the digital narratives that we viewed in class today.  There were many excellent options–it was hard to choose!–so see the post above for additional narratives that are available on YouTube.

—–

1.  “The Kansas Indians” by Micah C.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jywARDtvCOI

2.  “The Significance of the Battle of Black Jack” by Andy W.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZurnwLpvvs

3.  “The Inception of KU” by Madeline J.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbt2BFiHnHk

4.  “The Dalton Gang: Outlaws of the Great West” by Jason R.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNPnWvG3TV0

5.  “Amelia Earhart” by Ashley H.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxG4Pflqmac

6.  “Charlie Parker” by Janae B.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGSTnSN6Tnc

To help you keep track of what’s going on in HIST348, here are some announcements and further clarification about what we’ll be doing in this next week.

DIGITAL NARRATIVE

- All the text elements (cover page, script, bibliography, and slide list) must be uploaded to Blackboard’s SafeAssign box in one file BEFORE 4:00pm on Tuesday, December 8th. Go to “Assignments,” then hit “View/Complete” under “Final Digital Narrative.”  Only send this through email if you absolutely cannot get Blackboard to cooperate.

- The text elements and CD must be submitted in a manila envelope that has your name clearly printed on the outside.  If you do not do so, I am not responsible for lost materials.

- If you put your narrative on YouTube (which all of you should do unless you are using sources that are under copyright) include the URL on your script or cover page.  Any images found online should be fair game, but if you did research at Spencer those images are not cleared for “publication” on YouTube.

- MAC USERS: The help menu in iMovie includes instructions for how to upload to YouTube and how to burn to DVD.  Click on “Help,” then “iMovie Help,” then “Sharing your video project” to get detailed directions.  This can take a while, so be prepared to wait.

- Burn your narrative to CD or DVD as well, since you will want to cover all your bases.  Be sure to put your name on the actual disk, not just the CD case/envelope.  The PC instructions for this are on the main page of the course webpage; Mac users, use the help feature in iMovie to help you do this.

- Leave yourself plenty of time to record your voiceover (at least an hour).  The EGARC lab on the 4th floor of Wescoe has microphones and recording booths that are available to students (these all have Audacity installed).  You’ll be reading your script exactly as it is written, minus the footnotes of course.

-  It would be wise to save several takes so you don’t have to go back and re-record your narration if something isn’t quite right.  I don’t expect these to be professional quality voiceovers, but there shouldn’t be a lot of background noise, coughing sounds/clearing throats, loud static, etc.  I need to be able to understand what you are saying, so enunciate and don’t talk too quickly or too slowly.

- There will be a no-tolerance late policy for this final assignment. All late assignments (and that includes late Blackboard submissions too) will receive a 0.  There are no exceptions; this ensures that students’ final grades can be posted promptly instead of me waiting around for late papers.  Don’t upload your work at the last minute and risk having your project receive a 0 for being late!

GRADING UPDATE

- My goal is to return discussion questions, book reviews, and extra credit assignments on Tuesday.  If that doesn’t happen, you will at least receive them by our last class period, on Thursday December 10th.

- Comments on the last round of blog posts will be distributed via email.

In Microsoft Movie Maker, you can save your project as a .mswmm file by going to “File” then “Save.” This saves it to your computer as a draft, but in order to send the movie through email or burn it to a CD, you must save it as a movie file (.wmv file). These directions are from the help feature in Windows Movie Maker (from a Windows XP machine). The help section also has a troubleshooting feature.

Saving Movie Maker file to CD:

Insert a blank CD into the disc drive. Open your digital narrative file (.mswmm). If for some reason those images have been altered, they may not appear; this can sometimes happen if you have an image saved in one folder and then move it to another folder (in cases like this the computer has trouble locating it).

Go to File –> Save Movie File –> Recordable CD

or

Tasks button –> Finish Movie –> Save to CD

A “Save Movie” wizard will pop up. Enter a file name for your movie (preferably the title of the narrative) and also a name for the CD (preferably your full name or last name). Hit “Next.” The box will then list the specifications for the burn; just follow the recommended settings. It will burn to the CD as a .wmv file.  Hit “Next.” Be patient, because it may take a few minutes to complete the burn. On my computer, the disk pops out automatically once the burn is complete. To close the wizard, click “Finish.” Just to be sure that it burned properly, it would be wise to check it on a different computer before you submit your project.

Sending Movie Maker file via e-mail:

Open your project in Movie Maker (it will appear as a .mswmm file).  Make sure that all the images are present.  Then, follow these directions:

File –> Save Movie File –> Email

or

Tasks button –> Finish Movie –> Send in Email

Either of these will pop up a “Save Movie Wizard” which will automatically start saving your file as a .wmv file.  Then, to send your movie as an attachment, click “Next.”  If you have Outlook installed on your computer, it should automatically prompt you with a new email message.  If your computer does not automatically prompt you, the movie file is still saved on your computer, and you can go to your regular email provider and attach the movie file just as you would normally attach a file.  Movie files will be saved automatically in your My Documents –> My Videos folder. Some files will be too large to send via email.

1. Groups G, H, and I will not be posting blogs this week because of the holiday. They will be posting next week when J and K were slotted to post. That also means that no comments will be due this week.
2. Don’t forget that the extra credit assignment is due on December 1. Please put the words “Extra Credit” in the title of your post so I know that this is supposed to count for extra points.
3. I will be handing back written work (blog posts and reviews) today in class, and my goal for this weekend is to email each of you a full grade update that will include attendance and participation, blogging, book reviews, etc.

1.  Students’ signatures on the sign-in sheet must be in their own handwriting.  Signing in a friend who is absent is a form of academic misconduct, and the history department takes such misconduct very seriously.  If your name has not appeared in your own handwriting, it will be crossed off the attendance sheet and you will be recorded absent.

2.  The extra credit assignment is posted online under “Assignments” as a PDF file.  It will be due December 1, 2009.

Remember that if you are writing a book review over Pamela Riney-Kehrberg’s Rooted in Dust, the assignment is due by the beginning of class on Thursday in hard copy AND in the SafeAssign dropbox. It must be submitted both ways in order to ensure that you get full credit; it is in your best interest to upload it anyway, since that way there is incontrovertible proof that you did turn it in on time, in case I lose the hard copy or you forget to give it me.

Late papers (i.e. any papers turned in after class) will be docked one letter grade for each day they are late. So, a paper turned in between 4:01pm on Thursday and 4:00pm on Friday will lose one full letter grade.

If you have any questions, please email me.  See one of the previous posts for some suggestions about how to write a history book review.

1.  Be sure to start reading Pamela Riney-Kehrberg’s Rooted in Dust. We will be discussing it in class on Thursday, when the book review is due.  Pay particular attention to her argument, including the evidences he uses to support this argument and whether or not that evidence supports her interpretation.

2.  If you haven’t yet written a book review, you will need to write one on Rooted in Dust.  If you wrote a review over The End of Indian Kansas, you can skip this review as long as you’ll be writing a review on Sex in the Heartland.  Remember, each student needs to write two book reviews total over the course of the semester.

The assignment description for the critical book review assignment is posted under the tab “Assignments.” Be sure to read it carefully and email me if you have any questions.

If you have never written a history book review before, there are a few things to remember. First, a history book review is not the same as a book report; meaning, you must do more than just summarize the book. Second, it is very important that you know what the author is arguing and whether or not they use adequate evidence to support that argument. For other suggestions and guidelines, here are a couple of useful websites:

How to Write a Critical Book Review (by a professor at Carleton College)

On Writing Book Reviews (by a history professor at CUNY)

The second one also has a link at the bottom of the page to a guide for using footnotes. For history papers, you will not be using parenthetical citations (the MLA style) or the APA style. Footnotes look very similar to bibliographic citations–since they include most of the same information–but there are some subtle differences that you should be aware of. They are really easy to use once you get the hang of it. There is a guide to footnotes under the “Class Handouts” tab, but here is an example of a footnote for a plain old, regular book:

1
Donald Worster, Dust Bowl: The Southern Plains in the 1930s, 25th anniv. ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 23.

The “23″ signifies which page I am quoting or paraphrasing (remember that paraphrases must include a citation as well). The rest is self explanatory.

To add a footnote using Microsoft Word, put your cursor at the end of the sentence and outside the quotation marks (if you are quoting). Go up to “Insert” –> “Reference” –> “Footnote.” A box will pop up, and all those fields should be automatically correct, so hit “OK.” Your cursor will then be bumped down to the bottom of the page, where you insert the citation as shown above. When you are ready to resume writing, just put your cursor back up in the text and go!

It sounds complicated, but it is much, MUCH easier to use this feature than to try and add footnotes manually. It is very important that you use the correct citations for your sources, and that you remember that I take plagiarism very seriously. Each quotation must have a footnote immediately following it (right after those quotation marks), and paraphrases must also be acknowledged with a citation (of course, those won’t have quotation marks). For a quick review of how to avoid plagiarism, see the “Straight Talk about Plagiarism” brochure under the “Class Handouts” tab.

1. There is no blogging (or commenting) due this week. Use the extra time to work on your digital narrative project.
2. Class on Thursday (11/5) is canceled; this is stated in the syllabus. I will begin my office hours on Thursday at 2pm instead of 3pm.

1.  For the digital narrative assignment, you should check out an easy-to-use audio recording program called Audacity that you can download for free.  It is available for both Macs and PCs.  You’ll save your file as an Audacity file (.aup file), and then when you are ready to add it to Movie Maker or iMovie you can export it as an .mp3 file, then import that file into your movie program.  Students in my other Kansas history course had a lot of success using this program.

2.  As you consider how you will record your voice over, there are a few options for locating a microphone.  The 4th floor Wescoe computer lab in the EGARC includes microphones and Audacity on those public computers.  Or, I have two microphones and you can make an appointment to come to my office and record your narrative there (students will not be able to take my mics home).  Another option is to purchase an inexpensive mic from Amazon.  With tax and shipping this one will cost just under $7.  The sound quality on this microphone is more than adequate for our assignment, but as with any mic, try not to touch it while you are recording because that will lead to shuffling and scratching sounds.

3.  To keep the recording process simple, practice reading your narrative aloud before you record.  You could also consider reading it to a friend.  The more you rehearse, the fewer times you will have to re-record your voice over.

4.  As you revise your script, pay attention to details.  The requirements for the assignment are not arbitrary rules; each one has a rationale behind it, and you’ll want to demonstrate that you can follow directions.  This is a skill that employers will look favorably upon when you begin your professional career.  Be particularly careful about including citations that are properly formatted and that refer to a specific page number; to not include accurate footnote citations (even for summary sections) is a form of plagiarism.

If our discussion of gender as a constructed category was particularly interesting to you, go check out a great resource called Sociological Images.  It deals with how both men and women are depicted in the media (among other topics including racism, etc.); see their drop down menu of tags that appears on the right sidebar.  Topics that pertain to yesterday’s discussion are: 1) beauty, 2) bodies, 3) discourse/language, 4) feminism, 5) gender, and 6) politics.  Two particularly interesting examples are their posts titled “Make-Up and Beauty Regimes for Men” and “Oh, the Things Girls Can Be!” (both found under the tag “gender”).  Their posts, while not geared toward historians, never fail to continually remind me about my own perspectives/prejudice and how each of us can work to become more accepting of others.

Note that some of their posts are labeled NSFW.  That translates to “not safe for work” because there is nudity or something else that could get you into trouble if you looked at it while using company resources.  Just bear that in mind.

You’ve probably never heard of the Legislative (or Populist) War of 1893. I didn’t have time to address it in lecture, but it is one of the more fascinating stories in the history of the Sunflower state.

The state election of 1893 had confusing results. The Populist party claimed a majority of seats in the legislature (crying foul at what they perceived as election fraud), while the rival Republican Party disagreed. As a result of this disagreement two houses, the Douglass House (Republican) and the Dunsmore House (Populist), both conducted state business in Representative Hall on the Capitol grounds, each arguing that they were the legally elected legislative body. As the session wore on, tensions between the two groups escalated. On February 13, 1893, the Populist Dunsmore House barricaded the entrance to the hall and repelled the Republican congressmen who attempted to enter the chambers. The Republican Douglass House, fed up with the situation, beat down the doors of the hall with sledgehammers. The Republicans then recruited six hundred guardsmen (called sergeants-at-arms) to protect the hall; even after an executive order from Governor Lorenzo Lewelling these guards refused to leave the Capitol grounds. Eventually, on February 16, the disgruntled Populists agreed (along with the Republicans) to wait for the state Supreme Court’s verdict. On February 25, the court ruled that the Republican house would maintain control of the legislature. This event, even though it lasted only twelve days, would become known as the Legislative War or the Populist War.

For more about this conflict, check out these primary sources on Kansas Memory. These are just a few of the sources available:

Floyd Bull’s reminiscence
Jeremiah Berger Remington’s postcard
Douglass House, “Statement to the People of Kansas”
Photograph of Douglass House
Photograph of Populist House on the statehouse steps
Governor Lewelling’s Executive Order No. 2
Governor Lewelling’s Executive Order No. 3
Memoranda on the Populist War

This would be an excellent choice for a blogging topic, if you enjoy political topics such as this!

If you are feeling stuck and don’t know what to write for this week’s blog, here is something for you to think about.  According to Mary Elizabeth Lease (pictured) and her fellow Populists, the government was controlled by the wealthy and the corrupt. In a speech given in 1890 she stated:

Wall Street owns the country. It is no longer a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, but a government of Wall Street, by Wall Street, and for Wall Street. The great common people of this country are slaves, and monopoly is the master. The West and South are bound and prostrate before the manufacturing East. Money rules, and our Vice-President is a London banker. Our laws are the output of a system which clothes rascals in robes and honesty in rags.*

Questions for consideration:

1) How might these sources relate to our current state of affairs as a country (in the 21st century)? Do you see parallels today, and if so, where?
2) For those of you who are history majors or who have taken both halves of the introductory U.S. survey, where else in American history can we find criticisms of this so-called “money power”?

*Available online on several radical sites, including History is a Weapon and History Matters. It is also published in Howard Zinn, Voices of a People’s History of the United States (New York: Seven Stories Press, 2004).

Aerial view of Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, looking west.

As most of you know, my fall break was spent in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, at an academic symposium called John Brown Remembered: 150th Anniversary of John Brown’s Raid.  In addition to many academic presentations and lectures (see the link for more info), we were lucky enough to participate in several walking tours and other commemorative events.  Interestingly, this event was the kick-off for the sesquicentennial of the Civil War, which goes to show that our understanding of this conflict is constantly being refined as historians acknowledge how the Civil War spans more than just the four years between 1861 and 1865.  Although the weather was downright miserable, the events were amazing and I only wish that you could have experienced it for yourselves!

Here are some news articles related to the anniversary, if you want to blog about Brown at some point in the semester.  Although the raid on Harpers Ferry did not take place in Kansas, Brown’s involvement in the history of our state makes him a worthy subject of study.

“Gearing Up for John Brown Sesquicentennial” from the Harpers Ferry Historic Town Foundation

“John Brown’s Day of Reckoning” from Smithsonian Magazine

“300 Follow Abolitionist John Brown’s Footsteps on 150th Anniversary of Harpers Ferry Raid” from 39 News in Houston