Current Project: Timetables and Timelines for The Underground Railroad

A map of the Underground Railroad as portrayed in Colson Whitehead's novel.

Almost a year ago I read Colson Whitehead's The Underground Railroad and became fixated on what a great teaching tool it would be. It does that thing that people think historians hate-- incorporate a flurry of time periods and events into one story supposedly set in another time altogether. It's centered around a major counterfactual-- that the Underground Railroad, rather than being a metaphorical name for a many-legged, many routed entity, is actually a full-on locomotive system under the earth. And because of these things, it's a great tool to emphasize that "accuracy," while always a buzzword in any course about history and fiction, is much more complicated than just a painstaking adherence to the details associated with a period.

So that personal bit of reading, and that idea that the book showcased what a powerful choice it could be to mix together aspects of different histories, blossomed into the course I'm teaching now, HIST 365: Fiction and the Historical Imagination/Fictionalizing US History, 1620-1920. We have this week reached the section of the course devoted to this book, and so I wanted to share the strategies I'm using to teach the novel in a way that emphasizes Whitehead's use of time (through some discussion of topics, but no major spoilers ahead for the novel).

The Reading

First, the novel itself. I split the book into three sections, each a bit shorter than the last. Monday was the chapters from "Ajarry" to "Stevens" (or, 1-142); Wednesday was "North Carolina" through "Tennessee (143-232); and Friday was "Caesar" through the final chapter, "The North," (233-313).

I paired each of these sections with brief supplementary material. Being that there are so many topics and events, I knew I would not be able to address all the historical allusions through supplementary primary and secondary source reading. So I chose to instead emphasize a few themes and encourage students to address others through their projects.

For Monday, I emphasized themes of race in medical experimentation with the Introduction to Susan Reverby's Tuskegee's Truths (2000) and a chapter on grave robbing from Harriet Washington's Medical Apartheid (2006). (I also made available some of Reverby's critiques of Washington's text.) This was designed to suggest ways in which we could connect some of the events of The Underground Railroad to events which occurred during the time period in which the book is ostensibly set as well as to events in the mid twentieth century. I was surprised to find that although students had not read these exact texts before, many of them seemed familiar with their contents.

My choices for Wednesday seemed to be less familiar. I was pleased to find that many of my students were experiencing Jourdon Anderson's letter "To My Old Master" for the first time. If you have five minutes and have never read it, take a look-- it is an incredibly satisfying primary source. I also had students examine several pages of the Monroe Work Today site, which builds upon the lynching statistics assembled by sociologist Monroe Work in the early twentieth century to create an interactive map of (some) US lynchings from 1835-1964. These sources match some of the events and attitudes which appear in the novel, but they also provide some contours that the novel's story doesn't have the opportunity to express-- evidence of freedpeople's lives and self-expression; the national span of racial violence and the individual connections that our localism can lead us to make when we look at a map of it.

For Friday, when students are finishing the novel, they will read two pieces of commentary dealing with the novel itself: author Brit Bennett's "Ripping the Veil" and journalist Kathryn Schulz's "The Perilous Lure of the Underground Railroad."

The Project 

Of course, I couldn't leave well enough alone with reading and discussing these documents. I also wanted to incorporate a project with this section of the course, one which would encourage us to consider the broad connections Whitehead is making within this text. Instead of continuing with the style of group project that I had used for the two previous tasks, in which each group created some artifact together, I designed a project in which the entire class would work together on one large timeline. Each entry on this timeline would connect one historical event, big or small, to something similar that had occurred in the book. Each person would be responsible for five entries, and they would have groups which would serve as peer editors to give feedback on their entries.

Here's the project sheet and rubric:

Within the Google Doc for the timeline itself, I also provided a sketchy template for the entries, complete with fake names:

Rough Example Template:

DATE-- Brief Descriptive Title

[[RELATED IMAGE/VIDEO/DOCUMENT]]

Section explaining details and historical significance of event, its inclusion in the timeline, and the reason it connects to the novel. This section should incorporate both description and analysis. References to a document or source can be linked here in text.

Sources:

The Underground Railroad, page XX.

Other sources used (at least one).

Author: Jane Doe, Group 4. Assistance: Charlie Horse (suggested the video used); Jim Roe (corrected errors in description).

The ambitious thing here has been trying to fit discussion and time to work on the timeline into class. So far I have managed to mostly make it happen, but it could be better. In future, I'd also like to work to explain this a bit more clearly, as it has taken a couple of class sessions to clarify what exact kinds of things I wish to be in the entries. As I envision it-- and as I've been explaining it to everyone-- I anticipate that some small tidbit in a news article or a secondary source will strike some familiar chord with a theme or event from the book, and poof! There's your entry. We'll see how it goes when these are all coming together at the end of next week.

What's History: In Praise of Extra Credit

Extra credit is the practice of the mission of this blog: connecting teaching history with everyday life. Today I was sending my Fiction and the Historical Imagination class some information about upcoming extra credit when this neat little observation struck me-- the reason that offering extra credit opportunities is so appealing to me, and why it in fact goes perfectly with the kind of history I try to teach. 

I've often been a bit mystified by the takes on extra credit I've seen floating around the Internet's education hubs. It seems that every teacher has a complicated relationship with extra credit, and they express it in a way which seems to go beyond a statement of method directly into a defense of their worthiness to mold inquiring minds.

There is a vocal contingent who find extra credit an exercise in grade inflation, gleefully proclaiming, "No Extra Credit for You." There are those who offer extra credit but seem compelled by this negative faction to argue its rigor, such as Deborah J. Cohan in her post for Inside Higher Ed. Cohan notes that her policy has changed; whereas years ago she did not offer extra credit assignments, she is now a regular user even though "it almost feels embarrassing to admit." Despite the fact that many instructors offer it in one form or another, it's also widely criticized; the general mood of the room is perhaps best summed up by a forum post in the Chronicle of Higher Education forums, which begins a query about what extra credit activities others recommend by saying, "I know that wise professors don't offer extra credit."

Detractors of extra credit suggest that it can encourage some to neglect the central requirements of the course in favor of the seemingly easier task of extra assignments. They point out that extra credit options can be inaccessible to those who have other obligations. And they are inordinately fond of bringing up hypothetical doctors and architects who passed their classes through extra credit and are thereby so lackluster at their job that you will wind up misdiagnosed/crushed by your house/generally, dead.

Each of these critiques have a basis in possibility, of course. Yet I think the benefits of extra credit not only outweigh the disadvantages, but also have positive effects for the class even beyond the people who actually receive the extra points. The way I approach extra credit highlights the values I find in history teaching as a whole-- making connections between what students are learning and the world around them, and using the information and skills of our classroom as tools to understand and approach other media, other people, other stories, other times.  

Permission to Engage

The most common extra credit options are related to attendance at events on or around campus. This makes particular sense, obviously, when the themes of the talk relate to the themes or content of the course-- hence, I will offer extra credit for attending and responding to the upcoming Lincoln's Body lecture (Spurlock, Thursday, 4 pm) as our unit on the Civil War approaches, but not a lecture on the history of dogs, much as I may wish to promote both events (if anyone knows of any upcoming canine-related programming, drop me a line).  I also like to incorporate some sort of written response for these events, both to encourage reflection on what actually happened at the talk and to avoid the awkward methods of establishing proof of attendance at such events.

The pessimistic reading of this sort of practice is that it is solely designed to boot attendance by strongarming grade-grubbing students into filling seats. The more people in attendance at events, the more "successful" events are. Some suggest that encouraging students to attend events should be unnecessary, as they should be doing those things of their own volition anyway. One commenter on Cohan's post claims that students' unwillingness to go to events of their own volition marks the "bankruptcy of education today." Those darn kids!

Perhaps unsurprisingly, I want to offer an alternate reading, one that I've talked about before in thinking about how I structure assignments. In my post on assigning unstructured research time, I noted that doing so  "gives students permission to invest in the course in ways that many of them would like to do, but feel that they shouldn't." If one is duty-bound to work toward grades at the expense of all else, attending events related to course themes might feel like a needless luxury, an intellectual investment that will not pay off. This is not because students don't care about adding to their knowledge but because they are constantly forced to weigh the benefits and disadvantages of decisions that pull them away from other work. Adding some incentive to the event may help students justify their attendance in the face of many pressures pulling them in all directions.

Extending Class Themes 

Buzz Aldrin on the moon with an American flag, 1969. From BBC.com, "First Man flag row: How selective should Hollywood be with history?"

Most of the extra credit opportunities I assign extend what we have done in class and encourage applying familiar ideas in a new situation. Additionally, there's generally an aspect of connection to the world outside the classroom that informs these assignments. It's very similar to the purpose of this blog-- highlighting the connections between what we've talked about in class and what is going on outside of it.

For example, event-related opportunities allow students to explore ideas outside those you have time to cover in class-- ones that are connected, but not central to the core topics. The upcoming free screening of the historical fiction First Man promises to be an interesting extension of why the ideas about history and fiction we've been discussing have some everyday relevance, especially with the heated discussion surrounding its depiction of the American flag. It's an especially appealing choice for an extra-credit opportunity for Fiction and the Historical Imagination because it falls within themes of the course but outside of the time period-- making it truly "extra" in the sense that it encourages students to stretch what they already know into a new area and see what they can make of it. Students don't have to make this analytical leap, but if they want to think about a new application of these ideas, there's an opportunity, and an excuse, to do so. 

In the absence of fortuitously timed events, there are a variety of other ways to encourage connecting class ideas to matters of wider relevance. For example: After several days highlighting the role of maleficium in witchcraft trials in colonial New England, I realized that the Wikipedia entry for maleficium is woefully underdeveloped. I decided to develop an extra credit opportunity about this-- if anyone wanted to edit the page, improving its discussion of the topic and citing our course materials, they could receive points toward their weakest grade. 

What if no one does it?

As with anything else you decide to do in class, there's the danger of not getting buy-in. I don't find this a particularly compelling reason not to incorporate extra credit, though, because announcing extra credit opportunities like the ones I've described can further your goals for the course and benefit students even beyond the few who complete it.  

On the most basic level, announcing an event can inspire attendance even without completion of the assignment associated with it. I anticipate that many of my students will eventually see First Man and consider its relationship to our course whether or not they do so for this assignment. People who aren't sure they need the additional points might check out a suggested lecture just to see what they can make of it.  

Even when people don't attend the event suggested, knowing that it exists and has some connection to course themes encourages students to make connections between the class and broader issues. For example, noting that the author of a book you're reading is doing a local reading may suggest to students that the book has audiences outside of "people forced to read this for class." Non-event assignments, like Wikipedia editing, could have a similar broadening effect-- it encourages students to consider the limitations of Wikipedia and the ways in which they can use even a bit of knowledge to shape others' understanding, even if they ultimately decline to complete the edits.

Finally, like many other parts of my teaching, having extra credit assignments available is an indicator of particular standpoints on teaching and history. It suggests that I as a teacher value taking advantage of the learning opportunities that are around you, and that I have an approach to academic success which values flexibility and multiple chances to do well. It suggests that history is widely relevant and highly connective; that the skills and ideas you're working with can be usefully applied to other times, places, and topics; and that it might even be a decent way to spend a Thursday afternoon or a Monday night. These indicators communicate with all of my students, not just the ones that take me up on the extra points. 

Do you use extra credit, and how? Let me know! 

Related Links:

You know what other Wikipedia page could use some editing? The one for "extra credit." I'll offer extra credit on your blog-reading grade if you improve this. 
Incidentally, ColourPop promises you'll "look like 110% in this vivid orange-red" Extra Credit lipstick. (No, for some reason this is not a paid advertisement.)
Part of the weirdness of extra credit discussions is that everyone seems to have a different interpretation of what extra-credit is. Here, a post making a distinction between in-syllabus and ad-hoc extra credit (my approach is more "adding to the syllabus as I go).