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HISTORY 496 INTERNSHIP IN PUBLIC HISTORY
Spring 2018Tues.-Thurs. 12:30-1:50VKC 104
Prof. HalttunenSOS 162
Office hours: Tues.-Thurs. 11-noon
History 496 offers students the opportunity to explore the field of public history by working as an intern at an LA-area historical institution or a K12 school while also attending a seminar on campus.
A substantial majority of Americans value public history—presented at museums, historic sites, archives, television and film, government agencies, etc.—more than the history they learned in the classroom. One of the central goals of public history is to demonstrate the relevance and value of history to the lives of ordinary people. Los Angeles offers a wealth of venues for public history. Students in History 496 will receive course credit for work experience at a museum, archive, historic site, government office, etc.; OR in a middle- or high-school classroom where they can apply what they learn about the cultural power of public history to secondary education. All student-interns will complete a final project that will be deposited with their host institution.
Enrollment in History 496 requires D-clearance based on a Memorandum of Agreement submitted before the course begins. To complete that MOA, the student needs to choose a site, determine (with help from Prof. Halttunen) that an internship is available, and write a brief description—in consultation with a site supervisor—of the proposed work (which might include research, preservation, archival work, education, grant-writing, oral history, or exhibit design). To earn credit for the 4-unit course, students must work 100 hours on-site during the semester (an average of about 8 hours per week), and attend a seminar on campus to discuss issues and practices in the field of public history and report on their internship experiences.
For the seminar, students will keep weekly journals on their internship hours and activities, along with brief comments on the assigned readings and responses to the questions embedded in the syllabus. They will also report periodically on their final project, which can take a variety of forms: research paper, exhibit, walking-tour, annotated bibliography, finding aid, lesson plan, website, video or power point, etc. This final project will be submitted to both Prof. Halttunen and the site supervisor for evaluation, and will be deposited with the host institution for future use.
Required Readings
Four assigned books can be purchased at the campus bookstore:
David Thelen and Roy Rosenzweig, The Presence of the Past: Popular Uses of History in American Life (2000)
Cherstin M. Lyon, Elizabeth M. Nix, Rebecca K. Shrum, Introduction to Public History: Integrating the Past, Engaging Audiences (2017)
Keith C. Barton and Linda S. Levstik, Teaching History for the Common Good (2004)
Edward Linenthal, Preserving Memory: The Struggle to Create America’s Holocaust Museum (2001)
Students should also buy (or borrow) abook in their specialized area of public history; see the assignment for February 14.
For the week of March 26, students will again select their own individual readings in the form of articles from leading journals in the fields of public history and history education.
Further readings will be required for your internship and final project, as determined by your site supervisor and Prof. Halttunen.
Course requirements
- 100 hours of unpaid internship at a public-history site, under the supervision of a professional in the field. Internships should begin during the second week of classes, the week of Jan. 15.
- A weekly journal reporting the hours you have worked, the nature of your work, and useful connections you have made between in-class readings and your internship. You should also respond to the discussion questions embedded in the syllabus for that week. Each journal entry is due by email at 5 PM on Friday of that week (or Saturday if your internship hours are scheduled on Friday). Please keep your journal in a single, cumulative word document, adding each new entry on a weekly basic.
- Regular attendance and participation in seminar, which will involve assigned readings and discussion. This course is both a seminar, based on intensive reading and discussion, and a workshop, based on collaborative exchanges of ideas. Absences are not appropriate except for exceptional circumstances.
- Periodic reports on a final project, whose nature will be worked out between the student, the site supervisor, and the course instructor.
- The final public-history project, which will be evaluated by both the course instructor and the site supervisor. The course instructor will make the final determination of the student’s grade for the course.
Final grade calculation
Work in seminar: 50% (including journals, in-class discussions, and periodic reports)
Internship: 50% (including the quality of your work throughout the internship, and of your final project)
CLASS SCHEDULE
Week 1. INTRODUCTION AND PROFESSIONAL STANDARDS
Tues. Jan. 9. Introduction
At this initial meeting, we will discuss our personal experiences of public history in our daily lives, and its relationship to our classroom education in history.
Thurs. Jan. 11. Professional standards and goals for your internship
READ the brief statement on professional standards available on Blackboard.
DISCUSS: At this class, we will discuss the professional standards and goals for your internship. What professional expectations should you meet, and what do you hope to accomplish through this experience?
Students will report briefly on the scheduling of their internship hours during the week of January 15.
No journal entry is due this week.
Week 2. THE PRESENCE OF THE PAST
Tues. Jan. 16. The presence of the past: individuals and families
READThelen and Rosenzweig, The Presence of the Past, pp. 1-114.
DISCUSS: Why are ordinary Americans so much more engaged with history outside the classroom than in school? Do you see all the forms of popular history discussed by Rosenzweig and Thelen as legitimate intellectual pursuits?
Thurs. Jan. 18. The presence of the past: communities
READ Thelen and Rosenzweig, The Presence of the Past, pp. 115-208.
DISCUSS: What is the value of public history for communities, especially minority communities? What can public history contribute to shaping the future?
Please remember to submit your first weekly journal entry by email to Prof. Halttunen at .
Week 3. WHAT IS PUBLIC HISTORY?
Tues. Jan. 23. Overview
READLyon, Nix, and Shrum, Introduction to Public History, pp. ix-32.
DISCUSS: What is public history? What does it share in common with academic history, and how does it differ? What’s the difference between learning history and doing history?
PLEASE LOOK AT “Resources for Further Study” on p. 19, and begin to think about what you might choose to read for the week of Feb. 13.
Thurs. Jan. 25. Oral history, collections, and archives
READ Lyon, Nix, and Shrum, Introduction to Public History, pp. 33-
81.
DISCUSS: Who are “experients” and what is their appropriate role in the process of public history? How can students serve as “cultural brokers” within community-based research projects? What are some of the issues involved in collecting, preserving, and archiving the past?
Week 4. WHAT IS PUBLIC HISTORY (CONTINUED)?
Tues. Jan. 30. Interpreting history, exhibiting history, and engaging an audience
READ Lyon, Nix, and Shrum, Introduction to Public History, pp. 83-161.
DISCUSS: What do the authors mean by the “big idea” of a museum exhibit? What are the challenges of engaging an audience, and how have public historians successfully met those challenges?
Thurs. Feb. 1. Becoming a public historian
READ Lyon, Nix, and Shrum, Introduction to Public History, pp. 163-175.
DISCUSS: Why do the authors of this book believe that public history should matter to all of us, and not just those who will pursue public history as a career?
Week 5. TEACHING HISTORY FOR THE COMMON GOOD
Tues. Feb. 6. History education and participatory democracy
READBarton and Levstik, Teaching History for the Common Good, pp. ix-128.
DISCUSS: How do Barton and Levstik understand the relationship between history education and participatory democracy? What are the four “stances” that shape the purpose and practice of learning history? How should these different stances, in your view, shape classroom teaching and the practice of public history?
Thurs. Feb. 8. Internship reports
At this class meeting, half the students will report on their internship work to date, and discuss the challenges and possibilities of public history at their chosen site. In your report, discuss important connections between your on-site work and our readings and discussions in seminar. Each report should last no more than 10 minutes.
Week 6. TEACHING HISTORY FOR THE COMMON GOOD (CONT’D)
Tues. Feb. 13. Narrative, inquiry, empathy
READ Barton and Levstik, Teaching History for the Common Good, pp. 129-266.
DISCUSS: What are the roles of narrative, inquiry, and empathy in historical education? Are they equally applicable to classroom instruction and public history practice, in your view?
Thurs. Feb. 15.Internship reports
At this class meeting, the remaining half the class will report on their internship work to date.
Week 7. THE POLITICS OF MEMORY AT THE NATIONAL HOLOCAUST MUSEUM
Tues. Feb. 20. The challenges of contested memory
READEdward Linenthal, Preserving Memory: The Struggle to Create America’s Holocaust Museum, pp. ix-166.
DISCUSS: How and why, in 1993, did “the Holocaust become an event officially incorporated into American memory” (Linenthal, p. 1)?
Thurs. Feb. 22. No class meeting.
Prof. Halttunen will begin to visit your internship sites this week.
Week 8. THE POLITICS OF MEMORY (CONTINUED)
Tues. Feb. 27. The boundaries of Holocaust memory
READ Linenthal, Preserving Memory, pp. 167-272.
DISCUSS: What does this highly detailed case study in museum design reveal about the complex purposes of public history? What issues divided the planners for 15 years before the museum opened its doors to the public, and what was at stake in those debates?
Thurs. March 1. No class meeting.
Prof. Halttunen will continue to visit your internship sites.
ASSIGNMENT: Drawing from the bibliographies in the three books you’ve read for this course, choose one book-length study (or collection of articles) in your particular area of internship, which you will read and report on next week (March 6 and 8). For those of you who are student-teachers, Teaching History for the Common Good will probably offer the best bibliographic suggestions; everyone else may find Introduction to Public History most useful. Please email your choice to Prof. Halttunen by 12:30 PM today.
Week 9. DEVELOPING SPECIALIZATION IN PUBLIC HISTORY
Tues. March 6. Specialized fields 1
READ your selected study in your special area of interest.
DISCUSS: At this meeting, half the class will discuss what you learned from this reading about your form of public history practice. Be prepared to answer questions from the class, and offer specific suggestions to other students that will assist their work. We will treat this discussion partly as a collaborative workshop in which seminar participants learn from one another.
ASSIGNMENT FOR ALL STUDENTS: WRITE a 1-2 page report the usefulness of this work to your internship—how it improves your on-site work—and email it to Prof. Halttunen before class.
Thurs. March 8. Specialized fields 2
DISCUSS: At this meeting, the other half of the class will discuss what you learned from this reading about your form of public history practice.
WEEK 10 (MARCH 11-18): SPRING RECESS
PLEASE NOTE: THE REMAINING 6 WEEKS OF CLASS WILL FOCUS ON YOUR FINAL PROJECT.
Week 11. PLANNINGYOUR FINAL PROJECT
Tues. March. 20. Report on final project 1
REPORT: At this meeting, half the class will report on their plans for a final project. Will you be creating and teaching a high-school lesson plan, designing an exhibit, writing a historical essay for a website, creating a new docent tour, or something else? Please discuss your current thoughts for your final project with your site supervisor in preparation for this report.
Thurs. March 22. Report on final project 2
REPORT: At this meeting, the remaining students will report on their plans for a final project.
Week 12. READINGFOR YOUR FINAL PROJECT
Tues. March 27. Reading for your final project 1
READ:For this class, each student will browse through issues of The Public Historian OR The History Teacher, two journals available on-line at USC. These journals offer original research, case studies, essays on theoretical issues, special forums on such topics as preservation technology and history and memory, and reviews of exhibits, interpretive programs, and other media. Look for articles that you find useful for your annotated bibliography (due April 3). For today’s class,CHOOSE 3 ARTICLESthat you find particularly useful and relevant for your final project, and prepare to report on them in class.
DISCUSS: Please come to class prepared to offer brief summaries and explanations of your chosen articles and their usefulness. Half the class will report at this meeting.
ASSIGNMENT FOR ALL STUDENTS: WRITE a 1-2 page report on your three chosen articles and their usefulness to your final project, and email it to Prof. Halttunen before class.
Thurs. March 29. Reading for your final project 2
The other half of the class will report on their chosen articles.
Week 13. ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Tues. April 3. Bibliography 1
For this class meeting, all students will submit an annotated bibliography of works to be used for the final internship project. This bibliography should include a mixture of methodological works (such as the articles from The Public Historian), substantivesecondary works (on the historical subject area of the project), and primary sources (documents, material objects, visual images, etc. that might feature in the final project). Brief, 1-2 sentence annotations should be included in your bibliography.
Half the class will give brief reports on their bibliographies.
At this meeting, we will be scheduling one-on-one meetings with the instructor during normal class hours for the week of April 9.
Thurs. April 5. Bibliography 2
At this class meeting, the remainder of the class will report on their sources for their final projects.
Week 14. COMPLETING YOUR PLANS FOR YOUR FINAL PROJECT
Tues. April 10 and Thurs. April 12: One-on-one meetings with Prof. Halttunen. In lieu of classes this week, students will meet one-on-one with Prof. Halttunen during regular class hours to talk about your final project.
Week 15. DRAFTING YOUR FINAL PROJECT
Tues. April 17. Draft of final project 1
At this class, half the students will present complete drafts of their final projects, in the form of a written hand-out, a video or powerpoint presentation, an exhibit design, K12 curricular materials, or other appropriate media. Students will offer critical feedback on one another’s work.
Thurs. April 19. Draft of final project 2
The other half of the class will present drafts of their final projects.
Week 16.
Tues. April 24. FINAL PROJECTS DUE.
By 12:30 PM today, please submit your final project by emailto both Prof. Halttunen and your site supervisor, who will participate in its evaluation.
DISCUSS in class what you learned during the final stages of your public-history project.
Thurs. April 26. SELF-ASSESSMENT
REREAD: either the first two chapters of Introduction to Public History, plus the additional chapter that is closest to the sort of public history your final project reflects; or the first two chapters ofTeaching History for the Common Good, plus one additional chapter that is most relevant to your final project.
DISCUSS: How well do you think your final project meets the goals and challenges of public history set forth by these scholars in the field? What are the areas in which your project most needs revision?
There is no final exam for this course. But by Wednesday, May 10, at 4PM—the date designated for a final exam—you will submit your revised final project to both Prof. Halttunen and your on-site supervisor. That will be the version we hope will be formally deposited with the institution that hosted your internship. We want that project to reflect well on you and on USC, and to persuade your host institution to continue offering internships to USC students.
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