Westmont College

PLAN OF STUDY FOR IN-COURSE HONORS FOR MULTIPLE STUDENTS

Instructor Professor Robins Semester Fall 2007

Course History 10-4 Title Perspectives on World History

Plan of Study

The most obvious difference between a regular section and an honors section has to do with the depth of the work, and the depth of the relationships between students. If you sign up for the honors option of the course, you get the chance to look more closely into the questions raised in class and take unpredictable paths to working with them. For instance, I am planning on integrating an art exhibit into the curriculum, offeringopportunities to work with photography, and allowing for morefocused reflection on questions related to world poverty and cultural identity.

Written Work:

The main area of the course affected is the portfolio. I am indicating the changes in italics:

Portfolio (35%): In the course of the semester, you will put together a portfolio reflecting the development of your thoughts on two questions: what is your place as a student in the human community? How does it affect your calling and your hopes for your education? Your portfolio will consist of:

  • Three group discussion reports (15%)In collaboration with two other students, you will need to submit a report on readings assigned in the class. For each report, you will be provided with a question and a group evaluation form. Write a 7 page paper with your group for this assignment instead of a discussion report.
  • Short Essays (10%): You will write 6 essays to reflect on issues of identity and responsibility.

Come to class with your work done (typed and double spaced) on the day it is assigned. No late work will be accepted. Select a classmate to work with: this person will review your essays and summaries according to a rubric while you review their work. I will read all your work and comment on it. Please take the comments into account for your final paper. If you need more feedback on any of your work, please come and talk to me in my office. Keep all your short essays. At the end of the semester, you will need to turn in all entries (with comments from myself or from your peers) with your final paper. See rubrics for evaluations of your classmates’ work.

  • One final paper (10%): This will be the conclusion of your portfolio. In this 8-page essay (1600 words), you need to use the previous assignments and significant parts of the material studied in the course of the class to answer the following question: given your place in the global human community, what are your hopes and responsibilities as a student, and as a Christian in particular? Please refer to separate guidelines for further information. Your essay may be longer than 5 pages –up to 8 pages, but this is not requirement.

In grading your work, special emphasis will be placed on critical skills ( numbers 8-12 of the grading rubric in your handouts)

Arts and Lectures

  1. We will attend 3 events together:
  • On September 28 from 3:30 to 5:00 pm. in Hieronymus Lounge, lecture by Paul Spickard, "Is Lighter Better?" Skin-Tone Discrimination among Asian Americans”. I will give you a short reading assignment to do before we attend the lecture.
  • In October TBA, we will go and see a play together
  • On a Sunday, in November –we will determine the date on the basis of your schedules- Santa Barbara Museum of Art: Visit of the exhibit “Identities”, Opens November 3, 2007
  1. We will meet for coffee –and dinner- conversations three other times during the semester
  1. I will meet with you individually after I look at your first assignment –the portrait.
  • Lecture on Campus: "Is Lighter Better?" Skin-Tone Discrimination among Asian Americans

Date: Sept 28, Fri

Time: 3:30-5:00pm. Refreshments at 3:15pm. Informal dinner at 6:00PM at Elena Yee's home for further discussion and dialogue.

Location: Hieronymus Lounge

Co-sponsored by the History Department and Intercultural Programs

Lecture Description:

Every Asian American has heard words like these: "Don't go out in the sun, you'll get too dark." "Don't marry him, your kids will be too dark." Color and facial features are issues that powerfully shape understandings of beauty and acceptance in every Asian American community. Shiseido, Chanel, Christian Dior, Shu Uemura, Estee Lauder, philosophy, and other cosmetics manufacturers all market lines of skin lighteners under names like UV White and Whitening Essence. Such lines are targeted specifically at Asian markets, in Asia and in the United States. Based on participant observation in the cosmetics industry and on interviews in Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, Cambodian, Filipino, Thai, and South Asian American communities, Dr. Spickard offers an explanation and interpretation of this phenomenon and its implications for Asian American women."

  • Santa Barbara Museum of Art: Visit of the exhibit “Identities”, Opens November 3, 2007

Tentative day: Sunday, November

This exhibition of paintings, sculptures, drawings, prints, and photographs from the Museum's permanent collection of contemporary art from Asia, Europe, and the Americas and dating from 1980 to the present, explores the theme of identity as both a collective consciousness andindividual reflection. Featured artists use the visual arts to express personal feelings and cultural perceptions about racial, sexual, and cultural identity.

Short Essay 1, A Self-Portrait

Due September 5

In this initial assignment you need to explain who you are, and to reflect on the ways in which your portrait displays individual traits, as well as the cultural, religious, gender, and social characteristics that make you part of broader communities. As you think about who you are and what communities you belong to, you need to convey visually a sense of your calling as a student -3 pages.

Steps

  • Take a new picture of yourself or draw a current self-portrait (do not use an old picture except as part of a new collage). Think about how you want to present yourself (think about the selection of your outfit, the backdrop for the picture, the objects or people in the picture, etc.). This will take time –time to sit with the assignment, and time to craft a portrait that is true to who you are.
  • Write a 3 page commentary on your self-portrait:

How might this portrait reflect your identity? Be sure to reflect thoroughly on what is implied in the word “identity”. Explain the choices you made, and the ways in which they convey your sense of self, your culture (your place in time and space) and your calling as a student.

Bring your portrait along with a three-page explanation of your choices on September 5.

Resources

For creative ideas about self-portraits, check out:

For a helpful approach to identity, see the review of Amin Maalouf’s On Identity:

Short Essay 2, Liberal Arts

Due September 10

Given the points made your readings, what does it
mean for you to get a Christian Liberal Arts education?
(3 pages maximum)

Steps

  • Consider the readings assigned for today
  • “Reflection on the Right Use of School Studies with a View to the Love of God”, in Simone Weil, Waiting for God, (New York: Perennial Classics, 2001) 57-65
  • “Vocation and Education”, in Cornelius Plantinga, Engaging God’s World, (Grand Rapids, Eerdmans, 2002) 121-133
  • Westmont College, “What do We Want from our Graduates”
  • For each of the texts, provide a thesis statement (no more than three sentences explaining the author’s main point)
  • Be sure to consider closely how to define “Christian Liberal Arts” and to take into account the different authors’ arguments even if they are not convincing to you.

Short Essay 3, Christ and Nation

Due October 15

Characterize the relationship between your national
identity and your identity as a Christian. To what extent are
the two compatible or incompatible? -3 pages
Turn in, along with this paper, your notes on the first three questions (the paper needs to be typed, the notes do not).

Steps

Preliminary Reflection:

  • Consider the materials on reserve entitled “Democracy 2004” by photographer Richard Avedon. This should help you reflect on the following questions: What does being an American (or a German, or a Tunisian…) mean to you (from particular values and ideals, to attachment to particular symbols). What forces have shaped your national identity –i.e. how did you come to be an American? For instance, how is this identity connected to historical awareness? To the nation as a territory? To the nation as a political entity and actor? To a particular culture (please give specific elements of this culture –for instance food, dress…)? To where, when and in what social class you were born?
  • Consider Martha Nussbaum (see red handout given at the beginning of class) remarks on cultures and apply them to American culture: to what extent is your national identity function of your place in American society, both as a woman or a man, and as a member of a particular class (identify this class for your reader), or as part of a specific ethnic group? Can you think of other factors that influence your vision of American identity?
  • Read Michael Baxter’s and Susan Willis’ articles (Hauerwas, p. 361-383 or, in the new edition Hauerwas, p. 107-130) : in what ways can one national identity and commitment to Christ be in conflict? What elements of tension between the two can you apply to yourself?

Short Essay 4, Broken Faces

Due November 5

Write two five-lines poems: one about World War One, and one about the current conflict in Iraq. Explain why you included what you did in each poem (one page), and what you intended to communicate.
Turn in, along with this work, your notes on the following preliminary reflection. /

Steps

1. Read carefully the documents in your class reader, and take them into account in the writing process:

  • Joseph J. Fahey and Richard Armstrong, A Peace Reader, (New York: Paulist Press, 1992) 454-455
  • Ryan Ahlgrim, “Love your Enemies”,
  • Denise Levertov, “News Report, September 1991: U.S. BURIED IRAQI SOLDIERS ALIVE IN GULF WAR”
  • Principles of the Just War:

2. Be sure to consider the following questions: what theological presuppositions are at work in your poems? How does your experience of war (or lack thereof) impact your poem? What might be the challenges of writing as members of nation states (for instance, how would you pray for the Iraqi in attendance at the banquet?)?

3. Go to the following website and examine the pictures of “broken faces” ( Consider this site as an illustration of the following point (this is an adaptation of Adam Gopnick’s article on World War One, published in The New Yorker about a year ago):

It may be that no one can write military history without the language of euphemism. When we write of “hard fighting”, it requires a determined act to recall that what happened was not an entry on a tally sheet, but the violent death of a human being, loved and cared for by a mother and a father, and full of hope and possibility, torn apart by lead balls or shreds of sharp metal, his intestines hanging open, or his mouth coughing blood, in a last paroxysm of pain and fear. And then to recall that any justification for war has to be a justification for this reality…

History does not offer lessons; its unique constellations of contingencies never repeat. But [it] does offer the same points, over and over again. A lesson is many-edged; a point has only one, but that one sharp. And the point we might still take from the First World War is the old one that wars are always, in Lincoln perfectly chosen word, astounding. They produce results we can hardly imagine when they start. It is not that wars are always wrong. It is that wars are always wars, good for destroying things that must be destroyed, as in 1864 or 1944, but useless for doing anything more, and no good at all for doing cultural work: saving the national honor, proving that we are not a second-rate power, avenging old humiliations, demonstrating resolve, or any of the rest of the empty vocabulary of self-improvement through mutual slaughter.

Short Essay 5, Memory and Commemoration

Due November 12

What are be the goals and challenges of putting together an exhibit on one of your grand parents? More broadly, what might this teach us about the difficulty of speaking with honesty and grace of another person’s life? -3 pages.

Steps

  • Consider the readings (Hauerwas 349-359, “Groundzeroland”) and Mark Noll’s review of the “Enola Gay controversy” (in your reader). What are historical exhibits for?
  • Given the challenges encountered by curators of a historical museum, how would you put together an exhibit on one of your grandparents? How would you be both deeply honest and respectful, given the fact that we are all sinners? Think about artifacts you would include, the general thesis you would like to propose to your public, the difficulties you might encounter in speaking to all possible audiences, etc.

Short Essay 6, Global Citizens

Due December 5

Consider Michael T. Klare’s and Hauerwas 267-284, 391-401 & 425-433 (25-36, 137-147 & 181-193). Given the nature of the new “global schisms”, what can you, as an individual Christian citizen contribute, even in small ways, to building a more peaceful world? Consider how it impacts your calling as a students, and what you would add or change to the portrait you first composed for this class -3 pages.

Name of the Reviewer______

Author’s name______

Title of the work reviewed______

Writer: This rubric is designed to inform you, the writer, of the key elements constitutive of a “good” piece of written work.

Reviewer: Use the criteria below to assess the quality of your peer’s work. Be both honest and respectful.

This evaluation is designed to help your peer improve and write a solid final paper.

Comments: / Excellent / Competent / Not Acceptable
4 / 3 / 2 / 1 / 0
Presentation
1. The purpose and focus are clear and consistent.
2. The main claim is clear, significant, and challenging.
3. Organization is purposeful, effective, and appropriate.
4. Sentence form and word choice are varied and appropriate.
5. Punctuation, grammar, spelling, and mechanics are appropriate.
Content
6. Information and evidence are accurate, appropriate, and integrated effectively.
7. Claims and ideas are supported and elaborated.
8. Alternative perspectives are carefully considered and represented.
Thinking
9. Connections between and among ideas are made.
10. Analysis/synthesis/evaluation/interpretation are effective and consistent.
11. Independent thinking is evident.
12. Creativity/originality is evident.
Assignment Specific Criteria
13. Responds to all aspects of the assignment.
14. Documents evidence appropriately.
15. Considers the appropriate audience/implied reader.

Overall Evaluation

  • Excellent
  • Competent
  • Not Acceptable

Source