In the past, you may have had history classes that required you to memorize a lot of content. You might have studied names, dates, and events and tried to remember them.

Historians do not do this, at least not as a memorization exercise. They are familiar with many events of the past, but are just as concerned about their causes and effects. Perhaps you had a good history teacher, one who was just as concerned that you knew the "why" of history, why things occurred and what effect they had. Perhaps you got to do some interpretation, exploring events and developing your own point of view. If you wrote a history paper, maybe you had to prove a particular thesis about a historical event.

In this class, we will go beyond both the factual and the interpretive. Historians see the large patterns of history. The things you were forced to memorize, the facts, are just the evidence. Developing larger concepts that show historical trends is the point of this course.

Facts: Definition

At first, because we are starting out, there will be a lot of facts. These facts are presented in your textbook (often with some author's interpretation), your documents, and the lectures. They are the focus of the assignments, which you are supposed to do on your own.

Knowing the facts of any subject is what I call "C-level" learning, because that's the grade it earns if done properly. For writing an English paper, the facts may be the evidence you've collected to support your points. In science, it may be the data you've collected. In language, it's the basic vocabulary. In law, it's the collection of evidence.

So, if your English paper follows the rules of spelling and grammar and construction, but only talks about the facts, it will get a C. Your collection of science data, if it isn't applied to any experiment or hypothesis, or you have nothing to say about the data, will get you a C. If someone memorized the entire dictionary, but had no idea how to put words together into concepts that have any meaning, it would be C-level knowledge.

In each case, the facts are the building blocks, not the final result. But it's important to get our facts straight. The first quizzes will thus focus on the historical facts, to make sure you understand what you're reading and hearing. You can earn an A on these quizzes for knowing your facts.

Interpretation: Significance

After a couple of weeks, you'll notice that the assignments ask you to note the significance of these facts: why are they important to understanding that particular era? If you are doing the assignments, you should be writing the significance of the terms, and you should notice that the document questions are becoming more interpretive.

Being able to interpret facts in any subject is "B-level" learning. For an English paper, this might be the development of a thesis you've come to after looking at the evidence. In science, it's the recording of trends in the data in a particular area, or the formulation of the parameters of an experiment. In languages, it's being able to construct sentences on one subject. In law, it's the development of a theory about what happened. While more sophisticated than just dealing with facts, the interpretations remain in a small focus, within a specific unit of study.

The next few quizzes will focus on interpretation, or why things are important to the particular era we're studying. You can earn an A on these quizzes for being able to choose and construct solid, supportable interpretations about one or two eras.

Themes: Analysis

Then we will move on to what historians actually do. When given a term in an assignment, you are asked to consider it only as an example of a larger theme. To construct a theme, you will have to know a great deal about the material for the whole course, and be able to choose examples from several different eras to support your theme.

Because it requires analysis of a broad range of facts and interpretations, constructing and proving themes is "A-level" work. For an English paper, it's the refining and proving of a thesis statement. In science, it is the refining and proving of a hypothesis. In language, it's called fluency. In law, it's the proving of a case in court.

The last quizzes and the final exam will ask you to create and prove themes. To earn an A will mean you have to be able to create themes and prove them. Your final grade is, to a certain extent, based on the level you've reached throughout the course.

A fact might be that he was president of the U.S. during the Depression and World War II. A possible interpretation might be that his New Deal program helped Americans feel better during hard times.

But to do a theme, FDR becomes only an example. Perhaps he's an example of political leaders. Perhaps political leaders who gave their people hope during hard times. Our theme could be, "political leaders who give their people hope during hard times". We would then need to support this theme with other examples of leaders from other eras who did this also.

It's like writing an English paper where our thesis statement is: "Some political leaders give their people hope during hard times." You would find, perhaps, three examples that support this. Only one of your examples would be Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

The Path to Themes

Themes are hard. They are asking you not just to remember what you've learned, but also to apply what you've learned. We won't do many of them until the last weeks of the course, but I do NOT want them to come as a surprise.

How do you learn to do themes? First, go to my Home Page and view the Tutorial. This takes a single term and shows you how to develop a definition (fact), and interpretation (significance) and a theme (analysis). There will be opportunities to practice in Discussion also, and I am always here to answer your questions. The samples from the Tutorial are even written out for you on the Help page.

I have had students ask why I leave themes for the last few weeks of the class. Some students feel I'm "springing" an idea on them all of a sudden, even though I've gone out of my way to provide plenty of background and guidance into themes.

But it's hard to conceive of themes this early in the course. I will use Discussion to try to lead us into themes gradually. My advice to you is to do the assignments, even though you don't turn them in. Make sure you're carefully reading the introductions I've posted in discussion, and are answering the issues I've posted instead of just writing about what you think of the readings.

Be aware that we are on a path, not just week after week of reading and testing. Every lecture, every document question, every assignment has been carefully constructed to lead you from facts to significance to themes. I grade your work through tightly constructed quizzes that should take your concentration and require much studying, but not memorization.

The students who do well in this course do their work consistently and ask questions. They do NOT tend to be the students who've had a college history class before, who love history, who watch the History Channel, or who have done well in classes requiring a lot of memorization. You don't have to be smart, or "good at history". But you DO have to do your work consistently without me telling you to do it, keep up with your reading and (more importantly) with your thinking, take this course seriously, and study for the quizzes even though they are all open-book. Students who do well realize that near the end of the course, they'll have an opportunity and responsibility to put it all together into a cohesive whole.

If you learn well in this class, regardless of your grade, the skills you learn doing themes will help you in every class you take in college, and far beyond. I promise.