Program Assessment Report
PROGRAM INFORMATION
Date submitted: May 5, 2012
Degree Program(s):
Department:
BA History
History
Department Chair:
Patricia Evridge Hill
Phone:
(408) 924-5755
Report Prepared by:
Patricia Evridge Hill
Phone:
(408) 924-5755
AY 2014-2015
E-mail:
Patricia.Hill@sjsu.edu
Next Self-Study due :
Note: Schedule is posted at: http://www.sjsu.edu/ugs/programplanning/
ARCHIVAL INFORMATION
Location:
DMH 134
Person to Contact:
(Bldg/Room #)
Diana Baker
(Name)
Assessment schedule is posted at http://www.sjsu.edu/ugs/assessment
Please send any changes to the schedule or to student learning outcomes to Jackie Snell
jacqueline.snell@sjsu.edu
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(408) 924-5500
(Phone)
Program Assessment Report
3. Using literature and primary sources of the types listed above,*
students write history essays in western and non-western fields in
pre-modern and modern history according to the standards of
technique, citation, essay composition (writing process),
argument/interpretation, and use of evidence that are consistent with
college-level writing in the discipline.
*Government documents, Histories/Historical Accounts, Literature and Poetry, Images, Autobiographies,
Diaries, Letters, Newspapers, Maps, Quantitative Data, and Oral Interviews are the types of sources
listed in SLO #2 and referred to here.
Note: The history department assesses undergraduate learning through the three courses of its
core/skills sequence (Hist 99, Hist 100W, and Hist 102). These are the only courses that all SJSU history
majors must take. Each course in the sequence is significantly more challenging. As a result, what an
instructor in 100W sees as a student’s shortcomings when the semester begins likely represents real
learning on the part of that student the previous semester in Hist 99 (the 100W instructor rarely knows
where the student “began”). Instructors of these courses meet several times each year to discuss
assignments and ensure that each course in the sequence is appropriately targeted, but with the
exception of a year when three faculty members received Learning Productivity grants our workload has
prohibited systematic assessment of students’ progress on common assignments from the beginning of
the sequence through common assignments at the end of the sequence (our original plan). Recently,
we’ve moved away from common assignments altogether so that instructors can experiment with new
methods, exercises, and techniques. For the last three years—since we began assessing a single SLO
each year—instructors in each section of the core/skills classes prepared an assessment report specific
to that class. The department chair based this report on those analyses. Assessment results for each
course will be addressed separately below.
Initial Evidence of Student Learning and/or a Description of Course
Requirements:
[Prior to F11]
Hist 99—History Fundamentals (2 sections—Dr. Don)
Dr. Don explains that since students are quite novice writers at the sophomore/junior level, Hist 99 instructors
provide the primary sources and a few of the secondary sources for three essay projects. The primary goal is to
learn historical construction, that is, to teach students how to use evidence to support an original or at least
somewhat ambitious thesis in increasingly longer papers with progressively more detailed evidence. Thus, the first
paper is 4 pages, the second 8 pages and the third 12 pages. Students must use 4 primary/5 secondary sources for
the first project; 5 long primary and 8 secondary sources for the second project; 16 short primary and 11 secondary
sources for the last project. The second goal is to learn prewriting so that 80% of their writing is spent on the
prewriting phase and 20% on draft construction. Extensive research indicates that students who know a great deal
about prewriting and planning not only write more and complete writing efficiently in less time, but they are more
satisfied with their writing products. Thus, Dr. Don is training students to spend weeks on prewriting and 3-4 hours
on writing the draft. (Students are required to time themselves.) Students also learn a preliminary amount of
citation technique (bibliography, footnote, basic citation of book, journal article and website). Most of the detailed
citation technique is done in Hist 100W. Dr. Don’s description of her pre-test follows:
In order to delve into the two major writing goals, I surveyed the students at the beginning of the
year about their writing productivity and their writing process. Though I encourage the students to be
honest, they do generally inflate their experiences and abilities on these surveys. Often the students who
claim the most experience with the most complex writing projects either flunk the class or do rather poorly.
Also, I take a 2-3 page writing sample at the beginning of the year to compare with their final papers.
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Program Assessment Report
I had two sections of Hist 99 in Fall 2011. They were rather different. The day section had a half
dozen sophomores; the class on the whole generally younger and the retention much higher. The second
section was a night class with a cohort of one sophomore and the rest juniors and seniors; many of the
seniors were retaking the class. Students in both sections indicated that the average length of their longest
previous paper was 7.5 pages. I would estimate that this probably is inflated by about 20 percent. In
conversation, students indicated to me that a 5-6 page paper was usually the most they have produced in
high school or their first years of college. This seems to be about the 1500 word GE minimum.
In the younger section, students recognized that had not written a thesis/research paper. Their
estimations of the number of primary and secondary sources they had used in this paper were an average of
4.96. Rather interestingly, one student believed her paper was a research paper but she also noted that she
had one primary and one secondary source. The second and older cohort of students was not realistic about
their writing experience. About half the students claimed to have written a thesis/research paper; this was a
highly inflated estimation based on the average of 5.4 total primary and secondary sources for the paper. It
is evident that students have not received a very clear idea of the types of papers and what consists of
research.
Hist 100W—History Writers’ Workshop (2 sections—Drs. Hilde and Wilson)
In Dr. Hilde’s 100W course, the students wrote three papers of 5, 10 and 15 pages. The first paper is based on
primary sources provided for the students. They can choose to analyze political cartoons related to the Women’s
Suffrage debate in the early 20th century United States, or they use propaganda posters from WWII. While most
students choose to analyze American posters, they can sample a collection that includes documents from several
European powers. Students thus learn to analyze images for their first paper and they also have access to
supplemental materials including maps, newspaper articles, and government documents. The second assignment in
the course involves comparing two American slave narratives and writing a ten page analytical essay on some aspect
of American slavery. The students use the autobiography of Frederick Douglass and the memoir of Harriet Jacobs,
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. Finally, students choose a topic for a 15 page research paper, the final
assignment of the course.
In Dr. Wilson’s class, students wrote three papers averaging 8-12 pages for a total of 30 pages during the semester.
The first paper was on Gilgamesh, the second on Geoffrey of Monmouth, and the third paper on a historical subject
of their choosing. All of these papers were based on primary sources but needed secondary sources to help support
the student’s argument or to give the student something to refute.
Hist 102—Historiography (2 sections—Drs. Pickering and Vasquez)
Dr. Pickering notes that in recent years, student performance in Hist 102 has improved, thanks to the excellent work
done by professors in Hist 99 and Hist 100W in preparing students for this challenging course. In Hist 102, students
read the leading historians from the Greeks to the present. The course focuses on Western historians who entered
into a dialogue with one another and created a kind of historical tradition. The course examines at length why
historians from other parts of the world are not usually included in a one-semester course on historiography. It ends
with several sessions devoted to world history and global history to understand the weaknesses of a Eurocentric
world view.
Throughout the semester, students are required to read 150 to 200 pages of primary source material every
week. Students are quizzed on the readings every week, and they take a final exam at the end. The final exam asks
them to reflect on how historians’ works deal with questions of power, freedom, truth, and so forth. There are only
essays on the final. The quizzes are a mixture of objective-type questions and questions that require at least one
paragraph to answer properly. Typical questions include: Define historicism and presentism; who was more
interested in moral questions, the Greek or Roman historians?; how did Enlightenment historians attack religion?;
explain Marx’s intellectual debt to Hegel; how were early American historians affected by the Progressive
Movement in politics?; how does the Turner thesis reflect American imperialism?; and what is the postmodern
critique of historiography? According to Dr. Pickering, “These are challenging questions. Students generally whine
a great deal in the beginning about how they can’t handle the intellectual rigor of the course. By the end of the
semester, they are amazed by their progress and feel more confident about their intellectual abilities. They are proud
of their achievement in having completed the course. Frequently, they write me after they graduate to tell me that
the course changed their lives, helped them in difficult conversations with graduates from other universities, or aided
them in their graduate career.”
Dr. Pickering explains:
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Program Assessment Report
In addition to sixteen weeks of reading, students have to write a term paper with footnotes and a
bibliography. The paper is ten to fifteen pages in length. It involves an in-depth study of a historian, who
is also the subject of a twenty-minute oral presentation. Students learn about the individual’s life, historical
context, influences on his or her development, and the many diverse contributions that the historian made
to historiography. They must read at least two of the books that the historian has written. Again, these
books are treated as primary resources. Students must also do research in the library. Indeed, to make sure
that they do primary and secondary research, I make them bring their books to class and discuss them in the
oral presentation. I have noticed that this new requirement has raised the level of analysis. No one relies
solely on Wikipedia, as students did in the past.
Dr. Vasquez notes that Hist 102 is the “capstone course” of the History Department. “It deals with the evolution of
historiography since Antiquity. Emphasis is placed on three ancient historians – Herodotus, Thucydides, and
Tacitus; two Enlightenment historians – Edward Gibbon and Voltaire; and an impressive array of 19th- and 20thcentury historians – from Europe and the United States, dealing with Romanticism, Historicism, Marxism,
Progressivism, Annales School, Gender Historians, and post-modernists.” Students read an average of 100 to 120
pages per week. The reading is divided fairly evenly between primary sources (such as Charles A. Beard) and
secondary sources (journal articles critiquing Beard, in this case by Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. and Richard Hofstadter).
The students must answer short essay type questions regarding each of their reading assignments–both primary and
secondary sources–that are contained in a workbook prepared by the instructor and purchased at the time the
students purchase the four-volume reader at the beginning of the semester.
Although spot quizzes on individual historians are given from time to time, the knowledge and familiarity
of the students of the historians read and discussed is tested in a midterm exam and in the final examination. The
midterm exam is a short essay-type examination which consists of short answer questions and identifications of
noteworthy passages and commentary on the same. The final exam consists of two parts: a take home essay section
and an in-class objective exam. The essays are chosen from a list of essay questions which are comprehensive and
which allow the students to explore in-depth what they have learned in the course of the semester. Essay questions
which appeared in the 2011 fall semester final exam included: how do the selections from Fukuyama, Zinn, Lerner,
and Kerber embody changes in the way post-modernist historians view their craft?; Explain Arnaldo Momigliano’s
statement that “the Annales school was in the process of taking the place formerly occupied in Europe by the
German historical school as the nursery of historians”; compare and contrast the Annales and historicist approach to
the writing of history. Which, in your opinion, would feel most comfortable with the following quotation: “There is
no history without erudition; it is a social science which is indissolubly linked to the other social sciences; it knows
in advance that the truth it aims for is relative?”; How did Hofstadter define “consensus history?” What did he
regard as the “proper” relationship between the social sciences and history?; and compare and contrast Turner’s
article “The Significance of History” and Bloch’s The Historian’s Craft. How do the two historians deal with such
questions as methodology, causation, and evidence? Give specific examples/quotations when possible. [In a very
small class of only seven students there was one A, two A-‘s. one B+, one B, one C+, and one W.]
Change(s) to Curriculum or Pedagogy:
[F11]
Hist 99—History Fundamentals (2 sections—Dr. Don)
Dr. Don explains that her “analysis of the post-tests of students who completed the class showed about 20% in the
first section and 40% in the second section had a specific thesis, while 80% and 60% had vague, broad or nonexistent theses. (I would attribute the higher percentage in the second section to a higher rate of attrition in the
class.).” She continues:
Of the papers with a specific thesis, 50% in both sections used the evidence to effectively support the
thesis. Thus in these two sections, which began with 51 students and ended with 36 students with grades
(another 5 students took incompletes for not having quite completed the final paper) five students (or about
10%) were already fairly versed in historical construction; however, none of these five students had written
a paper longer than 7 pages nor used more than 10 sources to construct a paper.
In terms of writing process, about 90% of students estimated that they spent 20% of their time
prewriting and 80% draft writing. Twenty percent also seems to be an inflated figure. In my observations
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Program Assessment Report
of the first weeks of this class, only a few students in the sections recognized graphic organizers or
outlining as prewriting techniques and none were actually sure what to do in the techniques.
Of the 36 students who completed the sections of Hist 99, all completed the three writing projects
and also learned and used the prewriting techniques and evaluative systems I taught them, as well as the
basic citation techniques. In fact, the way the course is constructed they cannot in fact complete the writing
projects without turning in all components of prewriting and writing process I teach as well as basic
citation. However, 6 of these 36 students (about 15%) still struggle with analyzing the evidence and seeing
how it fits into a larger argument; thus, they are familiar with historical construction and know how to go
about making a historical construction but they need more experience. And I would say that about 20%
more students lack ease with English composition in terms of the construction of a fluid narrative in words.
Hist 100W—History Writers’ Workshop (2 sections—Drs. Hilde and Wilson)
According to Dr. Hilde, “the first paper is generally quite successful. In the past year, all students earned passing
grades and two-thirds earned grades higher than a B. On the first assignment, they do show a mastery of essay
technique, writing process, argument and interpretation and use of evidence. Citation is simple on the first two
assignments because the evidence is provided for them.” Dr. Hilde notes that the second assignment is far more
complex, and many students find it daunting. Students typically discuss religion, control, concepts of mental and
physical freedom, homelessness, or education. Dr. Hilde explains:
This assignment produces a far greater range of results and an average of two students per semester earn a
failing grade on this essay. Citation is not a problem, but some students struggle with argument and use of
evidence. Students find it a challenge to define a workable and nuanced thesis for a ten page paper, and
they also struggle to effectively integrate quotes and evidence from both sources.
The third essay is largely an independent project, so students meet individually with Dr. Hilde to refine their ideas
and then perform their own research. Because the students choose their own topics, they tend to enjoy writing this
essay. According to Dr. Hilde, “once they have completed the first two assignments, they are well prepared for this
final essay. By this point the students have a firm grasp of writing process, use of evidence, and college level
analytical thinking. The students who fail this assignment (one last semester and two the semester before), do so
because they do not leave enough time for research and do not therefore produce a 15 page final essay.”
Dr. Wilson notes that there were no A essays in her section during F11. However, there were several B essays with
a couple of B+s. The majority of the papers were Cs with a strong showing of high to mid Ds. Still, several
students showed improvement as the semester progressed. One student started the semester with a low D, the next
paper was a low C, and he ended the final paper with a high C. She explains:
The two difficulties students have are in the argument/interpretation and use of evidence portions of the
grading. The students who did not pass the class struggled with argument. They wanted to restate what the
primary and secondary sources stated without argument or interpretation. Also students who did not pass
the course struggled with signaling paraphrases and quotes and citing them properly. Another problem was
the students paraphrasing the original material in a biased manner.
Hist 102—Historiography (2 sections—Drs. Pickering and Vasquez)
According to Dr. Pickering, Hist 102 treats the writings of historians as primary sources because we ask how this
literature reflected the views of the historians and their contemporaries. “For example, students study the writings of
Ulrich Philips and W. E. B. Dubois to ascertain how African American historians, such as Dubois, countered the
prejudices of white historians, such as Philips. Reading the actual histories of these two historians is an eye-opening
experience for the students.” Throughout the semester, students gain a great understanding of how standards of
“truth” have changed and how the subject matter of typical history books switched from purely military, political,
and diplomatic issues, which involved only the elites, to topics in social history pertaining to the common people.
Also, students come to an understanding of how a wider range of people both in terms of gender and race became
academics and how this increased diversity affected the profession.
This past semester (fall 2011), Dr. Pickering added another unit: transnational history. She explains, “this
kind of history has recently become a hot topic in the historical profession. We had a vibrant discussion of the
differences between world history, global history, and transnational history on the last day of class.”
Dr. Vasquez explains in addition to reading quizzes, the midterm, and the final exam, all students are
required to make a twenty-to-twenty-five minute oral presentation on an historian of his/her choice, although they
are guided somewhat by a list of historians prepared by the instructor, which is divided into specific categories.
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Program Assessment Report
Students are instructed to aim at a balance between biographical information and the overall historiographical
contributions made by the historian of their choice. For this presentation, students are expected to have read at least
one major book-length work of the historian plus several journal articles or book chapters. This oral presentation is
followed by a twenty-page term paper, which is an extension of the oral presentation. The assignment calls for the
preparation of an intellectual biography of the subject historian. Students are expected to read at least three major
works by their historian plus several additional journal articles and/or book chapters. The paper should focus on
what contribution to historiography have their historians made? They should pay attention to such questions as:
What kind of history did he/she write? Who were the principal mentors of the historian in question. Does he/she
belong to any recognizable historiographical school? Has he/she established a historiographical school of his/her
own? If a festschrift has been written to honor their historian, the student is expected to have read the chapters
which are written in English.
Dr. Vasquez concludes:
Students who take this course and who successfully complete the requirements for the course will have
demonstrated amply their ability to use historical literature and primary sources of the types mentioned in
the Assessment Program of the History Department as well as their ability to write history essays in
western and non-western fields in pre-modern and modern history according to the standards of technique,
citation, essay composition, argument/interpretation, and use of evidence that are consistent with collegelevel writing in the discipline.
Evidence of Student Learning after Change or Changes Planned the Next
Time the Course is Offered.
[F11]
Hist 99—History Fundamentals (2 sections—Dr. Don)
Dr. Don notes that “students’ writing of sentences improved with the outlining technique. That is, when they see
the single ideas in the outline, they are able to compose complete sentences. However, the vocabulary, the
transitions and the phasing (and strangely the use of prepositions) of the students is very immature and they need a
good deal more experience with writing and probably even more with reading.”
In summary, 36 of the 51 who registered for Hist 99 (those who received a grade; or 70% of students) met
SLO #3. Another 5 students (or 10%) who have incompletes may yet meet the objective. The history of this class is
that about 1/3 of incompletes actually end up receiving a grade.
Hist 100W—History Writers’ Workshop (2 sections—Drs. Hilde and Wilson)
Dr. Hilde’s students are encouraged to use Special Collections and write a local history for the final essay, but they
can opt for a topic from any time period and any part of the world provided they can find ample primary sources and
define an effective historical question that leads to a sophisticated thesis. She notes:
While most students choose U.S. History topics, last semester I received two papers that fell within the
purview of Ancient History, so the assignment leads to a range of modern and pre-modern as well as
western and non-western history topics. They also use a wide range of sources including letters, diaries,
newspapers, images, poetry, art, and government documents. Last semester, I had topics ranging from the
Christian cooption of the pagan celebration of Easter based on early church records to the experiences of
Native American children in government boarding schools in the late 19 th century based on diaries,
memoirs and government records. I had a student who wrote a paper about shifting wartime ideology as
seen in Civil War songs and another who evaluated the early 20 th century American eugenics movement
using court cases. Several students used the local archives, including one who examined the records of
Congressman Norman Mineta regarding remuneration for Japanese internment.
Dr. Wilson plans to devote the first 3-5 hours of her next Hist 100W class to Citation and Paraphrasing. She
explains:
I also have a Paraphrasing/Summarizing Assignment that is worth 5% of the final grade. Another change. .
. is the first draft of the paper will be an extensive outline and not a rough draft with strict rules of not
organizing the paper in chronological order. I hope that this will help the student realize when they are
retelling and not interpreting the primary sources.
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Program Assessment Report
Hist 102—Historiography (2 sections—Drs. Pickering and Vasquez)
On the final paper in Dr. Pickering’s class, six undergrad students received an A- and one an A+. One student
received a B+. Four papers earned B-‘s. The rest of the students got C’s. The one student with the A+ had a superb
argument about the methodology used by Dorothy Ko, a professor at Barnard, to revise our understanding of
footbinding. The student focused on Ko’s use of material culture and provided much evidence from Ko’s writings
to sustain her thesis. There was not a single grammatical or spelling mistake in the entire paper. Footnotes and the
one-page bibliography were flawless. An A- paper on microhistory suffered from weak organization, a lack of
proofreading, and the absence of quotes from the primary source, Carlo Ginzburg’s Cheese and the Worms. A Bpaper on Thucydides was punished for having too much information on the historian’s life, a lack of attention to his
works, and a weak thesis. The paper was also three pages too short. A C+ paper on Augustine simply gave a series
of paragraphs on each of his works without tying them together with an argument. Also, there was little analysis. I
doubt the student read his works in any depth.
Dr. Pickering concludes, “Last semester, the Hist 102 class was the best I have taught in twenty-two years.
The students were truly engaged and interested in the material. The environment was positive and encouraging. By
the end, each student was contributing to class discussions, which became very lively. I was really impressed.
Indeed, I was sad that the course ended and the student dispersed. It was a superb group. I think all of us learned a
great deal from each other. We all deepened our love of history.”
Dr. Vasquez explains:
I taught this course after a six-year absence from the classroom. Fortunately, there were only seven
students in the class–two of them first year graduate students who had not studied historiography before
plus five graduating seniors. The term papers may be considered the capstone experience within the
capstone course. There was one A, one A-, two B’s, one B-, and one C-. The A paper, head-and-shoulders
above the other papers in the class, was written on Eric Foner (Columbia University American History
Professor) and contained a masterful analysis of Foner’s two most prominent works: Reconstruction:
America’s Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877 and The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American
Slavery. There were no spelling mistakes and the paper was almost free of grammatical errors. The
student also demonstrated a mastery of The Chicago Manual of Style used by historians. One of the B
papers was written about the work of a prominent British historian of the early years of the Raj–Christopher
Alan Bayly. The author, a graduate student from India, showed some weaknesses in her mastery of English
and almost a total ignorance of The Chicago Manual of Style. However, the work was cogent in its
argument and demonstrated enthusiasm and knowledge of the subject by the author. The C- paper was
written by another graduate student who dropped out of the course before the final. The paper he wrote
was entitled “George Duby in the Annals of History.” Although this student wrote well and his prose was
fluent, the substance of the paper was very weak. His use of primary sources was inadequate and spotty.
There was no mention of Duby’s break in French history with the old guard Annalistes and a quarter of a
century lapse is totally unaccounted for. This student demonstrated a total ignorance of The Chicago
Manual of Style.
Dr. Vasquez notes that the History Department’s capstone course “is certainly not everyone’s cup of tea.
However, most students end by appreciating the vast field of historiography and learning an incredible amount
during the course of the semester. Having taught this course over a period of almost forty years I think the one
constructive suggestion I would make is that it would be to everyone’s advantage to turn this one semester course
into a two semester course. This way there would be more time to discuss the historians covered and the students
could write more than one draft of their term paper.”
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