San José State University
History 100W-02
History Writing Workshop
Thursday 6:00-8:45 p.m.
DMH 347
Libra Hilde
Office: DMH 215
Email: lhilde@email.sjsu.edu, or lhilde@stanford.edu
Telephone: (408) 924-5512
Office Hours: Tuesdays 3:00-4:00 p.m., Thursdays 3:00-5:00, or by appointment.
Course Description
The aim of this course is to help students learn to communicate well, a skill of utmost
importance to you as a history major. It is also the defining characteristic of a graduate of a good
university. Overseeing the educational quality of general education curriculum at San Jose State
University, the Board of General Studies (BOGS) has determined the goal of all 100W courses:
“Students should demonstrate proficiency in advance college level writing, including reading and
writing articles, essays and documents dealing with broad issues, and specific concepts in their
fields for both specialized and general audiences.” More specifically,
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“Express in writing complex ideas clearly and correctly.”
“Integrate reading comprehension and writing competence, using outstanding models
that deal with general and specific issues in the discipline.”
“Read and write analytically and imaginatively.”
“Organize and develop essays and documents for both professional and general
audiences.”
“Write extemporaneously in subjects in the discipline and related fields.”
Apply “editorial standards of the discipline when citing primary and secondary
source materials.”
“Organize, compose, revise and edit” drafts of essays.
Learning Objectives
In the spring of 2004, the department of history voted to designate History 100W as an entrylevel course which should be taken as soon as possible in the major and within the first 30 units
of history coursework. The department also required that students take History 99 before History
100W and History 102 (Historiography) in the last year in the department and not before the final
30 units of coursework. In addition, the department will not allow students to take History 100W
in the same semester with History 102 or History 100W after History 102. Moreover, the Board
of General Studies voted to require that all students taking upper division general education
courses in categories R, S, and V will be blocked from registration unless they have already taken
100W or are concurrently enrolled.
The new learning objectives of the Department of History, which pertain to the class are:
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1. “Students analyze critically the thesis and argument/interpretation of the following types
of historical literature or genres: narrative history, social/cultural history, and
political/diplomatic history.”
2. “Using modern bibliographic data storage sites and systems and traditional (print)
sources, students systematically collect and appraise the historical significance and uses
of evidence of various kinds of primary sources: government documents, literature and
poetry, autobiographies, diaries, letters, maps, oral interviews, histories/historical
accounts, images, newspapers, and quantitative data, to name a few.”
3 “Using historical literature and primary sources of the types listed above, students write
history essays according to the standards of technique, citation, essay composition
(writing process), argument/interpretation, and use of evidence, which are consistent with
college-level writing in the discipline.”
Before you leave this course, you will become a much improved writer in the history genres,
a better critical reader of both primary and secondary sources, as well as a more organized and
critical researcher.
Finally, in the last five weeks, you will learn how to find and use sources in the library to
write a social/cultural essay of local history. You will deeply analyze some aspect of California
history, using primary sources from the Special Collections of King Library. We will be working
with Danelle Moon of Special Collections to learn systematic collection techniques of history.
Please be advised that this course will take a good deal of your time. It may be the most
difficult course you take this semester and it may be the most difficult course that you have taken
to date. That is to be expected because it is one of the foundation courses for the discipline.
Historians produce historical interpretations about the past. In order to produce these
interpretations, we write. Writing is not easy, but it is the highest intellectual skill that a
professional can achieve in the humanities and social sciences. If you master the skill sufficiently
to meet the standards of others in your discipline and enhance the pleasure of readers, you join a
select club. The entry dues to this club are high, as they should be.
Required Texts
Appiah, ed., Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave & Incidents in the
Life of a Slave Girl (Harriet Jacobs), 2000.
Sourcebook, available at Maple Press or in pdf form.
Recommended Texts
Hacker, Diana Hacker, A Writer’s Reference (Boston: Bedford, 2003).
Kate Turabian, A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses and Dissertations (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1996).
Dropping and Adding
Students are responsible for understanding the policies and procedures about add/drop, grade
forgiveness, etc. Refer to the current semester’s Catalog Policies section at
http://info.sjsu.edu/static/catalog/policies.html. Add/drop deadlines can be found on the current
academic calendar web page located at
http://www.sjsu.edu/academic_programs/calendars/academic_calendar/. The Late Drop Policy is
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available at http://www.sjsu.edu/aars/policies/latedrops/policy/. Students should be aware of the
current deadlines and penalties for dropping classes.
Information about the latest changes and news is available at the Advising Hub at
http://www.sjsu.edu/advising/.
Course Requirements and Grading
Three Papers
300 points
First paper (5 pp./1,375 words)
50
Second paper (10pp./2,750 words)
100
Third paper (15pp./5,500 words)
150
In-Class Essay
50 points
Copyediting (25 points for each draft)
75 points
Other reading/writing assignments
100 points
(includes drafts, in class exercises, and small group meeting)
Presentation for the final essay
25 points
Participation (discussions/ small group work)
50 points
Total
600 points
The grading scale for this course will be:
97-100= A+
87-89= B+
77-79= C+
93-96= A
83-86= B
73-76= C
90-92= A80-82= BNote: Remember that in all 100W classes, instructors are prohibited from giving D’s or F’s as
final grades. Students must receive a C or higher to pass the course. Otherwise, they will get an
NC, meaning No Credit.
Essay Foundations
In the first few weeks of this class, you will have instruction in the analysis of different
types of primary sources and the history writing process (major thesis-minor thesis, outlining,
topic sentence construction, transitioning, evidence placement, and summarizing), as well as
history citation technique. You will be required to complete a short paper based on the sources in
the reader (available at Maple Press), and will also write an essay in class based on a prompt.
The in-class essay tests your extemporaneous ability to use writing process with facility.
History and the History Genres
In the first five weeks of the semester you will be introduced to an array of primary
sources (letters, diaries, legal and political documents, images, and more) from which you could
write various genres of history. You will learn how to analyze sources and construct an
argumentative essay. You will write an essay based on the sources you find most compelling.
The following four weeks, you will be working with the same types of reading/writing exercises,
and writing an essay using primary sources on American Slavery (this essay could be an
intellectual, social, or political history). The last five weeks, you will be researching and
completing reading/writing exercises in social/cultural history for an individual research essay.
Your topic would be ideally California history (or some other topic with the permission of the
instructor), using archival evidence from the Special Collections of SJSU at King Library.
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Copyediting
In this class, you will learn the fine art of copyediting. On appointed days, you should
come to class with two clean and complete draft of the assigned essay (one for a peer to edit, and
one for your instructor). If you arrive with a partial draft, your copy-editing grade will suffer as a
consequence. Your fellow students will copyedit your draft in class, and you will do the same for
theirs. You will take the draft home, revise it, and return the next week with the final product
ready for grading.
You will have three sessions to copyedit your fellow students’ assignments, and you will
be graded on the copyediting that you do. Why? The only way to learn how to improve your
writing is by learning how to rephrase, reorganize, correct, and critique your own and others’
writing. When you are able to do this on someone else’s papers, you will do this automatically on
your paper. You will learn to craft the paper, instead of just dumping off an unfinished piece of
writing on your professors’ desks. I will grade your copyediting of fellow students’ work for
completeness, exactness, and helpfulness to a potential point total of 25 per paper.
Presentations:
At the end of the course, each student will give a 5-8 minute oral presentation on their
research paper. You will be expected to stand up in front of the class and deliver a statement that
should include a description of your topic, how you discovered the topic, the evolution of your
research and sources, your thesis/argument, and findings. You should prepare your remarks but
avoid reading from a paper. Visual aids are not required, but encouraged. Expect to answer a
couple of questions from the audience.
University Policies
Academic integrity
Your commitment as a student to learning is evidenced by your enrollment at San Jose State
University. The University’s Academic Integrity policy, located at
http://www.sjsu.edu/senate/S07-2.htm, requires you to be honest in all your academic course
work. Faculty members are required to report all infractions to the office of Student Conduct and
Ethical Development. The Student Conduct and Ethical Development website is available at
http://www.sa.sjsu.edu/judicial_affairs/index.html.
Instances of academic dishonesty will not be tolerated. Cheating on exams or plagiarism
(presenting the work of another as your own, or the use of another person’s ideas without giving
proper credit) will result in a failing grade and sanctions by the University. For this class, all
assignments are to be completed by the individual student unless otherwise specified. If you
would like to include your assignment or any material you have submitted, or plan to submit for
another class, please note that SJSU’s Academic Policy S07-2 requires approval of instructors.
Campus Policy in Compliance with the American Disabilities Act
If you need course adaptations or accommodations because of a disability, or if you need to make
special arrangements in case the building must be evacuated, please make an appointment with
me as soon as possible, or see me during office hours. Presidential Directive 97-03 requires that
students with disabilities requesting accommodations must register with the Disability Resource
Center (DRC) at http://www.drc.sjsu.edu/ to establish a record of their disability.
University Resources
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The Writing Center in Clark Hall 126 offers tutoring services to San Jose State students in all
courses. Writing Specialists assist in all areas of the writing process, including grammar,
organization, paragraph development, coherence, syntax, and documentation styles. For more
information, visit the Writing Center website at http://www.sjsu.edu/writingcenter or call 9242308.
Course Parameters
This course will be run as a seminar. Therefore, you will be expected to read the course
assignments on time and participate actively in class discussion. You will also be required to
attend the tours of the library. Because participation in such activities will count heavily in the
final grade, poor class attendance will count against you. Students should practice classroom
etiquette. You should arrive on time, leave at the end of class and engage completely in the class
discussion.
The university requires that each student write at least 8000 words during the semester. I
estimate that the total written product for the class is about 8500 words. All papers are to be
typewritten, except the in-class essay. A late paper will be marked down a third of a grade per
day. (You will still be responsible for turning in a paper that is marked down 100%). You cannot
pass this class if you fail to hand in one or more of the papers.
I do not drop students from my roll in the first week of class. If you are enrolled in the
class and choose to drop, please make sure that you take care of the computer drop. In order to
receive an incomplete in this class, university policy dictates that you must have completed 65%
of the coursework and have a compelling reason, such as personal injury or family emergency,
which prevented you from completing the requirements of the class. Students who have a
disability and who are registered with the Disability Resource Center should see me early in the
semester so that I can make the adjustments necessary for you to succeed in this class.
I am on campus on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Please make an appointment with me if my
office hours do not work well for you. In addition, please see me with any concerns or questions
you may have about your progress in the class or about particular assignments. I enjoy talking to
students, and encourage you to come to office hours even if you do not have a specific question.
Class Schedule
Week 1
August 26
Week 2
September 2
Week 3
September 9
Introduction to the Course
Predatory Reading and Quick Diagnostic Writing Sample
In Class: textual analysis, types of sources, and historical genres, asking
questions of sources.
Read Sources (Women’s Suffrage Reader and WWII Posters)
In Class: Defining an argument, Thesis (Major and Minor), writing an
introductory paragraph. Discussion of sources.
In Class: Topic Sentences, paragraphs, gathering and integrating
evidence
Due: Introduction and two pages of First Paper
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Week 4
September 16
Week 5
September 23
Week 6
September 30
Week 7
October 7
Week 8
October 14
Week 9
October 21
Week 10
October 28
Week 11
November 4
Week 12
November 11
Week 13
November 18
Homework: Read Jacobs
Due: Full Draft of First Paper
In Class: Copy-editing, Revision exercises/Discussion of Jacobs
Homework: Read Douglass
In Class: Discussion of Douglass and Jacobs
Choosing a topic, Defining an Argument, Gathering Evidence
Due: Final Draft of First Paper (5 pp)
Due: thesis statement for Second Paper
In Class: In Class-Essay; Topic Sentences, Integrating evidence,
transitions
Due: Five pages of Second Paper
In Class: Group work on papers, writing a conclusion
Library: Research workshop with Danelle Moon in Special Collections
Due: Full Draft of Second Paper
In Class: Copy Editing
Discussion of research paper topics
Due: Final Draft of Second Paper (10 pp)
In Class: discuss progress on research (primary and secondary), defining
an argument
Due: Introductory paragraph (with thesis statement), and outline.
Scheduled small group appointments (1 hour) with
professor. Students need to bring introduction, four
pages, and at least two primary sources. Be prepared to defend argument
in group.
Holiday, No Class
Scheduled small group appointments (1 hour) with
professor. Students need to bring introduction, four
pages, and at least two primary sources. Be prepared to defend argument
in group.
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Week 14
November 25
Week 15
December 2
Week 16
December 9
Holiday: No Class
Due: Full Draft of SJSU Paper
Copyediting of Clean Draft of Final Paper.
Presentations of SJSU essays/Wrap Up
Final Papers due Tuesday December 14 (15 pp)
There is no final exam for this course
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