Julie Schmidt
625 10th Ave SE
Minneapolis MN 55414
schm0502@umn.edu
résumé
Classroom experience, diversity experience, and other experiences related to my teaching field reflecting
approximately 797 hours of teaching experience, 300 hours of diversity experience, and 320 hours of
experience related to my teaching field.
September – December 2004
Classroom Observation
Two days/week to total 100 hours
St. Paul Central High School
275 North Lexington Pky
Saint Paul, MN 55104
Ethan Cherin, Social Studies
room 465
ethan.cherin@spps.org
651-632-6000 x4650
I completed the 100 hours of observation in Mr. Cherin’s Social Studies classroom. The Fall
2004 courses he taught were IB SL Economics, IB HL Economics, 9 regular Civics, and IB/Quest Political
Philosophy. I observed 25 days of all these classes (except HL Economics) and I participated most
actively in in the 9th grade Civics course which was composed of approximately 20 African American
students, 17 Asian students (many of whom were recent immigrants), two American Indian students, and
one Caucasian student.
One of their weekly assignments was to write a journal on a newspaper article. The journal had
to include a citation for the article, definitions for any unknown or difficult words, the main subject, a
summary of the article, and a reaction to the article. I was given the job of correcting these assignments
since Mr. Cherin felt he would not have enough time to write instructive and encouraging notes on their
work. Over the course of the semester I spent approximately five to ten minutes reading and writing
coments for each assignment turned in. With the support of Mr. Cherin also I refined the requirements for
the assignment and gave two short lectures explaining the importance of the assignment, and the
mechanics of meeting the requirements for each journal.
There were three main objectives in my comments to and handouts for the students. One was to
help them identify the main point from important related points mentioned in the article by asking teaching
them questions to ask themselves as they read, such as “how many paragraphs is this mentioned in”
when analyzing the importance of a topic. Second, to teach and reinforce the mnemonic “who,
what,where,when,why, and how” as a tool to help them write a complete summary of the article, and as a
benchmark with which to analyze the thoroughness of the jornalist. I also focused on helping them
strengthen their analytical skills by teaching them other questions to ask about the article such as “how
does the journalist want you to feel about the main subject, does he give enough information and
evidence to convince you, and what other information should have been included?”. Since students were
required to write about both how the article made them feel and about what it made them think in their
analysis. Sets of articles were given to the students to help them distinguish between thoughts and
feelings about an article, and to help them realize that the way an article invokes their emotions makes an
impact on what they think about the article. While these students still struggled because of holes in their
previous education, there was general improvement and understanding shown in the work of the
students. I was delighted when several students later mentioned how they actually grew to enjoy the
assignment.
One additional activity I participated in with the class was to present a lecture on bus safety for a
required test they had to take for the school district.
Summer 2002 and Summer 2003
Fencing Instructor
4 classes 2002, 6 classes 2003, each 4 hours/day for 5 days, to total 200 hours
scheduled for 5 classes August 2005 to total 100 hours.
University of Minnesota
University Youth Programs
104 St. Paul Gymnasium
1536 North Cleveland Avenue
St. Paul, MN 55108-1004
Todd Tratz
Associate Program Director
612-625-2242 x3
tratz001@umn.edu
For the last two summers, and scheduled again for August 2005, I have worked with the
University Youth Programs as their fencing instructor. It has been an opportunity allowing me to combine
my love of teaching with my love of fencing, which I have been practicing since 1994, competing since
2000, and had the honor of serving as president of the University of Minnesota’s Fencing Club from April
2001 to April 2002. The kids in the program range in age from 9 to 15, are primarily (but not entirely)
middle-class, and come from a diverse range of cultural backgrounds.
Each class meets 4 hours a day for a week. During that time the kids learn a great deal through
a variety of activities. On the first day we first get to know each other, I give a brief lesson on the history of
fencing, and the kinds of fencing practiced today (foil, epée, and saber), explain how the class will
progress, the rules, consequences, and ask the class if they agree everything I’ve presented is fair.
Then, as every other day in the class, the kids play a running game to warm up, we get water and stretch,
practice footwork, then fun drills to practice footwork in combination with either distance or timing, more
water then we work on bladework, one or two more drills practicing their skills, then free-fencing time. On
the first day we work on the basics, like form. On the second and third day we work on foil bladework and
strategy. On days four we begin to work with epee blades, and more advanced footwork, with more free
fencing time. Finally, on day five, we more on to saber bladework, review the differences between the
weapons, learn some advanced footwork, and they are given extra free-fencing time to practice
everything they have learned throughout the week. At the end of class I do a brief review, and hand out
certificates for participation, along with a handout listing all of the resources available to them to continu
practicing and learning about fencing.
Summer 2002
Research Assistant
120 hours
University of Minnesota
Department of History
614 Social Sciences
267 19th Ave. South
Minneapolis, MN 55455
(612) 624-2800
Kathryn L Reyerson
Professor
531 Soc Sci
612-624-8569
reyer001@umn.edu
During the summer of 2002 I also worked for Professor Kathryn Reyerson as a research
assistant. In this position my job was to build a website for her Medieval Cities course. Although this
position did not involve working directly with students, it gave me the opportunity to critically think about
how to best design a page to serve as the best resource possible for both the instructor, as a visual
media resource in class, and for the students as a guide for their studies outside of class.
http://www.cla.umn.edu/courses/hist3611/
Spring Semester 2002
Undergraduate Research Opportunities Grant
200 hours
University of Minnesota
Department of History
614 Social Sciences
267 19th Ave. South
Minneapolis, MN 55455
(612) 624-2800
Bernard S. Bachrach
Professor
680 Soc Sci
612-624-3301
bachr001@umn.edu
During Spring Semester 2002 I won a Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program grant to
work with Dr. Bernard Bachrach on his Angevin Database Project. Though this grant I was able to gain
valuable research experience in my field, medieval History, and to further enhance my research and
analysis skills. My duties included reading, comparing, and archiving eleventh and twelfth century Latin
documents recording benefices made to French monasteries. The goal of my work was to find and
analyze records of gifts made in by or in the name of women to provide information about the resources
they controlled. This research contributed to research I began in my graduate seminar on medieval
women.
In particular, I was interested in investigating the relationships between Eleanor of Aquitaine, best
known for her marriage to Henry II of England, and her daughters. The relationships between her and
her sons are the subject of much scholarship, but the relationships she may or may not have had with her
daughters, particularly the two she bore her first husband Louis VII, are subject to a great degree of
speculation. Several methods have been employed to further examine, for example, the amount of time
Eleanor may have spent with her daughters, and if, after their divorce, she ever saw the two she bore
Louis. I felt that the motivations that Eleanor may or may not have had to cultivate relationships with her
children, as a woman of the nobility, had not been sufficiently examined to justify drawing conclusions
based on arbitrary evidence. It is true that opportunities for Eleanor to spend time with her daughters
existed, but we do not know whether she took advantage of those opportunites, or if she did - why. This
directed my research. Historical scholars agree that Eleanor of Aquitaine, if not craved, knew how to
wield power. Eleanor’s drive to maintain Plantagenet hegemony in England and France was an important
factor in her relationships with her sons. Since noblewomen, most notably in the fourteenth century, were
used as brokers of power between noble families, I wanted to examine noblewomen’s places as agents of
power in the twelfth century and to examine how this may have played a role in Eleanor’s life. In
fourteenth century cases it has been convincingly argued that noble mothers trained their daughters to
cultivate, bear, and wield influence to serve the family’s interests. I wanted to find if the argument could
be extended, in any part, to the twelfth century case. If evidence showing that daughters became
responsible for the same things (such as benefices made to the church) and handled power in the same
way as their mothers, historians could begin to examine whether or not we should expect that Eleanor
wished to, or tried to use her daughters in a similar way as the fourteenth century nobles and the way she
used her own sons to solidify familial power. If this is the case, it is not because of disinterest, as many
scholars have assumed, but because of other forces that Eleanor did not have or was prevented from
having a more active part in her daughters’ lives.
During the period of my grant I was able to collect enough records to indicate that women did
frequently have control over the allocation of benefices, such as land, and that daughters frequently gave
similar benefices to the same institutions as their mothers had. While this does not indicate that the
relationship between mother and daughter was as focused on developing the ability to wield and
influence power in the twelfth century as in the fourteenth, it does indicate that there was ample culturally
available opportunity for Eleanor to interact with her daughters in a way which we know she was
motivated. It seems unlikely that Eleanor would have dismissed the opportunity, given the way she
cultivated and used her sons to consolidate power. This suggests that her husbands used prevailing
cultural trends to use their daughters as pawns, if not purposefully, effectively keeping Eleanor from using
her daughters as her own agents of power.
Fall Quarter 1997 and Winter Quarter 1998
Teaching Assistant
4 classes, 10 hours per week for 10 weeks to total 400 Hours
University of Minnesota
Department of Physics and Astronomy
116 Church Street S.E.
University of Minnesota
Minneapolis
Minnesota 55455
John Dickey, Professor (on leave 04-05)
john@astro.umn.edu
September 1995 – June 1998
Outreach Volunteer
1 event per month, 3 hours per event to total 81 hours over 27 months
University of Minnesota
Department of Physics and Astronomy
116 Church Street S.E.
University of Minnesota
Minneapolis
Minnesota 55455
Heller, Kenneth
Professor, Associate Head (Physics)
Room 260A
624-7314
heller@physics.umn.edu
May and June, 1993 and 1994
Outreach Volunteer
Approximately 8 classroom visits at 2 hours each to total 16 hours.
St. Paul Central High School
275 North Lexington Pky
Saint Paul, MN 55104
Naomi Baer, Mathematics (1994)
Room 567
651-632-6000 x5670
naomi.baer@spps.org
John Wolters, Chemistry (1993)
deceased