Week 12 (Nov. 15 – 21)

Table of contents

To-do and Weekly Schedule

Reminder

Did you submit your Sunday blog post?

Remember to book your Advising Appointment, I have made 20 min. appointment slots available. I need to approve your “Academic Plan” in Workday before you will be able to register, and before I do that, I’d like to chat with you about your courses and how they fit with your plan for the coming semesters.

Good to know

Transition to “remote” learning

For this course only (I hope!) you’ll return to online/remote learning, because I will be finally traveling back to see my family. I know many of you had a less than ideal experience with remote learning during your time in high school, and I want to make sure that this time round it’s actually useful, educational, and maybe even fun! Hey, you can attend class from your dorm room if your room mate is ok with that, and you don’t have to put a mask on.

We will definitely be on Zoom for two Tuesday sessions: Nov. 30, and Dec. 7, but in addition there will be asynchronous online assignments so you engage with course materials without having to sit for 75 mins staring at a screen. “Asynchronous” means you can complete tasks in your own time by a certain date, while still interacting with your peers. Commenting on each other’s posts with Hypothes.is is one example you’re already familiar with!

Overview

Timeline of assignments coming up still:

  • Nov. 21 (this week Sunday): first version of second essay, using the Starter Packs
  • Nov. 29 – Dec. 3: Third mandatory meeting with Brianna, with the first draft of the second essay.
  • Dec. 5: second version of second essay
  • Dec. 6 – 10: small “un-essay” project: a chance to demonstrate what you learned about tea, using a different creative format. Details to follow, due on Dec. 11
  • Dec. 12: Third and final reflection
  • Dec. 13 – 14: Third and final check in via Zoom, when we agree on the final grade for the course.

By Tuesday, 12:30PM

Prepare for class: Read the following and prepare:

  • Surak, Kristin. Making Tea, Making Japan : Cultural Nationalism in Practice. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 2013.
    • Selection pp. 79-87 from chapter 2: “Creating Tea: The National Transformation of a Cultural Practice”
    • Prepare for class using this google doc to look at the structure of the assigned section: how does the author build her argument by shaping the structure and paragraphs of the text? Bring your filled out worksheet to class.
  • Questions to ponder: What are the connections between this text and last week’s selection from Okakura? How does Surak’s explanation help you understand Okakura’s text in a different light?
  • If you have questions (e.g. historical background, obscure references), you can post them on the jamboard.

Pick a starter pack:

We’ll make time to give you a chance to brainstorm with others about the topic(s) of your choice, so make sure you have had a browse through the starter packs for the second essay. Find all the information you need, including links to the starter packs, on this webpage: https://fystea.tdh.bergbuilds.domains/f21-second-essay/

Pitch your idea in the Google Chat room by midnight – you can still adjust and change, but it gives you a direction.

By Thursday, 12:30PM

We’re shifting gears! You heard about the Boston Tea Party, and maybe you even think you know what happened there. But what does a professional historian make of all the tall tales of that infamous night? In this session, we unravel how America’s most famous encounter with tea went from history to myth in a matter of decades.

Prepare for class: Read or view

  • Young, Alfred F. The Shoemaker and the Tea Party: Memory and the American Revolution. History (booknotes). Boston, Mass.: Beacon Press, 1999.
    • Guiding questions: How did the author end up writing this book? What do you learn about the craft of the historian, and what can you apply to your own projects of research? And what do we learn about the value of memory, the way history is created, and how we read sources with a critical eye?
  • video: Boston Tea party (3’47”): TED animated video as introduction/refresher on the Boston Tea Party and the wider context.
    • view to refresh your memory on the basic story.
  • Optional background:
    • In Our Time podcast (45′): on the role of George Washington in the American Revolutions. If you need a refresher on the American revolution, this conversation between host Melvyn Bragg and three historians will get you up to speed.

Friday, 2 – 4 PM

Chanoyu session at Miller Forum, Moyer.

  • Bring pen(cil) and paper to take notes.
  • Refresh your memory on the history of Japanese tea we covered in Week 11, and this week
  • Watch the video on the tea ceremony if you haven’t done so yet. (30mins)

Sunday, 11:59PM

Essay 2: first version

Find all the details on the dedicated webpage

Basics: due by Sunday, as a Google Doc shared with Dr. D and Brianna for commenting.

Monday, 11:59PM

Peer feedback

Feedback on blogs returns! Many of you identified this as an area where you could grow more, and of course it is fun to see what everybody has been writing about! Remember to set the widget to the group teaglobalhistory, rather than “Public”!

REMEMBER: You can (should?) respond to questions on your blog, it’s polite to engage in conversation! That’s the reason there is a reply button in Hypothes.is.

This week posts for feedback are from the past couple of weeks, so there is some variety.

As usual: here you find links to four blog posts from your fellow students. If one of the websites is your own, or it is twice the same person’s, refresh the page, and you should get new sites.

  • Post 1: 
  • Post 2:
  • Post 3: 
  • Post 4: 

Leave feedback, questions, thoughts, insights about the contents of the posts of your fellow students using Hypothes.is group teaglobalhistory. You can ask for clarifications, point out similarities and differences with the material you covered, or with your interpretation. This should encourage you to return with different eyes to the original materials.

Use tags in Hypothes.is: question: If you have a question (obvious); answered: if you gave an answer to a question; info: if you provide more information, looking up additional facts, drawing on knowledge from other classes; and other tags you can think of. This will help us to navigate more quickly to the questions that still need answering.

Use the “Architect’s Model” of giving feedback, and engage with concrete issues. Go beyond “Yeah, I agree,” “I like” or “I think the same”, and instead explain why you have that reaction, or if you disagree, you can try to persuade the original poster of your idea or interpretation. Look through previous weeks’ posts for some good examples if you want to up your game!

Checklist

I commented on four fellow students’ posts, using the group teaglobalhistory in Hypothes.is.
I made sure to leave substantial comments that move the discussion forward and help to create better insights, and go beyond a “nice” or “great”. I was specific!
I left comments that I would like to receive myself: thoughtful, helpful, kind, but also pointing out errors so they can be fixed.

Looking ahead

Tuesday Nov. 23 will be replaced by an asynchronous session: you will work online but don’t have to be on campus or on zoom during our normal class time.

Slides

Where to get help