In the last week, I narrowed down my initial plan of the final project. I did not consider much the limited time of the course. After taking the fourth module of the course which is about image in primary sources, I have new ideas about my final project and I find I need to continue to narrow down the scope of the project. I consider making the project only about how to evaluate an image and by this practice, students can learn historical thinking. If so, the final assignment I give to the students should be scaled down to be image-related only. After learning the module 4 of the course, I think it might be better I arrange the case study after the theories and then the mini archives I set where students can do their own research. My current plan is mini archives first then case study.
If I set the final project to be the analysis of images, my research will be on the images and their related information such as the metadata and historical context. I have found the websites where I can find many primary sources of the women’s suffrage movement.There is a fabulous variety of primary sources. My next step is to select the images and information that can best train students’ historical thinking. I plan to select a few pairs of images only due to the limited time of the course and centering on these images build the mini archives where students can do research on everything related to these images such as historical context, metadata and the authors. It takes time to select appropriate images for students to practice historical thinking because I need to do a lot of research on the images. I will do this after my dissertation defense this Thursday.
A final project I wanted students to do was they have the freedom to choose a topic in the period of women’s suffrage and practice historical thinking. They can create poster of women’s suffrage or the one that is against it, they can write a letter in voice of a suffragist or anti-suffragist, they can write down a view point or reflection on one picture, event or person in the women’s suffrage, if they don’t write, they can present in a video lecturing on the topic, they can even create and act in a play. They can also examine a secondary source, why they agree or don’t agree with it. No matter what form they choose, they need show their interpretation and the historical evidence that supports it. I am hesitating of this assignment, wondering if I should give the students such freedom or I should narrow it to the interpretation of images. I will have an idea after deciding what images I will select and the scope of the mini archives I set up.
