Dr. Donald S. Frazier (dfrazier@mcm.edu)
Office 203 Old Main
793-3862

Required Text: Albert L. Hurtado and Peter Iverson, eds. Major Problems in American Indian History, Second Edition. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2001.

Class Format: Lecture, discussion, outside research and analysis.

Course Content: A study of the indigenous peoples of North America from ancient times to the present with an emphasis on those nations occupying lands now within the boundaries of the United States. This course will pay special attention to social and cultural history including discussions of resistance, adaptation, and persistence.

Grading: Your final grade in the course will be determined as follows:
Take Home Exam I (15%)
Take Home Exam II (15%)
Book Dissection I (15%)
Book Dissection II (15%)
Final Exam (30%)
Movie Analysis (10%)

The following grading scale will be observed:
A: 93-100; A-: 90-92;
B+: 88-89; B=83-87; B-=80-82;
C+: 78-79; C: 73-77; C-:70-72;
D+: 68-69; D: 63-67; D-: 60-62;
F: less than 60.

Attendance Policy:

Attendance is Mandatory. Only official University absences are recognized as excused. Unexcused students missing tests can not take a make-up. IT IS THE STUDENT'S RESPONSIBILITY TO KEEP TRACK OF ALL DOCUMENTATION OF EXCUSED ABSENCES AND TO BE ABLE TO PRODUCE THEM FOR THE INSTRUCTOR UPON REQUEST.

A reminder:
• If you are sick, a doctor's note is required
• If there is a death in the family, an obit is required
• If there are other circumstances, a note in writing is required
• Makeup exams will not be administered except under the above conditions

Plagiarism and Academic Honesty:
Plagiarism will not be tolerated in this class. Students must turn in their own work and if ANY evidence of plagiarism exists, the student will receive a "0" on the assignment, and may be asked to withdraw from the class (at the instructor's discretion). Plagiarism is defined as either writing the words on another author (whether a fellow student or a published author) as one's own, OR using the ideas of another author without giving the proper credit (citing your source). If you have any doubts or questions, come see me.

Take Home Essays
Students will draw questions from a pool provided by the professor two weeks before the assignment is due. They will then write a paper of appropriate length (between 5 and 10 pages) in which they expound upon the topic at hand. Using their text, and four other sources, students will use proper citations to footnote their essays. Analysis and proper use of sources is critical.

Movie Analysis
During the course of this class, students will be asked to view three movies as listed on the syllabus. They will choose two and write a brief analysis of the work (2 pages) describing the work, its depiction of native peoples, and its reflection of the historical events and contexts it attempts to portray.

Book Dissection Exercise
Based on a similar project designed by Prof. Greg Monahan, Eastern Oregon University

INTRODUCTION AND OBJECTIVES

Chemists and Biologists perform much of their research in laboratories. The library is the historian's laboratory, and books are often the tools of our research. Part of succeeding in a history course is learning how historians work. The single most basic skill for any historian is to know how to read a historical monograph critically and thoroughly. That means knowing the parts of a book, grasping the arguments of its author, and understanding other historians' criticisms and analyses of that book.

It also means that historians must be able to explain to others efficiently where they found the information or interpretations they use in their own work. Since historians are entrusted with the past, they carry a lot of responsibility for getting it right. They must check their sources for bias, confirm their information from as many sources as possible, try as hard as they can to be objective in their own work, and make sure someone else has checked their work before they publish it. This exercise is designed to help students develop some of those skills. Everyone is an historian to some extent. It's important to be a good one.

The Book

1) You will need to find a scholarly monograph in the library in one of the following general areas on a topic in American Indian history. One book will deal with issues east of the Mississipi River, and the other from West of the Mississippi River.

2) You will also need to go to the library and locate one scholarly review of that book before you begin reading it. Your review must be complete, and it must be at least three paragraphs in length. You will make a photocopy of the review for your use. Good sources for reviews of books are The American Historical Review, The Journal of Southern History, The Historian, The New York Times Book Review, and The New York Review of Books. Most of the journals in which you can find reviews of your book are indexed in the Book Review Index and the Index to Book Reviews in the Humanities.

Abstracts of reviews can be found in Book Review Digest, but these alone will not satisfy the requirement. In addition, you may not take a review from Choice. If you find an abstract that looks interesting, order the entire review on interlibrary loan!  In addition, most journals such as the American Historical Review are indexed each year in the last issue that appears that year.

3) Bring the book and the copy of the review to the instructor for approval.

THE EXERCISE

The exercise is divided into three parts: 1) Citation and Acknowledgment, 2) Arguments, and 3) Critique. Each of the three sections is defined and described below. You will receive a separate letter grade for each section. Since, however, the second section will be longer and more involved than the other two, it will be worth as much as the other two put together. There will also be a separate writing grade that will evaluate grammar and spelling. All these grades will be combined to create a grade for the assignment as a whole.

PART ONE: CITATION AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This portion of the assignment allows you to describe certain physical parts of the book and cite it properly. Answer the following questions and perform the following:

1. Type out a bibliographical citation (not a footnote or endnote citation) for your book using the form outlined on the History Department's style sheet on the web at http://www.mcm.edu/academic/depts/history/style.htm. The form must be precisely correct (note the proper bibliographic citation form at the top of this syllabus).

2. What is the International Standard Book Number of your book? If it does not have one, what is its L.C. number?

3. Does it have an index? Is the index slightly or extensively cross-referenced or is it not cross-referenced at all? (If you do not know what cross-referencing is, do some research and find out!)

4. How is the bibliography of the book organized? Is it annotated?

5. Approximately what percentage of the sources the author cites in his or her notes are primary? What percentage are secondary? Did the author consult archives or depend entirely on printed works he or she could find in a library?

6. Who read all or part of the book prior to its publication to check it for mistakes? What organization if any supported the author with money to do the research and/or writing of the book?

PART TWO: ARGUMENTS

This part is the most involved. It requires a thorough reading of the book. It demands that you comprehend the author's "arguments." Historians use that word to mean the author's interpretation, the case that he/she is making about the subject.

When historians confront evidence, whether it's a large number of printed sources or archival records, they must try to make sense of those sources. The "sense" they make is their interpretation. The purpose of their monographs is to present their evidence and "argue" their interpretation of that evidence. Your purpose in this section is to summarize the author's arguments and indicate some of the evidence used to support those interpretations. Write three sentences--and only three--on each chapter of the book. Begin all of your sentences as follows:

1. For the first sentence on each chapter, begin with the words, "The main subject of this chapter is" but do not include any words from the chapter title in your description.

2. For the second sentence on each chapter, begin with the words, "The author's purpose in this chapter is to argue that."

3. For the third sentence on each chapter, begin with the words, "One key piece of evidence that the author uses to support his (her) case is." Only list one piece of relevant evidence.

After you have written a trio of sentences for each chapter, write one single five-sentence paragraph at the end of this entire section of your paper summarizing the author's argument as a whole about the subject of the book.

PART THREE: ANALYSIS AND CRITIQUE

In this section, you have two things to do. First, analyze the argument from the standpoint of the course. What did this book teach you that you did not already know about this period of American history? Was the argument convincing? Well-supported? The professor does not care whether you found it well-written or interesting. Secondly, analyze the review of the book. Did the reviewer mostly summarize the book or did he/she evaluate it critically? Did he/she agree with the author's interpretation? Why or why not? Did he/she have criticisms? What were they? Do you find the reviewer's criticisms, if any, germane to the author's arguments or peripheral? Do you agree with the reviewer's assessment? Why or why not?