First-Year Writing Seminar (101-8-1)

Instructors

Shana B Bernstein
847/467-6850
620 Lincoln #205
Dr. Bernstein received her Ph.D. in U.S. History from Stanford University. Her research focuses on 20th century social reform, specifically civil rights and environmental justice. She teaches classes in Legal Studies, American Studies, and History on comparative race and ethnicity, immigration, and the history of health.

Meeting Info

555 Clark 230: Tues, Thurs 9:30AM - 10:50AM

Overview of class

In this course, we will examine the history of the U.S. West as both frontier and region, real and imagined. We will consider topics such as Indian Removal, wars of conquest, law, immigration and migration, race, gender, nationality, class, and environment, often with a focus on the various mythologies of the region. Students will consider the relationship between historical mythologies and historical facts. Course objectives include learning to interpret varied forms of historical evidence and fostering analytical, reading, writing, discussion, and synthetic skills that will help students think and communicate critically about historical and contemporary society and politics. By the end of the quarter, students will be able to read and analyze primary sources carefully and accurately, with attention to the author's perspective, position, and credibility, and to the source's context; read, evaluate, summarize, and engage with scholarly works by others; and be able to analyze authors' arguments for evidence, context, strength, and credibility. Because a primary goal of this class is to sharpen students' writing skills, we will learn through varied writing assignments to make clearly written and structured arguments that are well supported by primary and secondary sources.

Class Attributes

WCAS Writing Seminar