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HIST 022: What History Teaches: Home / In-Class Exercise

This course guide is for use during the visit on Wednesday, October 9th, to the Beinecke Library by students in What History Teaches (HIST 022), a first-year seminar taught by Professor John Gaddis at Yale University in Fall Term 2024.

In-Class Exercise at Beinecke Library

Working in pairs and one trio, each group will focus on one of the ten archival collections listed on the Collection Materials Used in Class Session tab on this course guide. Each post provides a quick collection overview (and a link to the finding aid, or guide, to the collection, in case you’d like to explore it to look for additional contextual information) and includes information about the box(es) and folders your group will explore.

During the class session on October 9th, each person in your group will engage one of the flagged folders in the boxes for your group. You’ll each  spend about 25 minutes looking at your folder and talking with your groupmate(s) about how you, together, will present this collection to your classmates in about 3-4 minutes per group at the end of the class session.

Here are some questions to consider when thinking about how to present your group’s collection to your HIST 022 colleagues:

  1. Who created this archival collection, when and where were most of the materials created?
  2. What is going on? What is the context for the document(s) you looked at?
  3. Whose perspective(s) comes through in the document(s)? Whose doesn’t? Do you sense any biases in the materials you looked at?
  4. Do the materials in your folder engage issues from the readings and discussions you've been having in this course so far this term? If so, how?
  5. What can you know based on the sources you have in front of you? What do you not know?
  6. What questions do the sources raise that could lead you to further research?
  7. Did anything surprise you when looking at the folders in your collection?