In the beginning of this semester I envisioned the History 300 to be an in depth evaluation at a specific time period in a American History. Since the class is a considered a requirement for all history majors to take, I was under the assumption that it would a compilation of some period of American History. But in the first class, my previous perception was immediately diminished by the sad news that the class was focused on the History of Children. As the teacher explained the syllabus, more and more I began to feel that the class was not going to be an easy course to take. It involved a lot of reading and writing. The topper was that a final paper was going to be due at the end of the semester about an issue that the students can historically build on. Without any reprieve from our professor, the first class ended with heavy hearts.
As for me, I gradually took the course that was planned on the syllabus. I gladly completely each tasks, turning each assignment on time. The type pad account was established so that all writing assignments would be posted at the deadline date. Also, an appropriate title was needed to complete the registration of the account. Rightfully titled, History 300, my account was ready for me to posts my first writing assignment. The first writing assignment was regarding the book Conflicting Paths: Growing Up in America. This book dealt with the issues and obstacles of children growing up in the early part of American history. Further, we were supposed to extract two issues of interest that will serve as topic (s) of our final paper.
In total there were four postings before any real writing specifically related to the final paper were posted. Each writings pertained to perspective topics taken from the reading materials assigned. And then before we turned in our final topic, we met with the head librarians of the Johnson Center Library to discuss research tactics for our first and secondary sources. This part of the class was most helpful in my search to find details to support my topic. The skills and knowledge from this class will be beneficial for other classes that may need a final paper in upcoming semesters. In the future, this class may be revamped by meeting with the librarians a week or two prior to the due date of the final topic. In this way, students are better able to hone in an any perspective topics and see if there is enough materials available to write the paper.
The process of completing this task of writing a twenty plus page paper proved to be a challenging one. On top of the research that needed to be done, the reading alone was time consuming enough. In addition, sitting down and writing the paper was slow and tedious. Having spent painstaking hours on each assignment, I completed each assignment in a timely manner. Even when an emergency trip out of town for two weeks led me away, I left without having completed the assignment due to be posted. Aside from this two week break,
an illness took away another day from my attendance in class. This was a condition that was communicated by email to the professor.
In conclusion, I learned much about research and writing by having taken this class. Had I dropped it Earlier on in the semester, I probably would have not known where and how to effectively search for materials needed to write a paper. Also, the class teaches students how to responsively write a paper in a short amount of time. To write such a long paper, discipline and an intense attention to details must be the main focus. I recommend this class only for students with a light class/work load in mind.
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