FYS 102 Syllabus Dr. Geib
Freshman Seminar II
Gettysburg in History and Memory
Spring, 2011
INTRODUCTION: My section of FYS 102 was created to serve several purposes. First, I wanted to contribute a section for the freshman seminar that is part of the new core curriculum at Butler. Second, I wanted to experiment with alternatives to lecture courses. Third, I wanted to spend more time talking about methods — about how a person “does” the study of history and other humanities disciplines. Fourth, I wanted to give you the opportunity to explore selected topics that are of special interest to me. All of these are designed to help you develop your skills as a reader, speaker, and writer.
I’ll try to accomplish those purposes this semester. The course is interdisciplinary, using topics from literature, rhetoric, and film as well as history. The course uses several alternatives to lecture, including lots of discussion, emphasizing the study of texts, documents and video dramatizations. The course will ask you to “do” the humanities, particularly by preparing an individual project. The course focuses upon one of the most exciting topics in the American past.
These objectives operation within a continuing desire to help you develop confidence in your reading and understanding of significant texts and artifacts, to recognize and critique good arguments, and to present your ideas and arguments in proper written and oral form.
CONTENT: Our subject matter is one of the most dramatic events in history, the battle of Gettysburg. We will look in considerable detail at the three days of the bloodiest engagement of the Civil War, July 1-3, 1863, and at the aftermath which culminated in Lincoln’s famous Address. Be prepared to study these dramatic and often violent events in considerable detail and from a number of perspectives.
COURSE STRUCTURE: This course will involve you in a number of projects, each of which is part of our overall goal of studying and interpreting texts and artifacts. I will ask you to participate regularly in class discussion, to help me lead selected discussions, to prepare class “minutes,” to present an oral report on your final topic, and to submit three papers. These different activities will require you to become familiar with the assigned readings, and to conduct some independent reading in the Irwin Library and/or on the Internet.
DISCUSSION: Part of your task is to join in discussion of our assignments, asking the questions that a good humanist should raise. Plan to participate in these discussions on a regular basis. Each of you will help to lead one or more of them. While I discourage silence, I also discourage those who monopolize the discussion or talk off the top of their head. The best responses are those that focus upon the topic, draw connections to other issues and ideas of the course, and help others to build upon what’s being said. Each of our readings challenges us to inquire why Gettysburg was significant in its own time, and why it remains so in ours. Ultimately we need to ask the meaning of the Civil War in our own lives.
You should bring the products of your own course of study to bear on our discussions. I am particularly interested in the connections you may draw to the topics which you are studying in other core courses. It is not always easy, however, to speak up in a peer group situation. To help out, please take a few steps that often encourage participation:
— First, don’t let the readings bog you in detail. (Ask significant questions, not the name of the mayor of Harrisburg.)
— Second, plan to help to keep minutes of our discussions. This is described in a following section.
— Third, plan to serve as one member of a multi-person team of discussion leaders. I’ll rotate the task, and each team may meet with me briefly after class to review the following day’s discussion agenda.
DISCUSSION LEADERSHIP: Discussion leaders are responsible for asking the questions that set our discussion in motion. It’s your job to see that people understand terms, appreciate the ideas of the author, and take the time to explore the implications and the contradictions of the work. In effect, you’re helping the class engage in a dialogue with the assignment. I ask that you prepare a set of open-ended questions (with benchmark responses) to stimulate discussion, and help your classmates to show off to advantage. I have a set of discussion tips on my web site.
MINUTES: I will ask each of you, on a rotating basis, to prepare a summary of each discussion we hold. The purpose of these minutes is to provide a record of the class meeting, reporting what was said and placing it in a framework that highlights the major questions, definitions, ideas, and interpretations that were raised. Be sure to indicate the importance of the day’s topic to the themes of the course. All minutes should be sent to me by e-mail within a week of class. I have a sheet on taking minutes on my Web site. I place copies of minutes in a black horizontal mail tray on the table in my outer office; stop by and check them if you missed a class.
WRITTEN REPORTS: I will ask you to prepare three major written papers in the course, each of about four to five pages in length. I will ask you to bring a draft of the first of your reports to class for peer review prior to submitting it to me. I will extend an opportunity to rewrite either the first or second report, provided you submit the original on time (I assume that a late paper has already used the revision option); the grade on that paper will be the average of the original and the revised grade. I will accept e-mail transmittal of any paper. Be certain you keep a copy of your paper on your hard drive until you receive my thank you for your transmittal.
ASSIGNED READINGS: It is your responsibility to obtain and read the course assignments. The Bookstore received my book orders months ago. Please obtain a copy of each. If any are now out of print, we’ll make substitutions or use sites on the Internet. If the Bookstore lets you down, you can obtain these books from other commercial sources such as Amazon. The supporting list of articles and documents that I may ask you to download and discuss is here, the items I call “course documents” for the semester are here. Your papers may also make use of secondary sources (written by historians) and primary sources (written by participants in the events of 1863) that are available on the Web. You may also need to use the Internet or the Irwin Library site to conduct research for your third paper.
STUDY TIME and ATTENDANCE: Different people study at different speeds. As an average only, I suggest you should budget and set aside an average of approximately six hours per week for study and preparation for the course. Your regular attendance and informed participation is the key to our success. While I accept reasonable excuses such as foul winter weather and family emergency (and insist you not come if you have a communicable disease), you should give this class first priority in your personal schedule and strive to attend every class meeting. The third paper may require some time in the Irwin Library during its normal hours of operation; you will need to build this into your schedule of time commitments for the semester. Never assume library resources will be available the night before an assignment is due.
SPECIAL ACCOMMODATION: Butler’s policy is here. Consult me as needed.
NOTES: You are welcome to bring a notebook to class. However, the quality of your in-class notes will not be important in determining your final grade. Use the minutes for any class you might miss. Any time you have to choose between writing notes and participating actively in discussion, I urge you to choose the latter.
LANGUAGE: You’ll quickly discover that orators and writers of the 1860’s used a vocabulary that is different from modern colloquial usage. They enjoyed big words, lengthy sentences, and rhythmic language. I suggest you keep a dictionary handy when you read our documents, and don’t be afraid to admit that you make use of it.
CONTACTING ME: My office is JH 382B; my regular office hours are Tuesday and Thursday from 11:00 to 11:45. My Butler voice mail is 940-9868. I will return calls if you leave a daytime phone number. My e-mail is ggeib@butler.edu I will normally meet with discussion leaders before or after the meeting of our class. My web site is http://blue.butler.edu/~ggeib/
ELECTRONIC PORTFOLIO: The FYS Program maintains an electronic portfolio of essays submitted for a grade in our courses. It is a program assessment tool, not part of your advising file. The course administrator will provide details. Your Chalk and Wire kit from the fall semester can be used here.
LIBERAL ARTS: Our Dean asks that we include a statement on each syllabus describing the relation of our courses to liberal arts.
GRADES: I’ll grade four elements, and count each 25% in determining your final grade: each of your three written reports, and the average for your class discussion participation, minutes, discussion leadership, and oral project report.
Courses of this type normally do not conduct final examinations. However, all work that you wish to have counted toward your final grade must be submitted by the time that final would be held.
Butler requires that I submit an “early term” grade for your work early in the semester. These grades are designed to alert students who are in academic difficulty that they should consult with their advisor. I will submit the grade you earn on the first paper as your early term grade.
Butler also offers the services of its writing lab to all students. Many from my courses have benefited from going there in the past, and I urge you not to be shy about going over there if you feel it could assist you.
I have a detailed discussion of grading on my Web page.
PAPER ASSIGNMENTS:
Paper one is here.
Paper two is here.
Paper three is here.
Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.
Abraham Lincoln, First Inaugural Address, 1861
For every Southern boy fourteen years old, not once but whenever he wants it, there is the instant when it’s still not yet two o’clock on that July afternoon in 1863, the brigades are in position behind the rail fence, the guns are laid and ready in the woods and the furled flags are already loosened to break out and Pickett himself with his long oiled ringlets and his hat in one hand probably and his sword in the other looking up the hill waiting for Longstreet to give the word and it’s all in the balance, it hasn’t happened yet, it hasn’t even begun yet, it not only hasn’t begun yet but there is still time for it not to begin against that position and those circumstances which made more men than Garnett and Kemper and Armistead and Wilcox look grave yet it’s going to begin, we all know that, we have come too far with too much at stake and the moment doesn’t need even a fourteen-year-old boy to think This time. Maybe this time with all this much to lose all this much to gain: Pennsylvania, Maryland, the world, the golden dome of Washington itself to crown with desperate and unbelievable victory the desperate gamble, the cast made two years ago.
William Faulkner, Intruder in the Dust, (Random House, New York, 1948),194-195