Class Notes for September 19

Review Assignment

• Twitter conversations
• Blog posts
• Take aways from this assignment
  • blogging best practices
  • what is historical analysis?
    • what does it mean to construct an argument?
  • missing from responses: notion of network ethics, strong statements on “the commons.” Why?

Readings for Today

• Sam Wineburg, “Thinking Like a Historian,” TPS Quarterly.
  • Key Concepts:
    • Reading documents: author, context, time period—that form a mental framework for the details to follow. Most important of all, these questions transform the act of reading from passive reception to an engaged and passionate interrogation.
    • Sourcing: Think about a document’s author and its creation.
    • Contextualizing: Situate the document and its events in time and place.
    • Close reading: Carefully consider what the document says and the language used to say it.
    • Using Background Knowledge: Use historical information and knowledge to read and understand the document.
    • Reading the Silences: Identify what has been left out or is missing from the document by asking questions of its account.
    • Corroborating: Ask questions about important details across multiple sources to determine points of agreement and disagreement

• Cohen and Rosenzweig, Digital History, “Collecting History Online.”
  • Key Concepts:
    • Traditional archives v. Online
    • Interactivity
    • Preservation
    • Born Digital v. Digitized
    • Intellectual Property/Privacy/Authenticity