Date of Defense

6-17-1998

Department

Teaching, Learning and Educational Studies

First Advisor

Dr. Allen Carey-Webb

Second Advisor

Dr. Barbara Havira

Abstract

American history and literature survey courses can often feel like frantic journeys where the teacher is pulling students on a hasty tour from the American colonies to the Clinton administration or from Of Plymouth Plantation to Song of Solomon. Students in such courses, like tourists glancing at great monuments in record speeds from behind the tinted windows of sleek, air-conditioned buses, have no time to make meaningful connections, to cause the places they visit to become their own. The purpose of this research project entitled "We, the People of the United States ..." Society and the Individual in Nineteenth Century America is to stop the bus so that students can wander around a bit. They need to be able to explore the ruins, touch the earth and feel each place in the heart. Connections need to be made. Students need to experience American history and literature, not as tourists who are always glancing in from the outside, but as individuals who belong because they have made the experiences their own. This can be accomplished through the integration of American history and American literature around core themes that examine the nature of the individual or group, the role of the individual or group in changing contexts, and the relationships between individuals and groups that create a dynamic entity called society.

Access Setting

Honors Thesis-Campus Only

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