Once the goals were established, I then had to figure out how students could demonstrate that they had mastered these ideas. I set up a system that had students move from weekly topics to units. Each unit had an assignment that included a writing component. The units were incredibly varied; for instance they had very different types of required readings, some of which required the students to “read” visual materials or interpret documents. Several assignments included primary research, such as an analysis of a text. Others included secondary research, such as reading what has already been said about a particular topic. I think it's an advantage to have students look at different types of texts. This methodology leans towards a social sciences model and probably reflects the time I've spent teaching in the Department of Sociology the past several years.
What we didn't have were reaction papers or a semester-long research paper. Instead, the students wrote “in-between” papers of five to six pages in length that employed methods, theories, and sources. There was an element of the cumulative as each student planned out a teaching unit for an urban course, an idea I stole from a colleague who is also teaching in a new World History minor track that prepares students to teach in this frequently demanded area.
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