July 14 and September 11: Historical Method and Pedagogical Method.

Abstract

MY FAVORITE COURSE THESE DAYS is the one I used to think I never wanted to teach, a Seminar on Historical Method for potential and declared majors. When I went and where I went to graduate school, no one talked about teaching, as if there was nothing to talk about or at least nothing worth talking about. With my Ph.D. under my belt, I assumed that it was my job to teach my students the material I had learned in years of studying eighteenth-century France specifically and early modern Europe more generally. It took me longer than it should have to realize that the material matters less than the process of reading, thinking, talking, and writing about it. During fifteen years in my current job, I have never taught a course on eighteenth-century France, which does not bother me in the least. The methods seminar I have come to enjoy teaching has no prescribed geographical, chronological, or even thematic content. In offering it twelve times in nine years, I have explored many options and learned a great deal. In this essay I review my unsuccessful and successful strategies for teaching research and analytical skills, which illustrate changes in my assumptions about and attitude toward teaching. Older and perhaps wiser as well, I no longer assume that our students already know how to do what we expect them to be able to do by the time they enter or at least by the time they exit the University, whether how to