Historiography of World History
Press Release: Textbook Edition
Shelley Rose
ssay Schedule
Press Release At a Glance
- Week 3: Choose a topic and submit your outline
- Week 4: Draft your Press Release
- Week 5: Editing & Peer Feedback
- Week 6: Press Release due
This press release assignment is an exploration of world history narratives in common textbooks used in PK-12 classrooms. It is intended as a brief, intense writing exercise for a general audience where students practice career readiness skills such as communication and application of information technology. Textbook press releases that complete all stages of editing will be published on Social Studies @ CSU.
Instructions:
- Choose a world history textbook or Open Educational Resource (OER) that could be used in a PK-12 classroom. For example, The Big History Project https://bhp-public.oerproject.com/. You may also use a textbook from your student teaching/apprenticeship site or for CSU students browse Scholar Michael Schwartz Library using the search term “curmats.”
- Write a press release around 1000 words (notes not included). You may use any formats supported by WordPress.
- Assignment Materials and Rubric available in Appendix 8.
Elements of a Press Release
Use the following criteria to evaluate the textbook in your press release:
- Periodization
- Regional coverage
- Illustrations/Maps
- Treatment of marginalized populations, gender, and/or class
- Supplemental resources – i.e. online tools, source readers
- Organization/References
- Citation for First Edition/Printing (Chicago Style)
- Press Release (the analytical text of the press release, or the video and transcript, 1000 words)
Sample formats for your press release
- Written/Journalistic Style: https://pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu/historicalstudiesstudentresearch/chapter/rosepr/ (this example is from HIS 299: Intro to Historiogrpahy)
- Video Clip: See this clip with Kenn Michael on Reading Rainbow giving an overview of Jumanji for inspiration: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQG6AR5diPw
- Note: if you create a video you will need to be sure to have closed captioning and a transcript to post on your page with the video. Include any footnotes and bibliography.
- Open Educational Resources/Digital Humanities Projects
- See this review of Islands in the North for a good example of tone and analysis for these types of projects. https://reviewsindh.pubpub.org/pub/islands-in-the-north/release/3
Finding Textbooks/Open Educational Resources
Use the following resources to locate and review textbooks and open educational resources
- Michael Schwartz Library HIS 370 Research Guide
- For CSU Students: HIS 370/570 Course Reserves have links to physical textbooks in the library’s curriculum collection.
- World History Commons
- H-World: a network for practitioners of world history. The list gives emphasis to research, to teaching, and to the connections between research and teaching
- History for the 21st Century
- OER Commons
- Cleveland Teaching Collaborative Resource Referatory
World Historians on Teaching, Periodization, and Organization
- Forum, “Organizing World History,” World History Connected 15:1 (Winter 2018). https://journals.gmu.edu/index.php/whc/article/view/3816
- Forum, “Gender and Empire,” World History Connected 15:3 (Fall 2018) https://journals.gmu.edu/index.php/whc/issue/view/271
- Laura J. Dull, “Missing in Action: Africans in World History Textbooks,” World History Connected 18:1 (Winter 2021) https://journals.gmu.edu/index.php/whc/article/view/3631
- Alyssa Goldstein Sepinwall, “Addressing Current Events in the World History Classroom.” World History Connected 15:2 (Summer 2018) https://journals.gmu.edu/index.php/whc/article/view/3803/2199
Inspiration for this assignment came from concluding comments by historian David Perry in Drafting the Past Episode 10, “David M. Perry Writes Out Loud.“
