Making History

One of the things that I think about often is how to teach the big picture, the huge scope of US history and the bits that fit together over time.  I know to people who teach the ancient world, or all of Chinese history, Russian history, or any of a number of other fields, think that US history is not long enough to worry about the long term!  But in fact, when I think about what I really want my students to come out of the class with, a good working mental map of the big picture is key.  I don’t want them to mentally stumble when they come across a reference to the Civil War and have to stop to work out if that was before or after the settling of the west.  And I know we can do a better job teaching the chronology without making it turn into memorizing a timeline.  This is my biggest goal for my class this year.  I need to get working on the specifics.