Chris's topics and learning outcomes

Here they go:



Learning outcomes: (straight from my current syllabus)

-develop good college level study skills and habits

-identify, understand, summarize and analyze an author's main argument

-to synthesize several different argument's into coherent concepts and wholes

-to construct opinions and arguments by reading and analyzing various course materials

-to improve writing and critical thinking skills

-to learn about the field of American Studies by examining its history, evolution and by employing the various methods used to examine American culture that American Studies scholars use

-to think about American culture, American popular music and musicians as being connected and interrelated to, and influenced by race, gender, class, ethnicity, sexuality, geography, politics, etc

The first five learning outcomes are important to me because for the most part I've taught freshmen, so I feel that these things are important to get freshmen doing right out of the gate, especially if it's fall semester. They are also good things to continue to reinforce with sophomores and older students who are not from disciplines - such as the hard sciences - where these kinds of learning outcomes may not be common.



Topics:
The main topics directly relate to the last two learning outcomes. Since this is an introduction to the field of AMS you can't do this class without addressing the field of AMS in general. The last learning outcome is based on many of the major themes and topics that I see in AMS. I particularly focus on race and gender and base most of my class around those and then add in the other categories such as class, etc when appropriate. I think Pete's statement about why he does gender and race - something about changing how we think about those things and realizing that they are not fixed categories - that's really good and he put it better than I could, and I try to do the same things as well.

I also build most of the class around American popular music because that's my personal focus and interests, but I do it in such a way that I can address the major themes, topics and approaches that we do in American studies.

Ok, I think that's about it.