Graduate Learning Objectives

Historical Knowledge

Primary Goal: Articulates a complex historical argument or project justification

Sub-Goal: Recognize the pastness of the past 

  • explain how people have existed, acted and thought in particular historical periods 
  • demonstrate the influence the past has on the present in a thesis proposal [HIST 6000 and/or HIST 6030] 

Sub-Goal: Explain historical continuity and change 

  • describe the influence of political ideologies, economic structures, social organization, cultural perceptions, and natural environments on historical events 
  • discuss the ways in which factors such as race, gender, class, ethnicity, region and religion influence historical narratives 
  • incorporate notions of historical continuity, contingency, and change into a written assignment for a graduate course [HIST 6030] 

Students display historical knowledge by presenting a clear, appropriately complex original thesis (or Plan B project justification) that they convincingly prove in their thesis or Plan B project 

Historical Thinking

Primary Goal: situates an argument within the existing historiography

  • understand the major historical debates in a field 
  • situate a question within those historical debates 
  • analyze historiography of a topic in a thesis proposal [HIST 6000 or HIST 6030] 

Students display historical thinking about historiography by comprehensively presenting the existing historiography on their subject and placing their thesis within the debates within that historiography in their thesis or Plan B project

Primary Goal: Presents and interprets appropriate primary sources to support their thesis or project

Sub-Goal: Emphasize the complex nature of past experiences 

  • interpret the complexity and diversity of situations, events and past mentalities 
  • compare eras and regions in order to define enduring issues [HIST 6010] 

Sub-Goal: Emphasize the complex and problematic nature of the historical record

  • recognize a range of viewpoints 
  • compare competing historical narratives 
  • challenge arguments of historical inevitability 
  • analyze cause and effect relationships and multiple causation in a thesis or project [Plan A/B final product] 

Students display historical thinking about sources and evidence by employing the most relevant primary sources to address their problem and analyzes them with historical rigor in their thesis or Plan B Project

Historical Skills

Primary Goal: Frames and presents findings to appropriate scholarly or public audience 

Sub-Goal: Develop skills in critical thinking and reading [Plan A/B final project] 

  • evaluate debates among historians in group discussion 
  • differentiate between historical facts and historical interpretations 
  • assess the credibility of primary and secondary sources 

Sub-Goal: Develop research skills [HIST 6030] 

  • formulate historical questions for a first draft of a thesis or project 
  • obtain historical data from a variety of sources 
  • identify gaps in available records

Sub-Goal: Develop the ability to construct reasonable historical arguments [HIST 6030]

  • construct in writing a well-organized historical argument, in a thesis or public history project 
  • support an interpretation with historical evidence from a variety of primary and secondary sources 

Sub-Goal: Communicate research findings [Plan A/B final project – assessed by committee and interrater review] 

  • Write a professional thesis or papers to communicate research findings to other historians – OR - 
  • Create  a public history project to communicate historical information to the broader public 

Students display historical skills by presenting a well-written, carefully argued, appropriately cited thesis or Plan B project, geared to their audience