PAPERS, RESEARCH, AND LESSON PLANS

Over the years I have worked on a number of papers that may be of interest to fellow historians.  The papers reflect research interests and classes or institutes I have been involved with over the past 25 years.  There are also several lesson plans here that have been developed based on some of my research.  Please feel free to make use of them.  I would appreciate an e-mail if you do use them in some manner.  Thanks.  

The Frontier Hero Model      1980
An exploration of the development of the frontier hero in literature, particularly through an analysis of the lives of Daniel Boone and William Cody.  I wrote this during the 1980 election and the paper seems more interesting to me since the recent death of Ronald Reagan.   

Hamilton and Jefferson: The Demise of Republicanism      1983
An analysis of how the political division between these two figures actually led to the demise of the republican approach to governing in early America.  This is a helpful paper for understanding how the political parties came into being.   

Interpreting History in the Secondary Classroom      1983
A discussion of how to bring documents into the high school classroom as a way of helping students at this level to develop a more sophisticated approach to studying the past. 

Matthew Arnold Meets Allan Bloom      1989
An exploration of the parallels between two intellectuals and their critique of contemporary society, particularly the educational system.   

Machiavelli Meets Kuklick: The Power of Appearance in Politics      1994
An attempt to connect several of the Machiavellian precepts of power with the contemporary approach to the American presidency.  The focus of the paper is on the power of imagery in the political culture.  You may find it interesting during a presidential campaign.  

An Infusion Approach to American Indian Studies      1997
An explanation of the approach we have been taking at Black River Falls High School regarding American Indian studies.  Approximately 20% of our students are American Indian and we continually grapple with how to best approach this important aspect of our history.  

Historians and the Internet      1998
An early critique of how the internet would change the teaching of history.  Some of the paper still holds up pretty well, but I suspect it was outdated the moment I finished it.   

Jefferson and the American Indian      2000
An exploration of the relationship between our third president and the American Indian people.  As with anything related to Jefferson, my findings indicate that the relationship was complex.  You may not find the paper particularly complimentary.   

Corporal RedCloud and the Power of Memory      2002
Mitchell RedCloud, Jr. is perhaps Black River Falls High School's most famous graduate.  He was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor by Harry Truman for his bravery during the Korean War.  In this paper I am exploring the rather complicated memory of RedCloud in this community.   

Lesson Plan: Ike and McCarthy:  The Election of 1952      2002
This is actually a lesson plan that I developed dealing with the Wisconsin campaign of 1952 and the strained relationship between President Eisenhower and Senator McCarthy.  There was a famous incident during that campaign when Ike changed a speech, thereby softening his approach to McCarthy in his home state.  This plan is designed for use in an AP class, but could be modified for use in a standard US history class as well.  

Lesson Plans (2):  US Foreign Policy      2004
There are two lesson plans posted here stemming from research I did while attending a summer institute in the summer of 2004 at Ashland University in Ohio.  The first one deals with various "schools" of American foreign policy as identified by Walter Mead.   The second one examines American reactions to various independence movements during the 19th century.  They are appropriate for junior-senior level courses in history or current affairs. 

Vietnam in American Memory:  Competing Lessons of a Contentious War   2005 
The Vietnam War will remain contentious as long as those that have a living memory of the war are still around.  This paper examines competing interpretations of the war that began to surface immediately in its aftermath.  I especially traced the rise of the neo-conservative movement as a counter to the so-called liberal-realist view of the war and how this began to impact American foreign policy in the next generation. 

Lesson Plan:  Washington and Slavery    2006
These are two document-based lessons that I developed while attending a Gilder-Lehrman Seminar at Brown University in July of 2006.  One is a letter from George Mason to George Washington in 1765 that contains Mason's reflections on slavery and how it may prove to be the ruin of the colonies.  The second is from Robert Pleasants, a Virginia Quaker, to Washington urging him to free his slaves.  Pleasants was involved in a movement for manumission in the 1780s and 90s.  These documents can be used to explore the moral dilemma of slavery during the founding period.

Lesson Plan:  FDR as Master Communicator    2007

This a document-based lesson that I developed after attending the Hyde Park seminar in New York in July of 2007.  The focus of the lesson is on a famous fireside chat that FDR gave in February of 1943 -- the so-called "map speech" in which he explains the progress of the war to the American people.  The lesson highlights how effectively the President was able to communicate via the relatively new medium of the radio.

Lesson Plan:  The Fugitive Slave Law and the case of Joshua Glover     2008
This is a document-based lesson that was developed as a result of my involvement in an NEH Landmarks of American History seminar at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania in July of 2008.  The focus of the lesson is on the story of an escaped slave, Joshua Glover, who became the center of a major legal battle between the state of Wisconsin and the Federal Government during the contentious decade of the 1850s.    

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