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“We Also Built Stockton: Experiences of Immigrant Women in Stockton, California,” makes available to students of women’s history a collection of over fifty interviews that former University of the Pacific Professor Sally Miller and her students completed in 1980.  Most of the immigrants interviewed came to the United States between 1920 and 1960, during the… Continue reading We Also Built Stockton: Reflection

I read with interest Sam Wineburg’s “Why Historical Thinking is Not About History.”[1]  I recognize that the internet can provide unfiltered information to students who may not have the critical thinking skills to decipher “fake news” and “alternative facts” from reliable sources.  Indeed, I have had occasional students cite Google as their source without recognizing… Continue reading Challenges History Educators Face Presenting the Past in the Digital World

I have begun to build my education project for digital history in Omeka: http://jenniferhelgren.com/digitalnarratives/exhibits/show/immigrantwomeninstockton At present, I have written an introduction to the Stockton Immigrant Women’s interviews with an overview of the topic.  A challenge for me is ensuring I have provided enough information without overdoing it.  I am trying to use the Bracero Archive’s… Continue reading “We Also Built Stockton”: Project Update 3

I listened to past GMU students talk about their digital education projects this week. Both Jess Pritchard Ritter and Nashieli Marcano recommend defining a specific narrow focus and being sure to execute one educational activity. They caution against casting the net too broadly, reminding me I can add items and activities later.  Mary Ellen Rethel… Continue reading “We Also Built Stockton”: Project Update 2

As a professor of history, I am generally more inclined to show film clips from documentaries (occasionally showing one in its entirety) than I am to show feature films. My favorites for women’s history courses are A Midwife’s Tale, The Life and Times of Rosie the Riveter, and No más Bebés. For my U.S. History… Continue reading Film and Digital Storytelling for History Classrooms

I reviewed the historical drama, “Iron Jawed Angels,” a 2004 HBO Films production directed by Katja Von Garnier. The film tells the story of suffrage radicals Alice Paul (Hilary Swank) and Lucy Burns (Frances O’Connor) and their role in the fight for the 19th Amendment.  This is a story I teach, and many students report… Continue reading “Iron Jawed Angels”: A Review for Instructors

Research Update I have read the introductory essay by Sally Miller in Pacific Historian about her Stockton immigration project. In addition to the ten essays that were published in Pacific Historian in 1980-81, Miller organized a conference and three seminars concerning Stockton immigrant women.[1] I have also begun to write a bibliography of important readings… Continue reading “We Also Built Stockton”: Project Update 1

My project is a digital collection of oral history interviews completed in the 1980s of Stockton immigrant women accompanied by teaching tools. I aim to align my project with the core competencies and learning outcomes outlined by the American Historical Association’s (AHA) Tuning Project (2016). The project works to bring historians together “to spell out… Continue reading The AHA Tuning Project and the “We Also Built Stockton” Website

Historical thinking–examining primary sources, contextualizing and corroborating them, and forming interpretive narratives–has been a staple of the historical profession since Herodotus and Thucydides debated sources. What has shifted is the concern over how history is taught and how we assess student learning, particularly to young people who will not be historians themselves.  This contest over… Continue reading Elements at the Heart of History Teaching