The last time I used WordPress for an assignment was in my old job at the University of Southern Mississippi where I taught a course I called “History in the Digital Age.” I decided to try to incorporate the use of WordPress for a simple digital exhibit into a more traditional course this semester, “Gender, Race, and Class in Modern Europe.” This majors-level course covered selected themes in European history through the perspective of marginalized peoples, primarily as it related to changing definitions of citizenship. I needed an assignment that incorporated independent research and writing, but I did not want to assign a standard paper. This was mostly just to vary things for my students, many of whom had already taken a course with me where a standard research paper was the assignment. I also think that basic knowledge of WordPress is a useful skill for everyone to have.
From past experience, I knew that I could not just have the students go forth and do a project using WordPress, but I did under-estimate the amount of guidance and tech support they would need (in part because WordPress has changed its interface since I last did this assignment). Even with a couple days set aside for working just on WordPress in class, I had to address a number of issues in office hours and over e-mail as the final product came due (these mostly had to do with adding navigation menus, which used to be fairly automatic). In the future, I’ll add one more day for tech work in class where students are supposed to be ready to just hit “publish” (i.e. the deadline for the exam).
I will keep some of the other techniques I used for the assignment. I divided the project into essentially four parts, each of which received a separate grade: 1) An analysis of a digital exhibit published on the web; 2) A historiography; 3) A primary source analysis; and 4) the final product which included the historiography, an additional primary source analysis (along with the one already graded), an introduction and conclusion, and bibliography. Structuring the assignment in this way not only ensured that students made progress throughout the semester, but that the final product still amounted to its own assignment requiring independent work.
A few students gave me permission to share their final products. I’m very proud of the work they did this semester.
- The Human Toll of Progress by Fletcher Wilson
- “The New Woman: Feminist Publications at the Fin-de-Siècle” by Jack Morelli
- Women in Nazi Germany by Maddy Payne
- British Amputees after the Great War by Molly Knighton
- Simone de Beauvoir: Life and World by Kitty Grogan
- Milicianas Against the World: Gender Dynamics in the Spanish Civil War by Katie Blanch
As always, feel free to use my provided assignment handouts and instructions, but attribution is always appreciated.