American History I

Much of the nineteenth century had been characterized by a sense of fragility concerning the American nation, less from external threats, and more from internal ones.  Did Lincoln feel this sense of fragility still?

2.  According to Lincoln, what remained to be done in the future, after the slaughter of the American Civil War might be over?  What was at stake?  Race relations?  Democracy?

3.  The million-dollar question:  What still needs doing by you, since you are in Lincoln’s future?

I have run this class as much in seminar style as possible for a large lecture class — in other words, with as many voices from the class as possible, in discussion both in small groups as well as with the class as a whole.  My aim has been to create occasions where you can test out your ideas, and to test your rhetorical strategies for conveying your ideas — and to observe your peers doing the same.  In other words, you might learn in this class relatively rare and exceedingly useful skills:  how to ask productive questions, how to commit to your own ideas, and how to articulate them respectfully but also persuasively.

4.  So, what was the moment you learned the most from how one of your peers articulated their ideas in class, in a particularly compelling way?  (In other words, not from the substance of the idea, but from the communication of it.)