Popular History
In the class “Westward Movement in America,” Dr. Sidwell has assigned us a paper which we are to write as if it were intended for a popular magazine. That assignment is exactly the kind of writing I need to practice. My other history classes are training me to do the research and produce the necessary academic writing. Working in conjunction with those classes, this assignment will, I hope, train me to produce writing that is generally useful. (In case you hadn’t noticed, that is sometimes the purpose of this blog.) The assignment also brings to mind a (paraphrased) principle Dr. Matzko has shared from time to time—the fastest way to be despised by academic historians is to write a history book that people actually read. Economic jealousy is of course a good explanation of that principle,but it seems that isn’t the complete explanation.
Posted 13 Jan. 2006 at 2:24 pm | Permalink
“Westward Movement in America” is the class I thought sounded most interesting from your “Classes for Next Semester” post. I do hope you will publish your magazine article here for the masses. :)
Posted 12 Apr. 2006 at 2:05 pm | Permalink
[...] For “Westward Movement in America,” Dr. Sidwell assigned us a popular history paper. We were to write the paper as if it were intended for a popular magazine rather than a scholarly work. (I wrote about this assignment earlier.) I chose to write about the Pony Express. I don’t think I wrote very well for a popular audience (which is to say, I didn’t write very well at all), and I think I should have chosen a more important topic (perhaps some musings on topic selection later). But though I’m not thrilled with my paper, I shall allow you, gentle reader, to be its judge. [...]