Course Project
The Euclid Corridor and its landscapes, especially the Cleveland Cultural Gardens, provide a text as rich any other you will read this semester. And, over the course of the semester students will develop an interpretive history project that explores the history of the corridor.

Completing the project in this course is a very challenging task. It demands that students complete a variety of straightforward tasks and assignments in a timely and systematic fashion. In order to facilitate the development of the project—and introduce students to the research and critical-thinking process, the course is designed to lead students through those steps in a simple and methodical fashion. Also, student work is cumulative over the course of the semester. As a result, students will have compiled (and received instructor review of) a body of research and writing for their final project that generally results in a very high-quality piece of work.

Given the nature of the project, it is critical that students complete each step/assignment along the way in a complete and timely fashion. The greatest barrier to successful completion of this course (and the course project (and student achievement in terms of grading)) is procrastination and/or falling behind the course schedule.

The project is divided into several phases and ten parts, each with a corresponding due date. While this may seem overwhelming at first, bear in mind that the project is cumulative. You will find that, if you give proper attention to each assignment, to thorough step-by-step research, and writing your papers, the final essay will virtually “write itself.”

Project Overview & Course Activities
1. Select a Site
2. Landscape Essay
Develop Bibliography and Research Collection using Zotero (which allows us to share our work)
3. Timeline Essay; Source Collection
Develop Research Documents: Photographs, Census, Sanborn Maps
4. People & Place Essay
5. Interpretive Essay: Artifacts, Layers, and Traces put Together
6. Final Essay: Landscape as History
7. Research Journal (recommended)
8. Attendance & Participation, which encourages “active learning”
9. Quizzes/Worksheets/Questions encourage both “active learning” and mastering research techniques
10. Oral History (extra credit)

1. Topic Selection (no credit)
The first step in the project is site assignment/topic selection. By September 12, the third Monday of the semester, students must send the instructor an email message stating your site preference; the site is not “selected” until a confirmation email has been received.

The instructor will provide a list of topics (in class) from which students can choose, or the instructor can assign the project. In some cases, students may develop a project idea in collaboration with the instructor; if students want to define their own topic (in collaboration with the instructor), they must initiate that conversation themselves and within the first week of the course. Keep in mind that the instructor will assign or help you to develop projects that can be reasonably completed over the course of the semester, without additional or heroic efforts. However it is important to note that if students reject instructor suggestions and choose to complete projects not recommended by the instructor, such projects will be held to the same course requirements, may require significant additional work, and may well receive less instructor support. Remember that the instructor will make topic recommendations based on years of experience working with students and in developing the course research materials. Whatever course you choose, all course projects must be within the framework of the Euclid Corridor and/or Cultural Gardens.

2. Landscape Essay & Accompanying Sources
Once you have selected a site/topic, describe the landscape surrounding the site or associated with the topic. Go to the site. Take an inventory. What is there? What isn’t? How do people use the site? What sorts of people use it? And, what intrigues you? Keep course readings in mind as you visit the site. Then prepare a 3-page descriptive essay in which you describe your sites and their surrounding urban landscapes. To repeat, be sure to include observations on the physical appearance of your sites and their surroundings as well as your thoughts on the people who frequent the area and how these places might have evolved through time. As you think about how the site evolved over time, you may (but are not required to) consult historical photos or maps if you wish to determine what the site looked like previously. In preparing the essay, hypothesize about its “character” and history. Be creative. Use ideas taken from course readings. This is a time for noting your observations. The very best essays “read” landscape to reach conclusions and make a cohesive argument—right or wrong—about the site. You will visit your site often during the semester, so this is a critical step in the process.

Course Bibliography: Students will compile research notes (see image/source collective below, census and Sanborn maps below) using a free on-line bibliographic tool: ZOTERO. In addition, you will prepare a bibliography of relevant books, articles, Web sites, and other sources that you plan to consult in the completion of the project. How do you do this? Locate scholarly books and articles that provide general or comparative context for one or more course topics that correspond to the changes observed at your sites. This list should be developed in collaboration with the instructor. Prepare an annotated bibliography on these sources. An annotated bibliography includes a brief description (one word to several sentences) of how the source relates to your project. We will use ZOTERO for creation of the bibliography and for note-taking because it will allow us to collaborate with one another, create appropriate bibliographic citations for our research essay, AND it allows us to make our historical thinking/bibliographic process more transparent, for easier grading and evaluation.

The first step is to develop a collection of images and other multi-media source (an Image/Source Collection.) You will collect and analyze at least 10 historical images/sound clips/media clips/or other documents that you photocopy from the collections of Cleveland State University, Cleveland Public Library, Western Reserve Historical Society, and/or other libraries and archives. Analysis of each image should consider in concise form (1 typed paragraph) the “who, what, where, and when.” In other words, use any printed information on the images as well as your own visual analysis to say as much as you can about each image. These images will comprise another of the primary sources for your exhibit.

3 Timeline Essay & Bibliography
In this assignment, you will trace the changes over time by comparing the character of your site at several different points in time, as depicted in twentieth-century atlases and photographs (as well as other source materials), and in reference to the scholarly literature related to your topic. The objective of this assignment is not to conduct an exhaustive survey, but to give you a sense of change over time. It allows you to focus your research energies over the remainder of the semester.

This assignment requires three essential activities: a) reviewing your primary source materials; b) reviewing secondary articles; c) using those sources as well as your Landscape Essay to write a 4-page analytic essay in which you narrate change over time (or continuity) and hypothesize about when and why changes occurred or consider why they did not occur.
A. Continue to assemble images, maps, city directory pages, and any other relevant primary materials pertaining to your chosen sites and their surrounding vicinities.
B. Finally, prepare a 4-page analytical essay in which you “narrate” a timeline of the changes in your sites and their surrounding urban landscapes, drawing upon all relevant primary sources (in other words, not including scholarly books and articles) in the source collection.

In writing your essay, consider some of the following questions. Did your site change over time or not? How would you characterize change? Was it gradual or did it seem to happen suddenly? Do the changes within a time period seem related in any way? How about from one time to another? Can you see any patterns to the changes? Do you have any hunches about what caused specific changes? If there is great continuity, how would you explain that sameness over time? Are their differences between the physical site and its human construction? Making sense of your site in this fashion will require that you read course materials critically and creatively!

Bibliography: You will prepare a bibliography of relevant books, articles, Web sites, and other sources that you plan to consult in the completion of the project. How do you do this? Locate scholarly books and articles that provide general or comparative context for one or more course topics that correspond to the changes observed at your sites. This list should be developed in collaboration with the instructor. Prepare an annotated bibliography on these sources. An annotated bibliography includes a brief description (one word to several sentences) of how the source relates to your project.

Census Data & Sanborn Map Collection: Using online and printed sources available online, through OhioLink, and at the CSU Library, students will document their story using census data and fire insurance maps, as well as city directories. Students will develop a methodology appropriate to their essay. There is NO single approach to these materials, but they will be used and they will be turned into the instructor.

4 People and Place Essay
This is the “Lares”/”Penates” essay where you explore the intersection of people and place at your site. This essay need not be exhaustive, but it should focus on the relation between people and place in one or two historical periods. Ask yourself: how did people give structure to this place? How did this place shape the lives of people living/working here? What does this intersection tell us about a particular moment in time? Prepare a 4-page analytical essay in which you draw upon the primary sources that you have collected (including oral history and/or census data for the city and/or tract level) to “narrate” and explore the relation between people and place. Keep in mind to document the different sorts of people have used the site at different points in time, as suggested by evidence from the U.S. Census, City Plans, Sanborn Maps, City Directories, or Phone Books. What different purposes do those people have for being there, and how have those changed? In other words, how have people used the sites over time? Who lives/lived or works/worked nearby? What roles do these places seem to play for people?

5 Interpretive Essay
Prepare a 10-12 page analytical essay that places their sites into the context of selected topics covered in the course, citing both primary and secondary sources (and including interviews as appropriate). The purpose of this essay is to give you an opportunity to combine all of the research and writing you will have done during the semester and relate just how it all fits together.

In this essay, you put together all the historical artifacts, layers, and traces that you have discovered. Combine those primary sources with your reading of secondary materials. Develop your evaluation of the evidence into an interpretive essay, into historical analysis. What do you see at your site in the context of course readings and additional secondary research? How does it look differently, NOW? Walking around your site, what clues can you find to past, current, and potential future uses? What different kinds of traces can you find and to what period of the site's history do they belong? Do they relate to one another in any way? Which traces do you think are most important or interesting? What do they reveal about the past? Why did they survive? Are they still fulfilling some original purpose? Do they reveal anything about the present and/or future?

The objective of this assignment is to give you an appreciation for how past owners, functions, events, and ways of life have left traces on your site and to give you some experience in "reading" the site by learning to recognize those traces and work out the puzzles they pose. Focus on what seems most significant or interesting to you. Don't create a laundry list; you do not need to mention every trace of the past you find.

6 Final Essay
This last assignment is an opportunity for students to bring together what they have learned from the course, apply it to an understanding of their site. In the process, students will have written an interpretive essay about the region’s history, refracted through their site/topic.

The final essay is a 10-15 page historical essay that is a revision of the “interpretive essay,” refining it according to instructor comments and continued critical thinking and writing by the student. Your essay should reflect on changes over time within the site, their causes, and their significance. What has changed and what has remained constant and why? How do all the things you have learned and observed contribute to the sense of the place today? What may they portend for the future? In other words, write an analytical history of your site. Discuss its origins, uses, and its people. What changed or did not change? In what ways has it been altered; how did people make use of the past; how are they preparing for the future? What is the principle story of your site; its ancillary stories? Every site has many stories. Tell the story or stories that seems most significant and/or interesting to you – and which reflects your ability to read the landscape.

7 Research Journal/Project Binder
The instructor recommends that each student keep your research notes, materials, essays, photocopies, photographs, thoughts, etc., in a binder. For example, for many course reading assignments, the instructor will provide, in advance (usually on the course website) a question or questions for your consideration as you read. You should print these questions out and record your answers (legibly) directly onto the handouts. Over the course of the semester, you should compile these handouts. I strongly encourage you to write down anything else that strikes you as important as you read. In addition, you will keep notes from class (including filing answers to quizzes and handouts.) The binder should include all materials for the project (organized with essays appearing first, followed by an appendix of supporting source materials) and should reflect revision based on comments provided at each stage of the project. This will be your research journal. I would recommend that you use a 1-1/2 - inch, three-ring binder (widely available at bookstores, pharmacies, office supply stores, and discount stores).

Students can demonstrate their course engagement to the instructor by handing in their research notes (not copies of the course readings) to the instructor at the end of the course.

8 Attendance & Participation
See above. This is critical to every aspect of the course.

9 Quizzes/Worksheets/Questions
The instructor will, from time-to-time, handout worksheets and/or reading questions ahead of a particular reading. These should be completed and may be collected by the instructor. The instructor will also, from time-to-time ask you to view images, movies, or other materials in class. Often, the instructor will ask you to engage in free-writing about these images/materials; you should record your thoughts in your journal. Finally, if attendance and/or participation lags during the semester, the instructor may assign scheduled or pop quizzes. These will be incorporated into the final grade. All of these materials should be include in our final reading journal; for more on the reading journal, see above.

10 Extra Credit, Collect Oral Histories
Following our in-class oral history workshop, you will be allowed to schedule and conduct 60 minute, tape-recorded interviews. You will do this in consultation with the instructor. You will have approximately two months to conduct these interviews (from September 19 to November 22). They will be conducted in a “story room” on the CSU campus, with a trained facilitator present. The Department of History will provide equipment and release forms for your interviews.

Contact your subjects and prepare to conduct a 60-minute tape recorded interview with them. To schedule an interview, you must first consult the interview schedule and select an available time. Then you should contact me or Cindy Shairba (the History Department administrator) by phone or email no later than 12:00 noon on the Thursday BEFORE the week of your interview. DO NOT CONSIDER the interview time confirmed until you have received an email or phone confirmation from me or from Cindy Shairba (whomever you contacted.)

You must also prepare a list of questions in Word format to send me via email by 5:00 PM on the Friday BEFORE the week of your interview. On the appointed interview day, you must arrive at the oral history interviewing center (Room G27 in the Digital Media suite on the ground floor of the Communications building) 15 minutes before your appointed interview time. You will work with the facilitator to set up the room and prepare the interview script. Once your interview is complete, you can expect the following to happen. By the Monday following the interview, I will prepare a CD which you may collect in class. Using the CDs, you will type full transcripts of each interview (in Microsoft Word format). On the Monday following your receipt of the CD for each interview, you will submit the following: 1) Completed transcript; 2) Permission form. Your transcripts, which I will make available online, will comprise one of the primary sources from which you and your classmates will write essays. I will evaluate your interviews by looking at the transcript, your list of questions, and my assessment of the quality of your interview session as determined by a rubric I will distribute to you ahead of the interview.