Program Overview

Workplace Learning: Rural Diary Archive (HIST*3480)

Course Details

The Workplace Learning: Rural Diary Archive (HIST3480) is a course offered by the University of Guelph. The course code and section are HIST3480*02, and it is scheduled for the Winter 2021 term. The instructor for the course is Catharine Wilson.

Method of Delivery

The course will be conducted through independent work and attending class meetings. The course and workplace are all online, with four scheduled class meetings taking place remotely in a synchronous environment.

Course Synopsis

The course provides an experiential learning opportunity for students to immerse themselves in daily life in the past. Students will work on transcribing diaries online, selecting tweets for posting, and contributing to a glossary of nineteenth-century terms. The course aims to make hard-to-use but highly useful documents more accessible for researchers.

Learning Outcomes

By the successful completion of this course, students will have learned to:

1. identify and critically assess diary writing and keeping practices
2. read and understand 19th-century handwriting & vocabulary
3. transcribe
4. research
5. assess the strengths and weaknesses of diaries as sources
6. communicate compelling history for use in a social media platform
7. identify and explain daily life in 19th-century rural Ontario
8. know the value of public engagement
9. reflect upon their work in a critical manner

Methods of Evaluation and Weights

The course will be evaluated based on the following components and weights:

• Transcriptions: 30%
• Weekly Critical Reflections: 15%
• Contributions to the Glossary & Tweets: 20%
• Final Essay/Document Analysis: 35%

Texts and/or Resources Required

There is no required textbook for the course.

Project Timeline

The course project timeline is as follows:

• Week 1: Pre-arranged group meeting with Professor Wilson to view the diaries and establish instructions
• Week 3: Meeting to review transcription work
• Week 7: Meeting to discuss progress and submit the first collection of weekly reflections
• Week 10: Meeting to discuss progress on the final essay
• Week 11: Submission of complete sets of tweets and glossary items
• Week 12: Submission of complete set of transcriptions
• Week 13: Submission of the final essay and the second collection of weekly reflections

Departmental Notice

Please note that this is a preliminary web course description only, and the department reserves the right to change any information in this description without notice. The final, binding course outline will be distributed in the first class of the semester.