HIST205

Course Schedule

THIS SCHEDULE IS SUBJECT TO CHANGE (all revisions will be clearly marked)

Week 1 (August 29)

Friday 8/29

• Introductions

Week 2 (September 1-5)

Monday 9/1

• Activity: Establish Classroom Discussion Environment (Please take a some time to think about and write down some answers to the questions below. Again, you’re job is to collective establish the groundrules for our in-class conversations this semester.) Click for Handout

Wednesday 9/3

• What is History?
• Reading: John Arnold, History: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 1-14.

Friday 9/5

• OVERVIEW – THE CONQUEST IN A DAY
• Reading: Ross Hassig, “The Collision of Two Worlds” in The Oxford History of Mexico, William Beezley and Michael Meyer, eds., (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), 73-107.
• Reading: Gerald Graff and Cathy Birkenstein, They Say/I Say: The Moves that Matter in Academic Writing, 4th ed. (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., Inc., 2014), 1-29. (intro and Chapter 1)

Assignment They Say/I Say Tutorial - CH 1

Week 3 (September 8-12)

Monday 9/8

• Discussion – How to Read a Primary Source
• Reading: Lee Braver, “How I Mark Up Philosophy Texts,” APA Newsletter on Teaching Philosophy 14:1 (FALL 2014), 13-16.
• Reading: Arnold, History: A Very Short Introduction, 110-116 (you do not need to read the entire chapter).
• Reading: Graf and Birkenstein, They Say/I Say, 32-46, 188-92. (Chapter 2 & 13)

Assignment They Say/I Say Tutorial - CH 2

Wednesday 9/10

• Writing Workshop: Explicating Evidence
• In-Class Exercises
• Reading: Graf and Birkenstein, They Say/I Say, 47-58. (Ch 3)

Assignment They Say/I Say Tutorial - CH 3

Friday 9/12

• Spanish Sources I – Cortés’ 1st Letter
• Reading: Hernán Cortés, Letters from Mexico (New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 2001), 3-46.
• Reading: Graf and Birkenstein, They Say/I Say, 59-73. (Ch 4)

Assignment They Say/I Say Tutorial - CH 4

Week 4 (September 15-19)

Monday 9/15

• Writing Workshop - AI and Cortés’s First Letter
• Reading: Jonathan Zimmerman, “Here’s my AI policy for students: I don’t have one,” Washington Post, August 29, 2023. Link to pdf
• O’Rourke, Meghan. “I Teach Creative Writing. This Is What A.I. Is Doing to Students” Opinion. The New York Times, July 18, 2025. (pdf on Canvas)
• Enthusiast, Eleventh Hour. “Your Brain on ChatGPT: Accumulation of Cognitive Debt When Using an AI Assistant for Essay Writing…” Medium, June 23, 2025. (pdf)

Wednesday 9/17

• Overcoming Public Speaking Anxiety / What Makes a Successful Presentation?
• Reading: Graf and Birkenstein, They Say/I Say, 72-81 (Ch 5 & 6)

Assignment They Say/I Say Tutorial - CH 5 AND Assignment CH 6

Friday 9/19

• In Class – Public Speaking Workshop

Week 5 (September 22-26)

Monday 9/22

• Spanish Sources II – Díaz’s “Historia Verdadera”
• Reading: Bernal Díaz del Castillo, The Conquest of New Spain, trans. by J.M. Cohen, (London: Penguin Books, 1963), 7-14, 57-106.
• Presentation #1

Wednesday 9/24

• Spanish Sources III – Cortés’ 2nd Letter
• Reading: Cortés, Letters from Mexico, 47-102 PDF of Second Letter and Notes for Second Letter
• Presentation #1 - Anna and Logan

Friday 9/26 Class today meets in 203 Fellows Hall

• Spanish Sources IV – Díaz’s “Historia Verdadera”
• Reading: Díaz del Castillo, The Conquest of New Spain, 107-113, 119-125, 140-188.
• Presentation #1 - Graham, Luca, and Phuc

Week 6 (September 29 - October 3)

Monday 9/29

• Spanish Sources V – Díaz’s “Historia Verdadera”
• Reading: Díaz del Castillo, The Conquest of New Spain, 189-244.
• Presentation #1 - Owen and Lauren

Wednesday 10/1

• Spanish Sources VI – Cortés’ 2nd Letter, cont.
• Reading: Cortés, Letters from Mexico, 102-143.
• Presentation #1 - Holden and Macky

Friday 10/3

• Spanish Sources VII – Díaz’s “Historia Verdadera”
• Reading: Díaz del Castillo, The Conquest of New Spain, 245-302.
• Presentation #1 - Matt and Tyler G

Week 7 (October 6-10)

Monday 10/6

• Writing Workshop – Paper #1
• DUE: Full Draft Paper #1
• Prompt: Assume the world ended on July 1, 1520, how would the Spanish Chroniclers (Hernan Cortés and Bernal Díaz del Castillo) have characterized the Conquest of Mexico to that point? What were the most important factors or interesting processes that they identified to explain the course of the Conquest to that date? Do you agree with them? How would you characterize the course of conquest to that date based on their writings? Were the Spanish winning? Why or why not?

Wednesday 10/8

• Sentences Workshop

• Reading: Graf and Birkenstein, They Say/I Say, 112-122 (Ch 8)
• Assignment They Say/I Say Tutorial - CH 8

Friday 10/10 **NO CLASS MEETING TODAY

• Podcasting Workshop
• Please identify a podcast software that you can use for our presentations later in the semester. It doesn’t matter which one, so long as you can produce .wav4 or .mp3 files

• Here is a tutorial for Audacity

• Assignment - post a 15 second podcast about anything you want (post it here)
• Reading: Graf and Birkenstein, They Say/I Say, 123-138. (Ch 9)

Assignment They Say/I Say Tutorial - CH 9

DUE - PAPER #2

Week 8 (October 13-17)

Monday 10/13

• Spanish Sources VIII – Cortés’ 3rd Letter
• Reading: Cortés, Letters from Mexico, 143-207
• Presentation #1 - Andrew and Tyler M

Wednesday 10/15

• Spanish Sources IX – Cortés’s 3rd Letter, cont.
• Reading: Cortés, Letters from Mexico, 207-281.

Friday 10/17

• Fall Break - No Class

Week 9 (October 20-24)

Monday 10/20

• Spanish Sources X – Díaz’s “Historia Verdadera”
• Reading: Diaz del Castillo, The Conquest of New Spain, 303-307, 353-413.
• Presentation #1 Omar and Jonathan

Wednesday 10/22

• Writing Workshop: Plagiarism and How to Read (and Write) about Secondary Sources; or, Writing as Conversation

• Reading: Oswald Patton, “A Closed Letter to Myself about Thievery, Heckling, and Rape Jokes” Section 1 “Thievery” at https://genius.com/Patton-oswalt-a-closed-letter-to-myself-about-thievery-heckling-and-rape-jokes-annotated (YOU ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR THE “HECKLING” OR “RAPE JOKES” SECTIONS)

• Reading: Graf and Birkenstein, They Say/I Say, 154-164. (CH 11)
• Complete the “Plagiarism Tutorial” from They Say Assignment They Say/I Say Tutorial - CH 11

Friday 10/24

• The Aztecs in a Day
• Reading: “How they reared the sons of lords and noblemen,” Bernardino de Sahagún, Florentine Codex: General History of the Things of New Spain, Book 8—Kings and Lords, Chapter 21.
• Reading: “Advice of an Aztec Mother to Her Daughter,” from Bernardino de Sahagún, Historia de Nueva España
• RECOMMENDED: David Carrasco, The Aztecs: A Very Short Introduction (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), 1-7, 16-33, and 38-71.

Week 10 (October 27-31)

Monday 10/27

• Writing Workshop – Paper #3
• DUE: Full Draft Paper #3
• Prompt: Now that we have finished the Spanish Chroniclers, how do these authors explain Spanish victory and native defeat? Do you (dis)agree? Based on your reading of Spanish Chroniclers, how would you explain the Spanish defeat of the Aztec Empire?

• Reading: Graf and Berkenstein, They Say, 165-87. (Ch 12)

• Assignment They Say/I Say Tutorial - CH 12

Wednesday 10/29

• Indigenous Accounts I – The Florentine Codex
• Reading: James Lockhart, We People Here: Nahuatl Accounts of The Conquest of Mexico (Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2004), 27-36, 48-113 (Chapters 1-15).
• Reading: Diego Muñoz Camargo, Historia de Tlaxcala (1585), from http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/amerbegin/contact/text6/mexica_tlaxcala.pdf, pgs. 8-11.

Friday 10/31

• Library Workshop
• Reading: Graf and Birkenstein, They Say/I Say, 139-153. (Ch 10)
• DUE: Paper #4

Week 11 (November 3-7)

Monday 11/3

• Indigenous Accounts II – The Florentine Codex
• Reading: Lockhart, We People Here, 114-181 (Chapters 16-28) & 256-73
• Presentation #2

Wednesday 11/5

• Indigenous Accounts III – The Florentine Codex
• Reading: Lockhart, We People Here, 181-256 (Chapters 29-41).
• Presentation #2

Friday 11/7

• Writing Workshop Paper #5
• DUE: Full Draft Paper #5

• Prompt: How do the indigenous authors explain the conquest? Their defeat? Based on your reading of Indigenous Chronicles, how would you explain the Aztec defeat at the hands of the Spanish?

• DUE: Initial Thoughts on Final Project

Week 12 (November 10-14)

Monday 11/10

• Interpretations I – Technology and Tactics?
• Reading: Douglas A. Daniel, “Tactical Factors in the Spanish Conquest of the Aztecs,” Anthropological Quarterly 65:4 (1992), 187-94.
• Reading: Matthew Restall, “Neither Paid nor Forced: The Myth of the King’s Army” in Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest (New York; Oxford University Press, 2004), 27-43.
• Presentation #2
• Reading: Graf and Birkenstein, They Say/I Say, 193-204. (Ch 14)

Wednesday 11/12

• Interpretations II – Culture?
• Reading: Tzvetan Todorov, The Conquest of America: The Question of the Other, Richard Howard, trans., (Harper Perennial, 1984), p 51-77, 93-123.
• Presentation #2

Friday 11/14

• Interpretations III – Indian Civil War?
• Reading: Michel Oudijk and Matthew Restall, “Mesoamerican Conquistadors in the Sixteenth Century” in Indian Conquistadors: Indigenous Allies in the Conquest of Mesoamerica (University of Oklahoma Press, 2007), 28-64.
• Presentation #2
• Reading: Graf and Birkenstein, They Say/I Say, 205-233 (Ch 15)
• DUE: Paper #6

Week 13 (November 17-21)

Monday 11/17

• Interpretations IV – The White God Myth?
• Reading: Camilla Townsend, “Burying the White Gods: New Perspectives on the Conquest of Mexico,” American Historical Review 108:3 (June 2003), 659-687.
• Presentation #2

Wednesday 11/19

• Interpretations V – Culture Clash?
• Reading: Inga Clendinnen, “‘Fierce and Unnatural Cruelty:’ Cortés and the Conquest of Mexico,” Representations 33 (1991): 35-60.

• Presentation #2

• DUE: Annotated Bibliography for Final Podcast

Friday 11/21

• Interpretations VI – Moctezuma?
• Reading: Susan B. Gillespie, “Blaming Moteuczoma: The Anthropomorphization of the Aztec Conquest,” in Invasion and Transformation: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on the Conquest of Mexico, R.P. Brienen and M.A. Jackson, eds., (Boulder: University Press of Colorado, 2008), 25-55.
• Presentation #2

Thanksgiving Break (November 24-28)

No Classes November 24-28

Week 14 (December 1-5)

Monday 12/1

• In-Class Writing Accountability Day
• DUE: Argument Proposal for Final Podcast

Wednesday 12/3

• In-Class Writing Accountability Day
• DUE by 5pm: Paper #7 Critical Literature Review
• Write a 500-word essay that puts three (or more) of the 7 historians above in conversation

Friday 12/5

• In-Class Writing Accountability Day

Week 15 (December 8-12)

Monday 12/8

• In-Class Writing Accountability Day

Wednesday 12/10

• In-Class Writing Accountability Day
• DUE: Paper #8 - Full Draft of Podcast Script

Friday 12/12

• Course Evaluations & Wrap-up

Finals Week

Wednesday, December 17 @ 11:00am

• Final Podcast and Paper #9 - Final Script Due

Thursday, December 18 @ 5pm

• Review of Classmates Podcasts Due