WebBoard Journals

A major part of your work for this seminar will entail keeping an electronic journal. Entries will be submitted twice a week on the WebBoard in order to be read by the other seminar participants. These entries should record reactions and thoughts about the readings, class discussions, films, service learning project, and other events or experiences relating to the class materials. The journal will count for 25% of your grade. (You will participate in evaluating your journal during the semester.)

The journal should be a place for you to grapple and interact with the course material. It should be a tool to think with, not just a task to complete. Rather than worrying about details of grammar and writing mechanics, you should concentrate on raising questions and making connections. Reflect about the assignments to yourself and others in the conference: What do I care about? What do I know? What don’t I know? What do I want to know?

Short Essays

Besides keeping the journal, students will be expected to complete two short essays, a PowerPoint presentation, and a research paper. The first short essay (1 ½ -2 pages) will be based on the visit to the East Wing of the National Gallery in Washington, D.C. on Sunday, September 27. During this visit select one work from the twentieth-century art collection at the East Wing, preferably from the 1950s or 1960s, and discuss why you find it meaningful. How does this work speak to your own life experiences?  What do you find attractive about it and why?  What views of the world and of art does your painting or sculpture embody?  This paper is due Friday, October 2.

 The second short essay (2½ -3 pages) will compare and contrast one piece from "Love: Error and Eros" exhibit at the American Visionary Art Museum with Allen Ginsberg’s vision of love in his poem "Howl." In order to be fully prepared for this museum visit on Saturday, October 3, you should read "Howl" before we go. This paper is due Friday, October 9.  Please submit reproductions of your selected pieces for both assignments even if they are just sketches. We will post the papers on the WebBoard and discuss them in class.

PowerPoint Presentations

The PowerPoint presentations will deal with the music of the 1950s and 1960s.  You will work in groups of three for these presentations, selecting a popular song from this period and providing an analysis that places the song in a larger cultural and historical context. This analysis should provide biographical material about the artist who recorded the song and should discuss how the song’s lyrics and the music itself illuminate the experience of coming of age during these years. Explore, in particular, how the dynamics of gender, race, and class shape the portrayal of growing up. Be sure to draw on the readings and films as well as the web resources suggested on the New Frontier web site. Tutorials on using PowerPoint will be offered early in the semester, and Paige and James will be available to help with any questions or problems as well. For examples of work done by last year's students, click here.

Research Papers

The research paper (6-8 pages) will examine some aspect of growing up in the United States during the 1950s and 1960s, incorporating the course readings, films, and discussions, as well as additional research.  Past topics have included:

  1) Nurses and Coming of Age in Vietnam during the 1960s
  2) Growing Up Black in the Segregated South
  3) Catholicism and Coming of Age in the Fifties
  4) The 1960s Free Speech Movement:  A Coming of Age
  5) The Psychedelic Movement and Coming of Age in the Sixties
  6) Television and Growing Up in the 1950s
  7) Gay Liberation and Coming of Age in the 1960s
  8) Female Gender Roles and Growing Up in the 1950s
  9) The Peace Corps and Coming of Age in the Sixties
10) Sexual Repression in the Fifties and Coming of Age

A thesis statement and bibliography is due Monday, November 16 and the paper is due Monday, December 7. I will read drafts until Wednesday, December 2. The final exam, a series of essay questions covering the semester’s work, will be scheduled by the SAS office.

The Hamilton-Goucher Technology Project

This course is has a one-credit, pass/no pass "service learning" option in the spring semester. This means that you will have the opportunity to augment your traditional learning experience in the classroom this semester with experiential learning in the form of community service next semester.

Our project involves working with eighth graders from Ed Burns's social studies class at Hamilton Middle School in Baltimore. Each student in the seminar will pair off with a student at Hamilton, helping the eighth graders to develop PowerPoint presentations on growng up today.  In addition, we will assist them in learning how to use e-mail and the Web.

This experience should allow you not only to enhance your own computer skills but also to think about the differences between coming of age in the nineties and coming of age in the fifties and sixties. Carol Weinberg, coordinator of Community Service at Goucher, and Al Grucelski, the coordinator of information technology at Hamilton Middle, School will meet with us early in the semester to help us prepare for this experience. Also, Paige Young and James Haugland—two of last year’s Frontiers students – will help us master the use of e-mail, the Web, and PowerPoint.

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