Students in 2024 who extend their residential experience with a few weeks of online work can receive free Dickinson College credit for their coursework that should be transferrable to any college or university.**
Web Portfolio
All students will post their initial close reading reflection essay and document video at the 2024 projects site built in WordPress. Later, students will be able to publish these essays and share them online. Students who proceed with college credit will then add a second close reading post to this site and a final essay on Lincoln and Frederick Douglass. These online portfolios will then serve as a way for all students to share their academic work from this summer with a wider world. Dickinson College will provide free hosting services for this website.
During the campus experience in July, all students will have one close reading reflection essay due; first draft on Sunday afternoon, July 21 (to grad TAs) and final version on Monday evening, July 22 for grading by Prof. Pinsker. This close reading reflection (about 500 words or 2-3 pages single spaced) will summarize and analyze one of the featured texts from the seminar’s collection. All reflections should be posted at the 2024 projects site with a selection of 2-3 images (properly credited and captioned) and with a link to one short video built in WeVideo that attempts to bring to life a short snippet (20 to 60 seconds) from the assigned text. These assignments will be evaluated and graded on the basis of prose quality, analysis, and video effort. Models for these reflection essays and document videos are available at the course site. Students are required to participate in at least one brainstorming sessions with their assigned TA. Last posts will be penalized up to 5 points per day.
Four weeks after completion of the July seminar (by Friday August 23), students seeking college credit will be required to submit a second close reading reflection post and a new final essay (about 2,000 words to 2,500. words or roughly 4 to 6 pages, single spaced) that draws lessons about how best to achieve change in American democracy through comparing and contrasting the antislavery strategies of Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln. Essays should include properly captioned and credited images as well as Chicago-style footnotes, citing wherever relevant the primary source texts from the course syllabus as well as from James Oakes’s dual biography of Douglass and Lincoln and Jonathan Holloway’s survey of African American history, both provided by the program, . Outside research beyond these materials is allowed but not required. Final essay projects will be graded on prose quality, research and depth of analysis. Models for these essays will be available at the course site via the Student Hall of Fame. All final essay projects should be posted at the 2024 student projects site.
** Credit decisions come with the caveat that all institutions of higher education determine the transferability of college credit on their own basis.