Jo McCutcheon

For the past several years, my approach to major projects has adapted to both the diversity of interests’ students have regarding why they are studying history and to the ways that students share that they learn about history. For several years, many of the undergraduate classes I taught included an option for students to be part of the Centre for Global Engagement which worked with local community organizations and institutions to have students work up to 30 hours a term with an organization that provided complimentary experience regarding course content.  For this post, I am thinking particularly about teaching and learning about the lives of girls, women, and when possible queer community members.

During COVID 19 restrictions, the Community Service option was removed from the classes I was teaching and instead, I worked to further develop an assignment that has provided students with the opportunity to create history. Over the past five years, students have had the opportunity to leverage technology to create websites and online exhibitions or podcasts and short videos, usually in the context of Digital History and learning ways to effectively leverage technology to analyze, organize and systematize sources to better understand the past and to develop skills that many heritage institutions look for when hiring.

Thinking about how to approach this assignment, when teaching a fourth-year seminar course, Canada’s Material Past in the Digital Era and in more focused courses on the history of women, girls, and queer community members in Canada, I have been working on the assessment, expectations, mandatory elements and learning outcomes for this assignment. I have also been adapting the systematic framework that I share with students about the way they locate, study, and use primary sources in their projects.

These assignments can be worth between 30 and 40 % of a student’s final grade.  All projects are approved, and students submit a project proposal that may be an outline or plan where students share their ideas, challenges, and questions about their projects.  They must include both primary and secondary sources they will be using to learn about their topics. Project proposals were previously worth 5 % of the student grade, but after a few years, I decided to increase its value to demonstrate the importance of thinking about their projects from the outset of the course and to recognize the work they are doing toward their final projects.  For first- and second-year classes, the major project is worth 30 % and for third- and fourth-year students, the major project is worth 40 %.

The work that students undertake is equal to writing a 2500-to-3000-word assignment for first- and second-year assignments and 3500 to 4000 words for third- and fourth-year students.

1. All work submitted, regardless of the final format must have a bibliography of secondary sources and it should include primary sources. Students are taught Zotero the first class of term to help them track and manage their research.
2. All work submitted must have a short (750 to 1000 words) reflective element on the experience of using material objects and formalizing their methodological framework.
3. All work submitted must have a short introduction to their work and students should consider and describe why they selected the approach and method shared in their final project. Students may discuss and describe how they leveraged technology to undertake their work, and this includes the websites, online searches, databases, text mining and other tools they used to manage large data sets of photographs, online patterns, cookbooks, and other tools related to material history.
4. Regardless of the final format for their project, the word count should reflect the tabs, posts, scripts, or descriptions they write for their final project. Students who have created history are asked to quantify the amount of time they spent on their work, to photograph the creation process and to include these images in the submitted assignments.

Methodological Frameworks

Course content includes an introduction to the methodology introduced and adapted by Smith et al.,   “Towards a Material History Methodology” Material History Bulletin 22 (Fall 1985): 36-37.

Students are encouraged to keep notes that describe the material, construction, function, provenance, meaning and value of material objects that have been made or they wish to make. They are required to consider the knowledge and expertise they need to study this object. Whenever possible, students are encouraged to include images and hyperlinks to their work and the objects they are studying. For the objects, this methodology also considers the material historic object, a comparative object and to find sources that will help them to understand the object using supplementary sources.  Consider how these items may tell us more about gender, age, class, ethnicity, religion, and identity. Students have used this methodology to consider the daily activities of girls and women regarding crotchet, embroidery, knitting and sewing.

This methodology can also be adapted to consider food and the diverse ways that women have created and made food overtime. Students can use personal contexts to locate recipes or use online collections of cookbooks like the one at the University of Guelph: https://www.lib.uoguelph.ca/archives/our-collections/culinary/canadian-cookbook-collection

For this approach,  the material history methodology is adapted to systematically analyze categories of analysis.  For example, they must describe and consider the ingredients needed to make the item.  They will also detail, in writing and with photographs, the steps to bake/cook/create/process the ingredients and describe and locate the implements and technology used to make the food item. A significant part of their work is to analyze the function or purpose of the item baked/cooked.  Provenance is key to making items as it challenges students to research where ingredients can and could be procured and where implements and tools to create the items were available, now and then. The last category of analysis has students articulating the the meaning and value they experience and understand from making the item, from placing it in its historical context and from learning about the item from family, friends and community members.  This context may include special or ritual events and occasions, costs of ingredients and tools. Like the methodology to consider crotchet, embroidery, knitting and sewing, students may consider comparative examples of items and recipes by exploring recipes from different time periods, locations, ethnic communities and within significant historical moments like conflict, economic depressions, and migration movements.

For this assignment, students often will connect with family, friends, and community members in some cases to learn about the information and skills they need to create their projects.  This supports a different approach to learning and for some students, it is a meaningful way to engage their family with the learning they are undertaking. Students have worked with grandparents, Elders, and skilled makers to think about the lives of girls and women using historical thinking skills.

Sample Learning Objectives for this Assignment and the History of Women in Canada

1. To be able to articulate and describe how the lives of girls, women and queer community members of diverse identities, classes, and cultures have changed over time.
2. To evaluate a diversity of historical texts, literary texts, primary sources, and digital tools placing them in their historical context as they relate to girls, women, and queer community members in Canada.
3. To be able to identify relevant course material and resources and integrate them into your project work. To learn inside and outside the classroom environment.
4. To demonstrate your analytical skills and critical reading of secondary and primary sources in-class and on-line in a respectful and professional manner.
5. Write well using tools and resources to organize and systematize your work. Write with care and respect when sharing your ideas and research related to the lives of girls, women, and queer community members in Canada.

Additional Resources

Smith, et al. “‘Research Reports – Toward a Material History Methodology’ #22. Material History Bulletin (Fall 1985) Pages 31 to 40.” Memorial University of Newfoundland – Digital Archive Initiative. Accessed May 12, 2016. http://collections.mun.ca/cdm/compoundobject/collection/cbu/id/3834/rec/1

Fleming, McClung E. “Artifact Study: A Proposed Model.” Winterthur Portfolio 9 (1974): 153–73. McIntyre, W. John. “Artifacts as Sources for Material History Research.” Material Culture Review / Revue

Prown, Jules David. “Mind in Matter: An Introduction to Material Culture Theory and Method.” Winterthur Portfolio, Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum Inc. University of Chicago Press, 17, no. 1 (Spring 1982).

Ulrich, Laurel Thatcher. “Of Pens and Needles: Sources in Early American Women’s History.” Journal of American History 77, no. 1 (June 1990): 200–207. https://doi.org/10.2307/2078652.

Newspapers and magazines can provide access to advertisements for food and clothing.  Other databases include  material object  and printed resources students can explore as well as sources students can use to supplement their research:

1. HTTP://SEARCH.OURONTARIO.CA/
2. https://www.lib.uoguelph.ca/archives/our-collections/culinary/canadian-cookbook-collection
3. https://www.manitobafoodhistory.ca/
4. https://www.glenbow.org/art-artifacts/collection-overview/
5. http://collections.musee-mccord.qc.ca/en/keys/collections/
6. https://app.pch.gc.ca/application/artefacts_hum/indice_index.app?lang=en
7. https://www.canadiana.ca
8. Canada, Library and Archives. “Canadian Mail Order Catalogues,” . http://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/discover/postal-heritage-philately/canadian-mail-order-catalogues/Pages/canadian-mail-order-catalogues.aspx

 Jo holds her doctorate in Canadian history from the University of Ottawa and has been teaching part-time at the university’s History department since 1997.  She teaches a diversity of Canadian and American undergraduate survey history courses and fourth year seminars that focus on archives, decolonization and material history. She has served as a Board Member of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) and as a SSHRC program committee member. She has been an active member of the CHA and has supported the CHA Teaching Blog and social media for several CHA affiliated committees including the History of Children and Youth Group and the Public History Group. Her current academic research focuses on the ways historians and researchers can use hair to learn more about the construction of gender and growing up in a North American context.