Spirit of the Course

While this course defines the American West in geographic terms—lands between the Mississippi River and Pacific Ocean—the historical meaning of the region transcends simple geography. The history of the West has long been tied to the very identity of US society and culture. From 1800 to the present, the Trans-Mississippi West did evolve in explosive and surprising ways that in turn heavily impacted the course of our national history. In the end, however, public understanding of the West has been shaped by scholarship as well as by influences like myth, media, and simple wishful thinking.

In this course, we will examine the American West through both academic and popular lenses, focusing on themes as wide-ranging as federal Indian and environmental policies to the emergence of Hollywood and the evolution of Mormonism. We will see that, if nothing else, the Trans-Mississippi West inspired dreamers of all sorts. Some of them succeeded while others were left with little more than their struggles, but all of them helped shape both a region and nation.

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Required Textbooks

The following textbooks are required for this course:

• Robert Hine and John Mack Faragher, The American West: A New Interpretative History (2000)
• Clyde A. Milner, Anne M. Butler, and David Rich Lewis, eds., Major Problems in the History of the American West, 2nd edition (1997)
• Ray Allen Billington and Martin Ridge, Westward Expansion: A History of the American Frontier, 6th edition (2001)
• James Welch, Fools Crow, reprint edition (1987)
• Marc Reisner, Cadillac Desert, reprint edition (1993)

You can order these texts from the Higher Grounds bookstore at the Friday Center in person, online, or by using the book order form.

The rest of your required readings are available free online.

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Course Requirements and Grading

This course has weekly lessons. Each lesson starts out with a few notes to introduce you to the material. Then you'll see the assigned readings—most readings will be from your textbooks, although some articles are available free online. (Note that in Lesson 8, you need to read the entire book, Fools Crow, so you might want to get an early start on that!) Each lesson provides links to Web sites that have good information on the material we are studying. You'll also see a list of the important terms in that lesson. The "Questions to Consider" section is designed to get you thinking about the implications of what you've been reading about. Finally you will see the discussion question that I want you to discuss with your classmates on the discussion forum.

Discussion forum

You are required to participate in a weekly discussion of the assigned readings by posting responses at least twice each week on the Blackboard discussion forum. (See Course Mechanics for information about Blackboard). An initial query appears in each lesson. By Wednesday you are expected to post a response to the initial query, and you are encouraged to post follow-up questions based on your classmates' postings. By Sunday, you are expected to respond to the follow-up questions posted by me and your classmates.

Written assignments

During the semester, you will be required to complete two five- to seven-page essays (2,000 to 2,800 words). As you complete these essays, please keep the following points in mind.

• You need to place each of your responses in proper essay form. That is, you must have an introduction containing a thesis statement (which summarizes the main points of the essay), a body that follows the outline stated in the introduction, and, finally, a summarizing conclusion. For more information about the construction of a good essay, you may want to consult a basic English textbook or UNC's Web site The Writing Center: Handouts and Links.

• The general argument(s) in each essay should be your own and thus should reflect your thoughts and words.  You should, however, support these fundamental ideas with course materials.  For instance, perhaps you might choose to argue that nineteenth-century Federal Indian policy was simultaneously well intentioned and ethnocentric (your idea). You might then refer to specific actions taken by Congress and the Bureau of Indian Affairs (support from course materials).

• When supporting your arguments with factual detail, try to explain these materials in your own words. If you do occasionally paraphrase or quote from your readings or Internet sources, be sure to use quotation marks and cite your references.

• Each written assignment must be accompanied by a search for an Internet site relevant to your essay topic. You will locate Web sites and then analyze them using a set of criteria. Categories included in the site assessments will be: sources, intended audience, overall presentation, and general usefulness as a historical resource. Guidelines for this activity will be provided. Information from the site should then be incorporated into your essay.

• Submitting assignments: E-mail assignments to me as attachments—preferably in Microsoft Word (.doc) format. If you are unable to save your assignments as Word files, please contact me before sending them.

Final exam

The final exam will be available over a two-day period via a link in the Final Exam section of Blackboard. You will choose two essay questions from a list of three and respond to each of the two questions with an essay of approximately 1,500 words. Once you have accessed the question, you will have twenty-four hours to complete your responses and e-mail them to me. I will not accept any exams after the deadline specified in the course schedule.

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Honor Code

Remember that as a student of UNC-Chapel Hill, you are bound by the University's Honor Code.

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Course Mechanics

Blackboard

Some of your class components (discussion forums, exams, and announcements) are accessed through a software package called Blackboard, and you will need to log in to Blackboard using a unique identifier known as your UNC Onyen (Only name You'll Ever Need) and Onyen password.

There is a link to the Blackboard site in the gray navigation bar at the top of every page in this course. Click on that link, and then use your Onyen to login to Blackboard. Click on the "HIST 374" link, and you will see navigation buttons on the left side of the screen labeled Announcements, Discussion Forum, and so on.

If you experience problems accessing Blackboard, this is what you should do:  

• If you do not already have a UNC Onyen, go to the Onyen Web site and follow the instructions for creating an Onyen.
• If you have an Onyen but have forgotten it (or the password), go to the Onyen Web site.
• If you have your Onyen but can't log in to Blackboard, contact Janice Durham at the Friday Center.
• If you can log in to Blackboard but can't find this course listed, contact Janice Durham at the Friday Center.
• If you can't locate an exam or discussion forum in Blackboard, contact the Instructional Designer.
• If you have other technical problems while using Blackboard, contact Blackboard Help (use the Help button in Blackboard, or call 919-962-HELP).

Library services and e-reserves

Students enrolled in Carolina Courses Online can access online library resources from the UNC Library System by linking to Library Services for Distance Education Students. This site includes information on using general online reference works as well as accessing e-reserves.

If you are using an off-campus computer, you will need to enter your UNC Onyen to access the readings that are available through the library's online system. The UNC library staff is available to assist any students who have difficulties accessing online library resources. If you encounter difficulties, please report your problem by visiting this Web page for reporting a problem and the Proxy Server Team will respond.

Using e-mail

You will receive e-mail messages regarding the course at your UNC e-mail address. Off-campus users can access their UNC e-mail account using Webmail. You can have your UNC e-mail forwarded to a different e-mail address by clicking "Forward e-mail" at the Onyen Web site.

If you use a filter on your e-mail account, you are responsible for ensuring that it does not prevent you from receiving messages from me, the course listserv, or Friday Center staff. Hotmail users should be aware that Hotmail will block messages sent from within Blackboard because Blackboard uses "blind carbon copy" to protect privacy. We recommend that you use your UNC Onyen e-mail account rather than Hotmail for this course.

It is extremely important for you to save copies of any work you send to me via e-mail. If I don't receive your work, you must have a duplicate copy, indicating the date sent, to prove that you submitted the assignment on time. It is your responsibility to maintain copies of your sent e-mails, as there is no way to guarantee that any e-mail message will be delivered.

Please check your e-mail software to see how it manages sent and saved messages. Some software automatically deletes messages one month after they have been sent; others only save messages if they are filed in folders; others save messages received but not those sent. You may need to send yourself a copy of your e-mailed assignment at the same time you send it to me, or you may need to print a copy of the e-mail message and any attachments to keep in your paper files. No matter how your system works, make sure you know how to save a copy of all work that you submit to me and that you save the copy for several months beyond the end of the course.

Other questions

If you have questions regarding

• the content of the course and your progress, contact me. There is a link to my e-mail address at the top of every lesson page. Please include "HIST 374 CCO" and your name in the subject line of your e-mail.
• problems with this Web site, including bad links, contact the Instructional Designer at the Friday Center
• enrollment, Onyen, credits, withdrawal, and so on, contact the Student Services staff at the Friday Center for Continuing Education (phone 919-962-1134 or 800-862-5669).

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Course Schedule