VIRTUAL 11

We're in the home stretch; our last virtual session will help you focus on your interview papers on life in the 20th century. On the last day of class we'll use this session to review the 20th century and share some of your interview stories. There are two tasks and two postings:

TASK 1. CHOOSING SIGNIFICANT EVENTS: Use the on-line notes for Part III of the syllabus, the TB chapters for those lectures, and some of these web sites to select what you think are the ten most significant events of the 20th Century:

	PBS People’s Century site at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/peoplescentury/
	Life Magazine's selection at http://www.pathfinder.com/Life/millennium/events/100.html

Remember: To make choices you have to have your criteria clear for deciding what makes an event historically significant.

	What topics do you consider most important for understanding the 20th century? PBS provides an overview of topics at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/peoplescentury/theme/theme.html#fast.
	How does the course's theme of modernity figure into your choices?

FOR YOUR FIRST POST: Present your selection of the ten most significant events of the century, giving a sentence of two explaining their significance. (As you select events and topics for your list, think about how your choices might relate to the life of the person you interviewed for your paper.)

TASK 2: PRESENTING A STORY FROM YOUR SUBJECT'S LIFE:

This gives you the chance to contribute to the Core Studies 4 Web Site by posting a part of your interview material. As historians you will be providing sources for understanding the past.

For this session you use the PBS People’s Century site to see examples of short presentations of memories. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/peoplescentury/ [Unfortunately, this material seems not be be available at present.]

REMEMBER: unlike the usual weekly posts, these must be carefully edited – check them for spelling and grammar.

DIRECTIONS:

1. Take a look at one of the interview excerpts – for example:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/peoplescentury/episodes/redflag/fedorovatranscript.html

Note how the questions are related to the major topic of the episode – in this example, Revolutionary Russia. Following the form of the PBS interviews, choose part of your own interview that is most useful for your essay’s main topic and post the question and your subject's answer. (In cases where the answer is long, you may choose to summarize the answer in your own words rather than provide a transcript while providing a short quote or two.)

2. Take a look at some of the stories that people have submitted to PBS:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/peoplescentury/tellus/ [Unfortunately, this material seems not be be available at present.]

They are very short, no more than 300 words. Each one is a brief experience that illustrates some 20^th century topic. For your second post, give a similar BRIEF story from your subject’s experience. Be sure your story makes the historical context clear.