Miguel Giron

Annotated Bibliography
Booth, Alan. Teaching History at the University: enhancing Learning and Understanding.
London: Routledge. 2003.
In Teaching History at the University, Booth challenges historians to reframe the way

history is taught at an undergraduate level. Specifically, Booth explains that teaching should be

rewarded, treated as a scholarly skill, and more engaged in pedagogical techniques. The book

deliberately places the professor and student within context of learning history at a higher critical

level as opposed to traditional models of teaching. Booth thoughtfully, and most intriguingly,

expands on how a student themselves perceive history and learn it. In doing so, on of the books

primary goals is to switch the perspective of a professor to learn not only how to effectively

teach undergraduates but engage with them at a nuanced level of activity.

Burton, Antoinette. A Primer for Teaching World History: Ten Design Principles. Durham:

Duke University Press. 2011.

In the process of teaching world history, one is met with dilemmas about course content

and breadth. Burton takes the challenge to design ten principles to aid in the negotiation of such

dilemmas for educators teaching their world history surveys. Most interesting, Burton contends

to teach this history through a thematic approach as opposed to chronological. In focusing on

this, one can take an approach that focuses less on civilization and more on broader themes of

history. I also particularly liked the section of Syllabi. This section put into perspective that the

syllabus is a constant changing and fluid piece of your pedagogical toolkit.

Eng, Norman. Teaching College: The Ultimate Guide to Lecturing, Presenting, and Engaging
Students.
Teaching College provides a complicated challenge in engaging actual teachers at the

university level. While Eng seeks deconstruct the ways undergraduate education is taught, he
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places an overwhelming emphasis on how K-12 techniques could be utilized at the college level.

In some disciplines this approach could work, but in history the challenge is different. It is also

not fully discussed in the book, but we can utilize this book at face value to increase the breadth

of knowledge on pedagogical techniques.

Kelsky, Karen. The Professor is In: The Essential Guide to Turning your Ph.D. into a Job. New
York: Three Rivers Press. 2015.
In a world of bleak academic job prospects, Kelsky entices one to critically think about

earning the coveted prize of a tenure track job. The Professor is In gives valuable advice about

interviewing, networking, and developing meaningful professional development in graduate

school. One of the best piece of advice in the book was to “stop talking like a grad student.” In

other words, Kelsky argues that in networking situations potential colleagues are not interested in

a well refined and robotic scholar. Rather, they want to know who you are and what your

dissertation does instead of what you have researched. Part of being in the academy is also being

personable and outgoing since potential departments want someone who they could work with

for several years. Kelsy also provides invaluable insights into the process of interviewing and job

talks.

Levesque, Sthepane. Thinking Historically: Educating for the Twenty-First Century. Toronto:
University of Toronto Press. 2009.
In Thinking Historically, Levesque synthesizes strategies to reorganize the methods we

choose to teach history. Levesque developed five procedural concepts each with a defined

purpose in understanding, informing, and redeploying pedagogical techniques. The procedural

concepts are: Historical Significance, Continuity and Change, Progress and Decline, Evidence,

and finally Historical Empathy. Each of the chapters is a focus on a concept and expands our
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notions of teaching history by involving the teacher themselves to engage in understanding the

ways we present information to our students.

Lindaman, Dana & Ward, Kyle. History Lessons: How Textbooks from Around the World
Portray U.S. History. New York: The New Press. 2006.
History Lessons is a collection of perspectives about how other countries see American

history. By framing the book this way, we see how the global world diversified the lens in which

American historical events are looked at. The authors cover a large span of history from

Columbus to WWII and the recent past. It is interesting how countries who are simply

synthesizing historical events that they themselves are not apart of, view this history and how

they draw their conclusions.

Loewen, James. Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got
Wrong. New York: Touchstone. 2007.
Loewen’s Lies My Teacher Told Me attempts to dismantle common assumptions and

myths about typical historical narratives. He essentially is deconstructing the notion of “hero” or

“presidential” history by giving a counternarrative to certain historical examples. Loewen spends

a considerable amount of time on Columbus who proves to be one of the main culprits that has

been misconstrued for generations. The book also goes over the issues of textbooks and the ways

that they lead to problems. In his examination of some of these textbooks, he finds that attention

is not equally paid to many events and that there is too much content in many high school

textbooks.

McTighe, Jay & Wiggins, Grant. Understanding by Design. Association for Supervision and
Curriculum Development. 2007.
Understanding by Design takes an innovative approach in constructing pedagogical
materials. The basic premise is that when developing assignments, syllabi, and other resources, a
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teacher should understand what the goals for that material is. In that sense, any resource
produced should have certain skills and content that is transferable in knowledge. The book also
gives a lot of advice and guidance on designing that is in itself able to transfer through multiple
disciplines.