Teaching — Patrick T. Troester, Ph.D.

I approach teaching as my best opportunity to create positive change in the world. Knowing that a broad understanding of the past and the ability to think historically each offer students powerful tools, I balance content knowledge with a student-centered “uncovering” pedagogy that teaches the fundamentals of historical analysis. Over the past eight years, I have taught diverse undergraduates at the University of Akron, Fort Lewis College, and Southern Methodist University, engaging students across a wide array of socioeconomic, cultural, and regional backgrounds. My past offerings include early and modern U.S. surveys as well as intermediate courses on the U.S. West, Latin America, and the Civil War Era. I am also prepared to teach courses at a range of levels on the American West, North American borderlands, Native American history, Early America, and the linked histories of the United States and Mexico. Sample syllabi for some of my current and past offerings can be found below:

From day one, my survey students learn and practice the methods historians use to interpret primary source evidence and construct historical narratives and arguments, beginning with hands-on activities in class. In my survey courses, readings concentrate on primary sources. Students use the Perusall social reading app to annotate and discuss course texts online as they read. In these graded exercises, students not only prepare for engaged in-class discussion, but those with stronger historical thinking skills actively model such practices for their classmates. Over the semester, students build a scaffold of knowledge and skills from which they progress individually to a two-part series of primary source analysis assignments. In the first, they choose a document from an online database and analyze it through a series of short-answer questions. Near the end of the semester, they choose one of our assigned primary readings and then seek out an additional related document on their own. Students analyze the two side-by-side, demonstrating their skills in sourcing, critical reading, contextualization, and corroboration.

In middle and upper-division courses, readings pivot toward secondary source material in the form of scholarly books and articles. I continue using the Perusall annotation assignments for shorter selections, guiding students through the skills of critically reading and evaluating argument, narrative, and evidence. For longer texts, students work together in small groups on short answer reading questions. They first submit individual answers to an online discussion thread before meeting in-class to discuss their work and compile a single graded set of responses for the group. Over the semester, groups cultivate an intellectual community of peers, working together to master challenging course material and supporting one another through the real-world challenges that invariably arise when balancing school, work, family, and personal well-being.

At both levels, I evaluate content knowledge with open-ended take-home “Describe and Defend” assignments. At Midterm, students first compile a list of the people, events, or forces they consider most important to understanding the period covered in our first unit. They must then accurately describe each item in its historical context and provide a well-reasoned explanation of why they chose it. We review these assignments together as a class, analyzing the patterns of thinking that emerged and reflecting on how each of us defines and judges what is important in studying the past. The final Describe and Defend assignment repeats this process for the second unit, before asking students to re-visit their midterms, choosing and defending a cumulative list that covers the entire semester.

My major writing assignments in middle and upper division courses break away from traditional academic essays, offering students greater agency in choosing the medium, focus, and format of their work. I aim above all to evaluate mastery of course material while fostering creativity. In my mid-level 19th Century American West course, for instance, students respond to Gordon Chang’s book, Ghosts of Gold Mountain, which reconstructs the experiences of Chinese workers on the Central Pacific Railroad who left behind no surviving first-hand accounts. Students answer Chang’s call to try and place ourselves in the position of these silent historical figures and “see the world from their points of view” by writing a fictional primary source from the perspective of a worker on the transcontinental line. Students are free to choose the format, genre, and content of their imagined source but must also ground their writing in the arguments and evidence of the book. A similar assignment in my upcoming Civil War and Reconstruction course will ask students to review a film of their choice depicting the Civil War Era. After reading brief selections on Civil War memory and examples of film reviews by historians, each student will produce their own review in the form of an essay, video review, or podcast.

In sum, my teaching aims to equip students at all levels with a both strong working knowledge of the past and the core skills required to build upon that foundation, allowing them to apply historical thinking to better navigate the challenges of the present.