This article describes the account of a "European Queens" course as an example of the intellectual growth available to both the professor and the student when an instructor uses engaged, responsive teaching to address apparently incommensurable understandings of a given topic. The author outlines how the study of premodern queens relates…

In a typical high school World History course, the teacher must teach thousands of years of human history in one year, thus making it the most comprehensive history course offered in school. Given the extended content requirements in a World History course, individual topics are given little time before the class must "move on" to the…

A common problem history teachers face regardless of their field of specialization is how to help students find answers to the most difficult historical questions, those for which the sources are unavailable or inaccessible, and teach them to do so in a methodologically valid manner. This article presents a case study which shows how a project in…

Magna Carta, that great cornerstone of American liberty, has been in the news lately. Put up for sale by three-time U.S. Presidential candidate Ross Perot in December 2007, the 1297 version of Magna Carta displayed in the National Archives was sold to financier David Rubenstein for $21.3 million. While its sale demonstrates the cash value of the…

The Middle Ages are an immensely important era in the Western experience. Unfortunately, medieval studies are often marginalized or trivialized in school curriculum. With the approach of the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta, the famous charter of rights from medieval England, one has a timely and useful example for considering what a focus on…

During spring semester 2010, a long-standing upper-division lecture course, Medieval Cities of Europe, 500-1500 CE, underwent a course transformation. The goal was to address specific challenges with student engagement that the authors had experienced in the course in the past; their overarching strategy was to introduce technology into the course…

The Crusades are among the few medieval events with which most students have familiarity. However, during these days of heightened tensions in the Middle East, for many the Crusades have taken on an urgency as a distant historical phenomenon that speaks powerfully to present religious and political concerns. This helps explain why in 2005, two…

Compares the adequacy of three historical interpretations of the late Medieval period (crisis, cultural decay, and transformation), in describing the phenomena of continuity and change. The author concludes that the first two interpretations are too limited to encompass the cultural diversity which later metamorphosed into the Renaissance. (AM)

Suggests how college history teachers can help students understand the French aristocracy and its role in medieval society by using a twelfth century epic. "Raol de Cambrai" gives students a sense that the poem's action could have happened to real people. A content analysis of the poem's action and characters is included. (DB)

The history of witchcraft offers an interesting avenue to the study and teaching of important historical and social phenomena. Valuable research contributions by historians is discussed and listed in the bibliography. (JB)

Notes recent trends toward greater treatment of Asia, Africa, and Latin America in world history courses and the related tendency to decrease treatment of women and social history. Describes how history instructors at Tufts University coped with this problem by using a thematic approach. Illustrates this approach using the example of two medieval…

Includes three papers from a panel on the teaching of medieval legal history held at 1985 American Society for Legal History: (1) "Medieval Legal History in the Core Curriculum" (J. Muldoon; D. Humphries); (2) "Teaching Early Medieval Law: A Comparative Approach" (J.A. Brundage); and (3) "Medieval Law and Society: An…

Maintains that writing assignments in world history should include essays that are sequenced according to difficulty. Proposes a sequencing model for an introductory course in world history based on seven steps of difficulty. Provides examples of questions at each level in addition to a course outline. (JDH)

Recommends that teachers present the years 1000 to 1750 as the "Traditional Europe" period, rather than as a combination of several periods. Identifies shared religious, intellectual, and artistic traditions; landed aristocracy; a peasant economic base; and an urban mercantile class as the era's distinctive characteristics. (DK)

Describes the problem of absence of evidence in historiography. Discusses the limits this lack of evidence poses for comparative studies by sociologists. Identifies steps in which events or evidence may be missed or passed over. Includes nonoccurrence, no surviving evidence, unlocated evidence, failure to note evidence, inaccurate criticism of…