Lecture: 2 hours per week / semester
Seminar: 2 hours per week / semester
Classroom instruction will include both lectures and seminar discussions. Lectures will provide instruction on weekly topics with opportunities for student inquiry and discussion. Seminars will encourage active class participation in the analysis of assigned primary and secondary readings. Classroom instruction may also include student presentations on specific readings and/or topics, and other types of student-led activities. Classroom instruction may also include tutorials and workshops on transferrable skills, including research methods, academic citation practice, and presentation skills.
A sample course outline may include the following topics.
Note: Content may vary according to the instructor’s selection of topics.
- The World on the Eve of War
- The Powder Keg: The Crisis of 1914 and the Outbreak of War
- War in the Trenches: The Western Front, 1914-1916
- War on the Steppe: The Eastern Front, 1914-1917
- War in the Balkans, the Middle East, Asia, and Africa, 1914-1917
- Home Fires: War Economies, Mobilized Populations, and Life during War
- The Cost of the War: Casualties, Protest, Desertion and Instability
- The Russian Revolution
- Endgames: From Brest-Litovsk to November 11, and the End of the War in Asia
- Endgames and Fascist Beginnings: The Italian Front, Fiume, and the Rise of Mussolini
- Endgames and New Wars I: The Balkans and the Middle East
- Endgames and New Wars II: New Nations and New struggles in Germany, Russia and Eastern Europe
- Counting the Cost, Evaluating the Peace, and the Shadow of Conflict
- The War Remembered, Commemorated, and Interpreted
At the conclusion of the course, successful students will be able to demonstrate historical thinking skills, research skills, critical thinking skills and communication skills appropriate to the level of the course by:
- Locating, examining, assessing, and evaluating a range of primary sources and secondary scholarly literature critically and analytically (reading history).
- Constructing historical arguments, taking historical perspectives, and interpreting historical problems through different types of writing assignments of varying lengths (writing history).
- Participating in active and informed historical debate independently and cooperatively through classroom discussion and presentation (discussing history).
- Independently and cooperatively investigating the ways that history is created, preserved and disseminated through public memory and commemoration, oral history, community engagement, and other forms of popular visual and written expressions about the past (applying history)
Assessment will be in accordance with the Douglas College student evaluation policy. Students may conduct research with human participants as part of their coursework in this class. Instructors for the course are responsible for ensuring that student research projects comply with College policies on ethical conduct for research involving humans.
Students will have opportunities to build and refine their research capacity and historical thinking skills through assessments appropriate to the level of the course. There will be at least three separate assessments, which may include a combination of midterm and final exams; research essays; primary document analysis assignments and essays; quizzes; map tests; in-class and online written assignments; seminar presentations; student assignment portfolios; group projects; creative projects; class participation.
The value of each assessment and evaluation, expressed as a percentage of the final grade, will be listed in the course outline distributed to students at the beginning of the term. Specific evaluation criteria will vary according to the instructor’s assessment of appropriate evaluation methods.
An example of one evaluation scheme
Participation 15%
Seminar presentations 10%
Primary document analyses 15%
Historiographic essay 10%
Research prospectus and annotated bibliography 10%
Research essay 25%
Final Summative Assignment 15%
Textbooks and Course Readers may be chosen from the following list, to be updated periodically.
An instructor’s custom Course Reader may be required. Additional online resources may also be assigned, and links to specific resources may be provided in the course outline.
Grayzel, Susan, ed. The First World War: A Brief History with Documents. New York: Bedford/St Martin’s, 2012.
McKay, Ian, and Jamie Swift. The Vimy Trap, Or, How We Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Great War. Toronto: Between the Lines, 2016.
Storey, William Kelleher. The First World War: A Concise Global History. Lanham MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2010.
Tardi, Jaques. Goddam This War. Seattle: Fanagraphics, 2017.
One 1000-level History course or permission of the instructor
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