This course will also assist students in becoming familiar with historical sources available on the internet.

Relation of HST 300 Service-Learning to HST 418, Teaching Social Sciences:

This course will add to the practical experience of the students participating in the public affairs of the community.

This course will add to the students’ knowledge of resources for teaching history and the social sciences; and to add to the students’ experience with media and technology through the use of the internet in teaching and, specifically, in using the internet to motivate students.

Grading Policy: You will receive separate grades for HST 300 and the main course (HST 418, HST 315, HST 321, HST 329, HST 350, HST 375, or HST 390). Do not use this syllabus for the grading policy of the main course. 

To receive credit for HST 300, you must complete 40 hours of service. Less than 40 hours means an automatic failing grade for the one-hour service-learning part of the course.  

Once you have completed the 40 hours of service, the grade for HST 300 will be based on: 1) on-site reports on your service from the participating Springfield Public School teachers, and 2) a series of essays or reports submitted to the HST 300 Instructor. The % breakdown of the grade for HST 300:

Helping to build the Local History website:  50%

Journal on working with the teachers and students: 30%

On-Site Reports:   20%

For the course grade, you must have at least a 90% average for an A, 80% for a B, 70% for a C, and 60% for a D. In grading, this course adheres to the University Nondiscrimination Policy.

On-Site Reports

This will be from the feedback or evaluation reports of your service from the participating Springfield Public School teachers. (Their ratings and comments will be translated into an appropriate numerical score in the range 0-100.)

Journal on Working with the Teachers and Students

You are required to maintain a journal of your service-learning experience, including a description of your activities, how you assisted Springfield Public School teachers and students, and what you have learned about teaching history. The journal should be submitted in four installments.  The four  installments of the journal should be submitted  to the service-learning instructor. Each installment should be at least half a page in length.

Helping to Build the Local History Website

During the semester, you will be using online local history sources to draw up brief essays that can be used by public school students. The target audience: third and fourth graders. This will provide you with good training in communication. Your essays should not use big words or complicated grammatical structure.  Be sure that a third grader can read and understand them. You will be engaged in the following:

Use local history Online Sources
Use the sources to find information about the history of Springfield and Greene County
Write reports on the history of Springfield and Greene County that elementary school students can read and understand

Use the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level tool in Word. In Microsoft Word, on the toolbar, click on Tools. On the Tools menu, click on Options.  On the tabs at the top of the box, click on Spelling and Grammar. Make sure both of the following have check marks: 

Check grammar with spelling
Show readability statistics

This command instructs Microsoft Word to go through your document and do both a Spell Check and a Grammar Check, and to give you Readability Statistics which will give you data on Counts, Averages, and Readability. Under Readability, look for the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level. 

The essays will be in three forms:

Using the Online Sources, write a short essay on a topic on early Springfield-Greene County history. Examples of the topics are listed at Local History Curriculum.  The essay should be no longer than two pages. 
See Essays for examples. 

Using Online Sources, write one or two short biographies on early Springfieldians. Each essay should be no longer than a page. 
See Biographies for examples. 
Try to include the following, when known, in your essay:

Full Name
Date (or approximate date) of birth and death
Location of birth
Where he or she grew up
Was the person African-American or Native-American? What was the person’s nationality or ethnicity, such as German or Scotch-Irish?
Education
Any military service
Full name of spouse(s), if any
Number and names of children, if any
Occupation(s) and/or property owned
Unless born here, about when did he or she come to Springfield or Greene County?
Political party affiliation? Active member of a community service organization? Active member of a church?
What was the person’s main contribution(s) to Springfield or Greene County?  

Using Henry R. Schoolcraft, Journal of a Tour into the Interior of Missouri and Arkansaw ... in the Years 1818 and 1819, write one or two short essays on the Ozarks frontier.  Each essay should be about a page in length. 

All essays, again, should be written in simple language. Again, use the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level tool in Word.

Bibliography. All essays should include the sources used. For an internet source, provide the link to the website. Be sure to copy the address and paste it to avoid typographical mistakes. For your bibliography, you do not need to write in simple language. When you are using the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level tool in Word, you will need to keep the bibliography separate from the text.

The essays should be submitted to the service-learning instructor.

Field Trip Option

If your schedule allows you to join the students on their project field trip, then your time on the field trip is part of the 40 hours.
If you can go on the field trip, please subtract that amount of time, about 3 hours, from the research and writing component.