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Reflections: 'This Class Will Write a Book': An Experiment in Environmental History Pedagogy
Michael Lewis
| ON THE FIRST DAY of the spring semester, 2002, I introduced myself to the students in my new Local Environmental History course, and then I told them, "This class will write a book, The Environmental History of the Wicomico River. Each of you are now members of a research team, and over the course of the semester we will work together to determine what such a book should include, what sources we might use, and how to write it up." I explained that there would be no tests, and all assignments would be directly linked to gathering sources, writing and critiquing drafts, and reading secondary literature related to their chosen topics. Everything in the class would be oriented toward the students' central goal—writing their collective book. |
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Rationale | |
| I HAD PLANNED this experimental course based upon two presuppositions: that one of the most effective strategies for learning history is to do history, and that undergraduate students can most easily become immersed in original historical research (gathering and using primary sources and promoting original arguments) when they work on local topics. Neither of these presuppositions is particularly radical, nor even controversial. But at least in my own teaching I have paid homage to these ideas more often in discussions with colleagues than in my classroom. While colleagues at your university and mine might complain that their historical sub-field cannot be studied through local history, all environmental historians live and teach in a landscape reflecting biological, geological, and human histories. We are fortunate that the methods of environmental history are, literally, grounded and oriented toward local case studies reflecting larger cultural trends or natural situations (culture and nature, of course, used advisedly). Students can use environmental history to analyze settlement, agriculture, urbanization, and resource use (to name a few strands of our discipline) literally anywhere—we have no excuse other than time and our lack of knowledge for not incorporating local history into our environmental history courses. Add to this the general truism that learning to write and think clearly is at the center of education, and there is a compelling pedagogical argument for encouraging, even requiring, undergraduate environmental history students to do original research on local topics. |
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In addition to a pedagogical rationale, there are also some pragmatic reasons for encouraging undergraduates to conduct local environmental history research. Many of our universities are located in communities far from the national-level scholarly gaze—in my case, Salisbury, Maryland, the unofficial capital of Delmarva (this last phrase, I am reasonably certain, has never before appeared in a scholarly journal). Students thus can actually create knowledge, develop local archives (or start them at the university library), collect oral histories, and have an impact on local debates and local communities' ways of understanding themselves and their histories. While clearly true for students in Salisbury, this is true even for students in, say, New York City, the unofficial capital of the world, where students still can identify people and landscapes whose stories need to be told. This applicability is both exciting to students and useful for the communities in which they work. It is also useful for universities struggling to integrate themselves into their surrounding communities and trying to move past the stereotype of the ivory tower. |
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Much more personally, encouraging students to conduct local environmental history research can allow faculty to maintain a different research focus while also working locally. Salisbury University, for example, had hoped that in hiring me they would get a scholar who would, over time, discover and share this region's environmental history. My research focus had been upon the global transmission of U.S. conservation science and policies, particularly in India, which prepared me only loosely to fill this local agenda in a part of the United States that I had never visited prior to my job interview. A finite amount of time can be devoted to research in any university position, even less at a teaching-oriented university. I have been able both to develop local environmental history resources and data, and to continue my prior, non-local, research interests by using my teaching time (preparation, class itself, student meetings, and grading) to supervise and foster local research. |
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