Sample Keywords Collaboratory Assignments and Syllabi

Course: "Major Developments in American Culture"
Level: Sophomore
Instructor: Glenn Hendler, Fordham University
Alongside readings in U.S. literature and history, small groups of students trace different threads first by studying the keyword published in Keywords for American Cultural Studies, then by hosting an online discussion of the keyword as it unfolds throughout the course readings. Students finally compose and collectively submit a new keyword essay. The keywords covered are: America, Asian, border, colonial, class, coolie, empire, ethnicity, immigration, Indian, market, marriage, mestizo/a, nation, naturalization, orientalism, public, religion, secular, slavery, west, and white.
Hendler Collaboratory Assignment.pdf
Hendler Major Developments in American Culture Syllabus.pdf
Major Developments in American Culture Collaboratory

Course: "Humanities Methods in Ethnic Studies"
Level: Upper-division undergraduate
Instructor: Keith Feldman, University of California, Berkeley
This course frames contesting claims over the category of the "human," as well as its critical geneology in humanities-based scholarship. The course objectives include historicizing the humanities as a field of ethnicity. Keywords from the edited collection precede each unit: democracy, race, ethnicity, globalization, identity, citizenship, community, public, border, gender, mestizo/a, and queer. In addition to requiring students to collaboratively write a keywords essay, the course plans for students' participation in the annual convention of the Cultural Studies Association, held at the University of California, Berkeley.
Feldman Humanities Methods in Ethnic Studies Syllabus.pdf

Course: "English Literature: Later Eighteenth Century"
Level: Upper division
Instructor: Steven Tobias, University of Washington
This literature course uses the Keywords Collaboratory alongside Raymond Williams's entries in Keywords: A Vocabulary for Culture and Society. The syllabus below is an example of how instructors might use the collaboratory site with another keywords-based resource.
Tobias English Literature: Later Eighteenth Century.pdf
18th Century English Literature Collaboratory
Read Steven Tobias's pedagogical statement about keywords assignments

Course: "Theories of Race and Ethnicity"
Level: Senior
Instructor: Daniel Martinez HoSang, University of Oregon
This senior-level seminar has two objectives: (1) Expanding the students' theoretical fluency and vocabulary within Ethnic Studies and American Studies, especially with the concepts of discourse and representation; and (2) Preparing the students to write senior thesis projects for the next (spring) term. Three entries from Keywords for American Cultural Studies are assigned for six of the ten weeks the class meets. Each week, the students write response essays discussing how the three words relate to each other and how they are discussed in one of two additional articles assigned. The students also select three to four keywords that are central to their own research project, explaining their choice in a thesis prospectus submitted at the end of the term.
HoSang Theories of Race and Ethnicity.pdf