Amy-Elizabeth Manlapas

This week I’ve been spending some time in the University of Missouri’s archives of Saint Louis at the 1904 World’s Fair and have found some interesting materials about the exhibition dedicated to the Philippines.  They range from maps of the reconstructed villages and photographs of people from the Philippines who participated in the exhibition. Overall, it’s a strange, fascinating group of materials that I am incredibly excited to work with!

This semester I’ve been taking a class about historical methods and our main assignment is to find primary sources and try out two of the methods that we’ve discussed in class with our chosen documents. When looking at these materials, my first instinct is to try out an ethnographic approach – much like Clifford Geertz‘s methods. I’m also tempted to try out Marx or Foucault, but I know that neither is for the faint of heart! My thinking is that if I try out one of these methods, I’d move out of my intellectual comfort zone and while working in a different paradigm, I could really grow as a writer. We’ll see how it goes!

How do you try to challenge and grow yourself as a writer?

It seems like it was just June. June in my planner was called, “The Month of Meetings.”  When I said month of meetings to myself, I’d pretend that I was hearing the “Game of Thrones” theme music. This past June, I attended an amazing PBL seminar with Suzie Boss and Jane Krauss (buy their book here) then started summer semester, then went to the four-day AP World History training at Kennesaw State presented by Patrick Whelan. The next week, I attended a three-day county training session where I heard Brad Fogo from Stanford University  present their fabulous  Read Like a Historian program. I can honestly say that I was impressed by all of these seminars. If you have time to do any kind of professional development at your school, I highly recommend getting any of these wonderful educators to come speak.

July was almost totally dedicated to graduate seminars and AP planning with my teammate Roger. I took two classes this summer, Issues and Interpretations in American History and Issues and Interpretations in European History. Believe it or not, these classes were actually really helpful. My American history class got me thinking how a trans-national and global approach to American history would really add strength and meaning to U.S. History. We read several books on the subject, but my two favorites were Thomas Bender’s A Nation Among Nations and America on the World Stage. America on the World Stagewas particularly cool since it also includes sections on how high school teachers can apply these fairly hip, new approaches in their classrooms right away. I think that’s a definite must-read for any American history teacher. European history  had me reading some really hardcore, intellectual books that stretched me intellectually and got me thinking about my own historiographical interpretations of history. My favorite of the course was Claudia Verhoeven’s The Odd Man Karakozov: Imperial Russia, Modernity, and the Birth of Terrorism  which dissects the attempted assassination of Tsar Alexander II. I am highly impressed with her writing, organization and talent as a scholar. I left that book not only knowing more about the subject, but also inspired to “level up” my own scholarly work after reading such an excellent book.

I also ended up writing my Margarets paper, about the anthropologists Margaret Mead and Margaret Murray, which would have NEVER been possible without JSTOR or my friend Ness who assured me that my topic was not entirely crazy. I can’t imagine trying to locate book reviews from 1890-1930 ten years ago without some kind of panic attack.

As for my thesis, I’ve been plowing through secondary works on a weekly basis, but I remain torn on my topic. I love the idea of writing about the history of science education (particularly race) but I am also intrigued by the idea of studying ladies fashion in the Philippines under American rule. There is always my interest in religion too. Gaah.  So many things I want to study and write about, but so little time! I have 520 days from today to research, write and defend my thesis. There’s also the small matter of learning to read Spanish and pass my language exam in the next 520 days. Can you tell I like deadlines?

So, that’s where my summer went. It wasn’t entirely restful but I have been so inspired by everything I learned, I don’t really mind my busy summer.  Now, I need to get my house and wardrobe ready for back to school. Tomorrow I’ll be back to post my first post about teacher survival.

This summer, I have decided to start on my Master’s thesis. I haven’t taken the thesis research class yet, but since I am working full-time as a teacher during the year, I should probably use my summers off to accomplish some research.

 To get started I’ve decided to start working on an annotated bibliography.  At first I thought, “Oh, this will be a snap.” Then I started looking for sources. Right now I am just sorting through things on JSTOR and it feels like there are a million articles out there about colonial culture in the Phillippines.

I know that this is likely not the case, but I am looking at all my sources wondering one scary thing, “What if I have nothing new to say?” I know that’s not the case, but it’s hard not to be intimidated when reading such brilliant work.

My goals for the summer:

By August 1st, when I go back to work I will email my advisors a complete annotated biliography.

By October 1st, I want an outline of what I think my thesis might look like. NB: my outline does not count if it’s only written on a post-it note. Even one of those really gigantic post-it-notes.

If you too are getting ready to start researching a gigantic paper check out the University of Central Florida’s Online Chicago Style Guide I also recommend Zotero for formatting footnotes.

Image Courtesy of LonelyPlanet.com