Announcements (old announcements move to bottom, where there are also visitor statistics)

• Nov. 5, 2010: This webpage is now decommissioned (partially updated from Winter 2007 with information from my Winter 2009 offering of Hist 133b). For current information please go to the current 133b homepage (at this time Winter 2011).
  I began using UCSB's Course Management System Gauchospace (based on moodle), so most information was kept on that site. I'll see if I can do better with this public website during my 2011 offering.
• Aug. 2014: posting the Fall 2013 133B syllabus and source assignment handout (both pdfs). Note that I haven't been doing much on my course pages since 2009 because I've been relying on our "Gauchospace" (moodle) web-based Course Management System to distribute course materials, so these course sites have been sadly neglected. Also, the google site search no longer works because google has stopped indexing any pages on my site after our IT person posted a "no index" robots.txt in Feb. 2014. That has since been remedied, but all attempts since to get google's attention have failed. (I'm so frustrated that I now use yahoo as my default search engine, and find the results to be quite comparable.)
• Sept. 13, 2013: The required books for Fall 2013 will be:
1. Germans into Nazis by Peter Fritzsche (Harvard UP 1998) ($21/14 at amazon)
2. The Nazi State and German Society: A Brief History with Documents by Robert G. Moeller (Bedford/St. Martin's Series in History and Culture, 2009) ($15 at amazon)
3. A course reader of photocopied essays and sources.
• UCSB bookstore online price check page (this search brings up both textbooks)
• Jan. 2010: Adding the 2009 versions of the syllabus & handouts now, as well as materials from the GauchoSpace site, namely the 8 "Midterm" Questions, the Winter 2009 announcements (in chronological order). Also, I compiled the 43 responses to Q5, events & questions for our guest speakers Ursula Mahlendorf & Josie Levi Martin, in a separate page.

Course Overview (back to top)

• This lecture course examines central aspects of German history from the eve of World War I to the end of World War II, including:
  • Germany prior to and during World War I
  • the German revolution of 1918 and the Versailles Treaty
  • the inflationary, stable and depression phases of the Weimar Republic
  • Hitler's life and the Nazi rise to power
  • aspects of the Third Reich in the 1930s
  • the phases of World War II and the Holocaust

• Q1 (1/15/09): List a total of 9 numbered bullet points. Give 3 examples *each* of: 1. People/actions done for altruistic reasons (out of goodness, no material motive) 2. People/actions done for pragmatic reasons (some benefit or gain expected by the doer) 3. People/actions done out of pure evil (causing harm with no gain) Note: At least one each from each volume; Give Vol/pg. and short (2-line description), for example: 1. Vladek's father jumped stadium fence in Sosnowiec to join Fela and her children during the selection (I/91)
• Q2 (1/22): At the end of chapter 2, Fulbrook writes: "Whatever the ambiguities of Weimar society and culture, perhaps the deepest and most fatal splits were embedded in the Weimar social compromise, and in the institutional framework of relations between the classes. It was these which contributed mightily to the breakdown ..."
  Name and briefly describe 2 such compromises between different institutions or interest groups. Be sure you name explicitly what those four institutions/groups are.
• Q3 (1/29): Based on the Bergen textbook's chapters 2 and 3 (also Fulbrook chap. 3), briefly describe *four* people who were instrumental in Hitler's rise to power during the 1920s. Be sure to mention what role they played in that rise.
• Q4 (2/3): Based on Bergen chapters 3 & 4, select four important events from 1933 to 1939, and explain briefly why each is important.
• Q4.5 (2/10): This is a place for me to add the points for the in-class responses to the film by Evie Sullivan, which is comprised of clips from interviews with 3 people who experienced Kristallnacht in Nov. 1938.
• Q5 (2/12): Based on the reading selections by Ursula Mahlendorf (chaps 4 & 5), and Josie Martin (pp. 19-39, 79-86, and optionally 106-141 in separate pdf):
  1. Describe two events/anecdotes from the two readings that you found particularly insightful, and explain why. (One for each memoir)
  2. Formulate two questions you would ask them in class on Thursday. (Again, one each.) [Be sure to bring a copy to class for your own use.] (43 responses to Q5)
• Q6 (2/26): Select and briefly describe 4 incidents in The Zookeeper's Wife in which:
  -individuals behave selflessly (help others at their own risk), OR
  selfishly (give no thought to the consequences for others).
  For each, suggest *why* they did those things (what reasons or motivations they had).
• Q7 (3/5): For the five categories denoted by “EIEIO” give a brief explanation of the role each played in the collapse of Germany in the final year of the Nazi regime (June 1944-May 1945).
  Be sure to specify which groups of People or Oppositionals, and Elites or Leaders you mean. I would expect that you draw on textbook chapter 8 and lecture.
• Q8 (3/?): In class exercise; worth 2 points (added to 4 max points for Q4.5).

Some useful sites and interesting links (back to top)

• German News--daily translations of news shorts from Germany that you can have e-mailed to yourself
  (The Germany Embassy in Washington's This Week in Germany is similar, but weekly.)
• German-English dictionaries: LEO and TU-Chemnitz; babelfish gives rough translations
• The German Historical Museum (DHM) in Berlin has lots of images and documents in its collection.
• Germany-Info.org, maintained by the German Embassy in Washington, D.C., has fact sheets, a timeline, a historical overview (3 parts about 1945-present on right), and some historical features, such as on unification.
  Not to miss: the newsletter archive, cultural archive, archives of speeches since 1996-- it's endless!
• The US Embassy in Germany has a "History of German-American Relations" site with great documents from 1683 to the present, easily navigable with great e-texts (some are in my Hist 133c course reader) and links.
• German History in Documents and Images by the German Historical Institute in D.C.
  • 1890-1918
  • 1918-1933 (Jan. 2007: not yet available)
  • 1933-1945 (Jan. 2007: so far only documents)
• Some other courses on early 20th Century Germany:

Materials from Prof. Marcuse's previous Hist 133b courses (back to top)

• 1995 syllabus
• 2007 syllabus; book essay handout; web option handout
• 2009 syllabus

Grading policies (back to top)

Grades can serve many purposes. Among them are: motivating students to engage with the material (by providing feedback and rewarding effort), assessing how well students have done the assigned work, and ranking students relative to each other.
I personally dislike assigning grades. I'm interested in what you have to say, and want you to put in the effort to develop interesting thoughts and express them well. I hope you will be motivated to learn enough factual material to have a solid basis from which you can develop your thoughts. If you need the prospect of a better grade to do the learning and thinking, fine. For various reasons, I have to grade to assess your work anyway (if I write letters of recommendation, for instance, I need some data on relative strengths and weaknesses, and effort expended). The grade distributions I give my courses are also monitored by the department and the University. (see grade distributions for some of my other lecture courses: 33d-02, 33d-03)
My bottom line: I want the grades I give to be a FAIR reflection of the effort (attendance, doing assignments, meeting deadlines) and learning (content of submitted work) you show, and to give a rough indication of where you stand on those factors relative to others in the class.

• Mar. 25, 2009: Here is the distribution of grades for the Winter 2009 Hist 133b course according to the final point distribution--without the extra credit points. (20 students accumulated 75 extra credit points, an average of 3.75, usually raising their grade 1 step.)
  If you want to contact me, read my note on grading, below.

  # students	87-89pts=B+   6	78-79 pts=C+  0	D    0
  93-98pts=A    14	83-86pts=B      6	74-77pts =C     2	F    1
  88-92pts=A-   14	80-82pts=B-    4	70-73pts =C-   0	average:      89.5	total:  47

  With the extra credit factored in, 20 students got an A, 12 A-, and 3 B+; the rest stayed the same. I don't give A+, sorry.
• Mar. 28, 2007: Here is the distribution of grades for the Winter 2007 Hist 133b course according to the final point distribution (if you want to contact me, read my note on grading, below):

  # students	79-82pts=B+   6	74 pts=C+  1	42-59pts=D    2
  87-91pts=A   12	77-78pts=B      2	70-73pts =C    4	F    0
  83-86pts=A-   8	75-76pts=B-    0	65-69pts =C-   0	incomplete:      0	total:  35

• Dec. 20, 2006: Here is the distribution of grades for the Fall 2006 Hist 133a course according to the final point distribution (before you contact me, read my note on grading, below):

  # students	85-86pts=B+    6	75 pts=C+  1	62pts=D    1
  90-94pts=A    7	79-82pts=B      7	69pts =C    1	F    2
  87-88pts=A-  5	77     pts= B-    3	67pts =C-   1	incomplete: 1	total:  35

• Mar. 23, 2004: Here is the distribution of grades for my 2004 Hist 133c course according to the raw point score without the participation grade (95 possible points [well 101, if you count the double extra credit for the outside events]):

  # students	86-85pts=B+     2	75-71pts=C+   4	D   0
  94-90pts=A    5	84-80pts=B      10	70-62pts=C     2	D-  0	grad. student: 1
  89-87pts=A-   5	79-76pts=B-      4	pts=C-   0	F    0	total:   33

• Mar. 29, 2006: Here is the distribution of grades for my spring 2006 Hist 133c course according to the raw point scores (see note on grading, below):

  # students	87-89pts=B+   6	77-78pts=C+   2	62-67pts=D   2
  93-100pts=A    6	83-86pts=B     2	71-76pts=C     3	F    1
  90-91pts=A-    2	79-82pts=B-    5	68-70pts=C-   1	incomplete:     1	total:  31

• Interested in grade inflation since the 1970s, all across the USA?
  Check out this website: www.gradeinflation.com. On the second-to-last graph, the one with the scattered points, you'll find UCSB below the blue line at the 10-year time span. The researcher got data from UCSB's Office of Budget and Planning showing that our campus GPA went from 2.84 in 1994 to 2.93 in 1999.

If you are think your grade does not reflect your work and effort:

• First, please note that I grade YOUR WORK, not you.
• If you feel that the grade you received on your paper or exam does not correspond to the quality of work that you submitted, or the effort you put into it, you have two options:
  1. Print out, complete, and submit the following Grade Change Application Form ;-),
     OR:
  2. Write a page (or paragraph, whatever it takes) explaining WHY you think your work is better than the grade assigned to it. Please refer to the appropriate assignment sheet (for book essays and web projects), and make sure you did the assignment.
     • Then resubmit the work in question with your explanation, and I will regrade it and get back to you.
     • Be sure to put some contact address on your explanation sheet, so that I can be in touch with you.
     • Note that I reserve the right to lower your grade, if I feel that is warranted by closer examination

Picking up your work

I keep all student work for at least one quarter after the course is over. If you would like to pick up your work, please come to my office. During my office hours is usually best for me, but if you would like your work left in an envelope in the envelope outside my door, or to arrange a different pick-up time, send me an e-mail or leave a note.

Old Announcements (back to top)

• Dec. 21, 2006: My office hours in Winter 2007 will be Tuesdays, 12:30--2:30pm
  And obviously, this web site is under construction.
• Jan. 13, 2007: 2007 syllabus and Reich-Prussian gov't diagram now available.
  I don't think I'm going to be able to put lecture notes online this quarter--I have too many other obligations that don't leave me the "extra" time.
• Jan. 23, 2007: In class today (L5) I announced Q2, due at the start of class on Thursday:
  • No more than *1* page total (5 bullet points). I vastly prefer a typed version, but this time (only) I'll accept handwritten ones as well.
  • Name the 5 Chancellors from 1926 to 1932 (W. Marx to von Schleicher), and give 2 important features of each of their governments, e.g. "character," important issues, and/or party coalition supporting them.
  • Correction to syllabus: on the front under "grading" the total value of the 8 questions should be 30%. Each is worth 4 points, so you can actually get 2 bonus points.
• Jan. 28, 2007: A student pointed out that the topic lists are due this Thursday ONLY for students who want to try for the no-final-exam option. If you prefer the take-home final, your topic list is not due until Thu., Feb. 8. Sorry about my mix-up.
  • Also, if you are a good note-taker, you can earn an easy $100 from the Disabled Students Office for photocopies of your lecture notes.
    If you are interested in this position, please see me after class on Tuesday. If several students are interested, I will recommend you based on your notes from last Thursday, so you may want to bring a photocopy of those notes with you.
• Jan. 31, 2007: links to last quarter's (Hist 133a) book essay and web option handouts are fixed.
• Feb. 2, 2007: today in class I passed out the new book essay handout, as well as a glossary and timeline of the Nazi seizure and consolidation of power. Q3 is due Tuesday. It is based on the first four essays in Bessel (ed.), and has 4 short parts:
1. Name 2 paradoxes about the Nazi use of violence.
2. Name 2 ways that Nazism changed family and/or village life.
3. What changes in the Hitler Youth gave rise to alternative movements by the late 1930s? Describe 2 such movements (1 sentence each).
4. List 4 of the 7 bases of the Hitler Myth. What one event did most to deflate it?
• Feb. 8, 2007: Q4 is due Tuesday (2/13). It is based on the assigned reading (Bessel, pp. 57-96), and has three parts:
1. List 4 main players in the "racist" social contract as described by Geyer, and briefly describe the role of each. (1 paragraph)
2. Explain why the Madagascar resettlement plan supports or undermines the "structuralist" interpretation of the Nazi state. (2 sentences)
3. How did Himmler's plans for Gypsies differ from his plans for Jews? (1 sentence)
• Feb. 15, 2007, 8am: I didn't hear about it early enough to plan any alternative activity for our class during the anti-war strike today, but since I think this is one of the most urgent contemporary political issues facing us today, I don't think it would be appropriate to hold "class as usual."
  • Thus, although I will be in class, it will be devoted to a discussion of the German populace and the anti-war movement, and I'll show another documentary film clip about Germany's politics and World War II. (A fortuitous coincidence of topics, I must admit.)
  • So: no attendance taken today; Q5 for next week will be announced on e-mail, and I'll make a web page to cover the lecture material. And anyone who wants can borrow the video I show.
  • I encourage everyone to attend the central rally at 1pm at the Pardall entrance and express your opinion about our wars in the Middle East and Afghanistan.
• Feb. 19, 2007, 9pm: I'm sorry to be sending this out with such short notice, but things just kept coming up that prevented me from reviewing the readings sooner. I hope the questions will be easy enough--again, you're just supposed to show that you've done the assigned reading (Reader essays 2 & 3). Q5:
  • 1. What offer did Major Trapp make to his men on July 13, 1942?
  • 2. Name TWO reasons some of the men who did not accept that offer gave to explain why they did not accept it.
  • 3. What choice did Sarah make? (in the feminist rewriting of a well-known story)
  • 4. What aspect of the Milgram experiments did sociologist Barrington Moore think was most important?
• Feb. 21, 2007: You are all invited to attend a talk next Monday at 4pm in HSSB 6020. Dr. Steven Beller, an internationally recognized authority on Austrian, Jewish and Central
  European history, will present "Island of the Blessed/Island of the Damned: Jews and Austrians in Modern History."
• Feb. 21, 2007: For those of you who didn't do the reading in time to write up Q5, I offered Q5b. If I remember correctly, this was it, based on reader essays 4, 5, 6 & 2:
  • For the following four people, say which box in the power/agency table on the class handout you would put them in, and write a brief statement explaining why:
    Chaim Rumkowski
    Dawid Sierakowiak
    Calel Perechodnik
  • Major Trapp (I forgot to write this down at the end of class--is this what I said?)
  • Here is a copy of the WW2, Genocide & Perpetrators handout.
• Feb. 26, 2007, 11pm: As I announced in class last Thursday, we will have Q6 written in class on Tuesday, Feb. 27. It will be based on reader essays 2-6, which were assigned for last week. Be sure to read them! [Q6 turned out to be the anonymous midterm evaluation, with full credit for attendance.]
• March 5, 2007: Q7 is based on Reader essay 7: Laurence Rees' chapter "Factories of Death." It is due Tuesday at the start of class. There are, as usual, 4 parts:
  1. What reason does Rees give why, after Aug. 31, French authorities sent children to Auschwitz only with their parents? What reason did/do French gendarmes give?
  2. Give two reasons why Oskar Groening joined the Waffen-SS.
     OR
     Name the three locations Annette and Michel Muller were imprisoned, with the type of place each was (e.g. abandoned factory, WWI fort).
  3. What was the advantage of locating a "normal" concentration camp like Dachau in a suburb, as opposed to in a remote forest, like Belzec, Sobibor and Treblinka?
  4. In what program did Wirth and Stangl first gain their murder experience?
  • Ultimately, what I really want you to do is read this essay carefully and think about it. We will take a fair amount of time in class to discuss it. It would be wonderful if you listed some issues and questions in your notes that you would like to discuss. Here are some of my interests:
    • Why were males aged 16-40 the first ones to be deported? Why could at most 10% of them be unfit for work?
    • Should we think of French gendarmes (such as Bousquet) as protectors of Jews, or assistants in their murder?
    • How can we assess Else Abt's and Oskar Groening's behavior in Auschwitz?
    • What does the story of the Muller children's survival tell us about the Holocaust?
  • Finally, I've been asked to announce that there will be a planning meeting for Holocaust Remembrance week, on Tuesday 3/6 at 5pm at UCSB Hillel (the hour+ before I show Escape from Sobibor at 6:20 in HSSB 4020).
• March 9, 2007: Q8 is due Tuesday. It is based on the last chapter of the Bessel book, and is on the L18 "Legacies" handout (with link to a webpage on the "special paths"), as well as in this announcement (part of the text was cut off on the handout). I've also uploaded the 133b Web Option handout.
  1. Q8: Date and briefly characterize the 3 "narrative turning points" in Ernst Bromberg's life story. Which "special path" model would best fit with Bromberg's narrative?
  2. Oral presentations: I didn't discuss these and won't be available to meet with potential presenters before Tuesday's class, so I'm going to suggest that we do them on Thursday instead. If you are interested in making a short (5-7 minute) presentation about what you learned from your essay book, please e-mail me by Monday 8pm . We can meet Tuesday afternoon or Wednesday for further discussion. I'd like to underscore again that the overall quality of the essays this quarter is truly excellent, better than I've ever seen before.
  3. Paper pick-up. All papers that haven't been picked up yet (except: Samantha R's, Andre's, and Josh's) will be available in the envelope outside my office door by noon today (Friday).
• March 16, 2007: L19: Postwar and L20: Overview and Summary handouts now available.
  The L20 handout has the final exam instructions, IDs, and 8 essays questions to choose from.
  Note that there is a "semi-web option:" if you received an A or A- on your book essay, you can still publish it on the course web site instead of answering the ID portion of the final. See the L20 handout for details.
• March 20, 2007: starting to upload papers: essay index page; template;
• March 22, 2007, 1:30pm: Student Essay index page now complete; 27 essays uploaded.
  [28th essay added on 3/27/07]
• Mar. 28, 2007: Here is the distribution of grades for the Winter 2007 Hist 133b course according to the final point distribution (if you want to contact me, read my note on grading, below):

  # students	79-82pts=B+   6	74 pts=C+  1	42-59pts=D    2
  87-91pts=A   12	77-78pts=B      2	70-73pts =C    4	F    0
  83-86pts=A-   8	75-76pts=B-    0	65-69pts =C-   0	incomplete:      0	total:  35

• Oct. 9, 2008: course books for Winter 2009:
  • Doris Bergen, War and Genocide: A Concise History of the Holocaust (Rowman & Littlefield, 2003)($11/21 at amazon)
    
  • Art Spiegelman, Maus, vol. 1 (1986) (amazon $7 used, $10 new); vol. 2 (1992):
    amazon $7 used, $10 new) (both vols. together: $18-20)
  • Diane Ackerman, The Zookeeper's Wife: A War Story (W. W. Norton, 2007) ($10/16 at amazon)
• Nov. 23, 2008: Josie Levi Martin, a Holocaust survivor who will be speaking to our class after we read a selection from her autobiography, was miraculously spared from the Tea Fire last Thursday. See this 11/20/08 Noozhawk article by Rob Kuznia: "For One Resident, Survivor's Guilt Taking Emotional Toll After Tea Fire." Josie's 2002 book is Never Tell Your Name ($13.50 & searchable at amazon).
• Jan. 3, 2009: Enrollment is currently at 44 of 48 spaces, with 6 people already on a waiting list, several of them with priority status. The list is now closed until the start of classes, and enrollment through Gold is closed as well.
  • GauchoSpace course website

  Starting here, all announcements until 3/24/09 were sent out as emails from the Gauchospace forum.

• Jan. 9, 2009: The reading for next week from the Fulbrook textbook is available on eres at the library:
  http://eres.library.ucsb.edu/eres/coursepass.aspx?cid=3233
  the password is: front
  You only need to read chap. 2 for starters.
  Also, I've given them Maus, both my copy and the library copy, to be placed on reserve. I don't know that they are there yet, although I was told it might happen today. Hopefully by Monday.
• Jan. 11, 2009: The UCSB library reserves for this course now has vol. 1 of Maus available.
  On the course eres site you will find the Fulbrook reading.
• Jan. 13, 2009: Q1 now available. The first of the 8 midterm questions is now available on the Gauchospace course website. It is due Thursday by the start of class.
  The library has had my copy of v. II to put on reserve since last Thursday, but they still haven't made it available. I'll check into it Wed. morning.
  Here is the link to the Gauchospace course site:
  https://gauchospace.ucsb.edu/courses/course/view.php?id=752
• Jan. 15, 2009: I may have forgotten to say this, but you should bring a copy of your answers to Q1 and your notes on Maus, as well as the books themselves, to class today.
  See you at 3:30.
• Jan. 20, 2009: Q2, due Thu 1/22, available. I posted Q2 on Gauchospace earlier this evening. It is due Thursday by class time. It will require careful reading of Fulbrook chap. 2.
  https://gauchospace.ucsb.edu/courses/course/view.php?id=752
  And hard copies of the book proposals are due as well, with photocopies of reviews.
  • Jan. 21: Q2 Clarification/hint: I received a good question about Q2--is the answer in chap. 2 or chap. 3?
    Well, it is in both. Fulbrook mentions the early creation of the 2 agreements (between 2+2 groups) in ch. 2, and in ch. 3 she explains how the agreements fell apart, contributing to the instability of the Weimar state.
• Jan. 28, 2009: Q3 available. A reminder that Q3 is due Thursday.
  Also, I'd like to announce a talk that is starting right after our class at 5pm in HSSB 6020.
  Professor of History Mary Sarotte (University of Southern California) will talk about the dramatic events of 1989. Drawing on newly released documents from Washington, Moscow, Warsaw, East Berlin, Bonn, and London, Professor Sarotte shows how U.S., Soviet, British, French, West German, and East German leaders competed to advance their visions for post-Cold War Europe. The decisions they made had far-reaching consequences and helped to shape the era we inhabit today.
  For more information: http://www.history.ucsb.edu/events/event.php?event_id=152
• Feb. 11, 2009: Q5 and supplementary pdf available. Q5 is available on the Gauchospace course website. I have also made a separate pdf of pp. 106-141 (and the prologue) of Josie Levy Martin's book, which is available there as well (the initial portion is on eres, password: front).
  Your insight and question from Josie's reading can be based on that selection as well, but it must not be.
  See you in class on Thursday
• Feb. 24, 2009: Q6 due Thu. now available. Q6 is now available on Gauchospace, due by Thursday's class:
  Select and briefly describe 4 incidents in The Zookeeper's Wife in which:
  -individuals behave selflessly (help others at their own risk), OR
  selfishly (give no thought to the consequences for others).
  For each, suggest *why* they did those things (what reasons or motivations they had).
• Mar. 5, 2009: hist 133b due dates & link resources. Here is some info on due dates:
  • Q7 is due today by class time.
  • If you resubmitted to qualify for the web option and did qualify, you have at least until Friday at 3pm to submit your supplements, until Monday at 4pm if you need that additional time.
  • If you did not qualify or do not want to do it, resubmit today (Thu) your graded and commented essay, showing what you changed.
  • If you are choosing the web option, submit today a printout of your supplements, as well as separate printouts of any longer text passages you are changing.
  • Finally, I tried to add some information and links about writing annotations to the Gauchospace page. If you click on the main link for this week, it only brings up a google search result page. However, if you click in Resources under Activities IN THE LEFT COLUMN, you will see under week 9 the full text I wrote. You can copy and paste those links in your browser.
  • I hope this is helpful, and see you later today.
• Mar. 12, 2009, 10am: What is due today (Thu). Several people are asking about deadlines and the file uploading. Let me try to clarify.
  • Q8 is NOT due before class. It may be in-class or due next week.
  • What IS due today IN CLASS, for those doing the web option only, is:
    HAND IN THE CORRECTED WEB SUPPLEMENTS THAT I HANDED BACK TO YOU LAST WEEK. You should have made the indicated corrections in the electronic version, OR noted on that marked-up hard copy why you did not correct specific ones. Be sure to sign the pledge at the end.
  • UPLOADING:
    The electronic file (.doc or .rtf) containing your corrected web supplements and book essay, and optionally an image, should be uploaded to Gauchospace by 8pm tonight. If that poses a problem, let me know after class, it is not a big deal.
  • The deadline on that upload is set to Friday March 20 because those students taking the final exam will upload a file containing their answers to the same place. (Combining the two is the only way to manage the grading feature in Gauchospace. Note that the points assigned for that final upload may be changing from 25 to 20 and back to 25 at the end, when I record the proofreading of the web option publications.)
  • Let me know if you still have questions.
• Mar. 12, 2009, noon: More clarification & upload form link.
  > Professor Marcuse,
  > After looking at your e-mail I still had a bit of confusion; today in
  > class are we just returning the corrected web publication we received on
  > thursday (with marks noting we corrected it) OR printing off an entirely
  > new one that is corrected.
  • No new printout of the web supplements is necessary, just return that hand-corrected version. HOWEVER, if you have made major changes to your annotations, a new printout of those might be helpful for me when reviewing them. (And might improve your grade.)
  • Also, the second type of uploading, copying certain elements (book info, about author, abstract) from your web supplements file and pasting them into a form on a web site, is not ready yet. I am meeting with the programmer after 2pm today to see whether/when he will have it ready. I will update the web option folks in class today on this.
  • The link itself is posted as a "resource" for this week on Gauchospace, but here it is directly:
    http://marcuse.faculty.history.ucsb.edu/classes/133b/133bproj/09proj/upload
    If you click it and it doesn't work, you may have to cut and paste it into your browser's address window. (Or compare the email and the address window to make sure it is going to the right place.
• Mar. 13, 2009: Upload page available.
  • For the students doing the web option, the upload form page is now ready. The annotated bibliography part of the form was still too full of bugs, so I just deleted it.
  • I have been trying to troubleshoot special characters with the programmer, and we did not finish, so here is some additional information:
  • 1. Most of you have your word processor set to use "smart" or curly quotes and apostrophes. These will not display properly. I would appreciate it if, once you click Preview and notice the strange characters that have replaced them, that you scroll down to the filled out upload form and use the " or ' keys on your keyboard to replace them.
  • 2. (especially for Darcy and Ryan O.): if you have special or non-alphabet characters in your name, it's best just to leave them out for now. They will generate weird characters (as in 1 above), and the filename in the URL will simply leave them out.
  • I hope this is clear. Try to upload your information by Saturday at noon, as I will begin checking the files then. Send me an email if you are having problems.
  • I will try to get about 10 essays uploaded by the end of Saturday, then I will be away from Sunday until late next Thursday. I will continue the uploading on Friday, 3/20. So if you have questions, you should ask them by Sat. at 9pm.

The announcements sent via Gauchospace end here.

• Mar. 24, 2009: This quarter I used the Gauchospace course website, with mixed results. Integrated email is nice, and uploading the midterm questions is easier, but the rest can be a pain. And it doesn't make the course materials themselves available after the course is over.
  I've just updated the Student Essay Index Page with this year's 37 essays.
  Web option students should check their essays for the following, and let me know if changes need to be made:
  1. Spelling of their name and the book info on the Index page.
  2. Thesis statement is bolded?
  3. Italics did not get lost in the conversion?
  4. Block quotes are still block quotes
  5. All external links and internal navigation links work (note that Ebsco, Jstor etc. won't work outside of the UCSB domain). Check all links in the bibliography, navbar link.
  6. Do you think the annotations in your bibliography rate an * on the index page?
     Let me know and I'll review them.
• Mar 25, 2009 [emailed via Gauchospace]: grade distribution available; web essays ready.
  • As you probably know, your grades are available on GOLD now. I have posted the "curve" (point to letter grade distribution) on my course website:
    http://marcuse.faculty.history.ucsb.edu/classes/133b.
  • There you will also find the link to the 133b web option essays index page, with a list of a few things for you to check. If you find any problems, let me know--since email quickly gets overwhelming, please enter your notes on the space on the Gauchospace site. Once you give me those, I can enter the "links last checked" date.
  • Thanks, and I hope you're having a good spring break.
• Mar. 25, 2009: Here is the distribution of grades for the Winter 2009 Hist 133b course according to the final point distribution--without the extra credit points. (20 students accumulated 75 extra credit points, an average of 3.75, usually raising their grade 1 step.)
  If you want to contact me, read my note on grading, below.

# students	87-89pts=B+   6	78-79 pts=C+  0	D    0
93-98pts=A    14	83-86pts=B      6	74-77pts =C     2	F    1
88-92pts=A-   14	80-82pts=B-    4	70-73pts =C-   0	average:      89.5	total:  47

With the extra credit factored in, 20 students got an A, 12 A-, and 3 B+; the rest stayed the same. I don't give A+, sorry.