Dear
Readers:
The narrative histories for the 2007 academic year are
edited and posted to the web in this sixth edition of “Tell Me a Story.” This is the second year that a “rubric” was
used to determine which narratives made it into the history journal. Each of the student authors published in this
volume practiced writing an abstract, developing an outline, performing a
review of the literature, and then researching and writing a great piece of
history throughout the entire semester.
The best narratives from the Spring 2007 class in
Historiography met these standards and so are presented here as a gateway to
take their readers on a trip through time.
It is interesting to note that all of the student
authors write about conflict – five of the seven in fact are about specific
wars in American History – while the two others point to the old war between
capital and labor and the new war between Islamic terrorists and the West. Perhaps
it is because we are a nation at war that this background so influences our narratives
as historians.
Two of the tales in the 6th edition of our
journal come from the American Civil War.
We learn of two of the great turning points of this monumental struggle –
the first one when the Union and Confederate armies stumbled into Shiloh and the second one when General Meade defeated
the Confederacy at Gettysburg.
We grow up with the valiant Marquis de Lafayette
during the American Revolution, fly
with Jimmy Doolittle during his daring raid on Japan during the Second World War and struggle along with President
Lyndon Johnson to understand what exactly happened in the Tonkin Gulf during
the War in Vietnam.
Finally, we watch in horror once again as jumbo
jetliners crash into the
With the standards for HST 430: Historiography set so
high, each narrative that is published in the sixth edition of “Tell Me a
Story” is an excellent one. So it makes
choosing the “Best Narrative” another tough decision. This year the award for “Best Narrative” goes
to Brian Marciniak for his clear and precise retelling of the horrors of the
-- Mary Stockwell
© Mary Stockwell 2008
