Assignments

Class Participation

The success of this course depends upon active student participation. A portion of the grade will therefore be based on participation and listening, preparation, collaboration, in-class assignments, and overall contribution to class discussions. Naturally, in order to participate, students must come to class and recitation on time and ready to discuss the readings, videos and other materials.

While there will be some discussion during the regular class period as well as the opportunity to ask questions, most discussions will take place during the recitation sections. During the workshops, we will consider your level of engagement. When we hold discussions during recitation, we will assess your contributions from what kinds of questions do you ask to the thoughtfulness of your comments. This can be challenging for some students but it is important. History is a story we create in community and share broadly.

Reading / Video Reflection Papers

Beginning with the Week 2 readings, students will be required to submit a total of 8 brief reflection papers before each class meeting for 8 of the 12 weeks that include readings. Students can opt out of submitting a reflection for 4 sessions of their choice during the semester to balance their workload with other classes. Students should notify the instructor when they intend to opt out.

Reflections should focus on questions and observations from the readings and videos, and tie together readings and topics from different sessions as the class moves forward. They are not intended to be book reports, but are rather your own impressions of the reading and how you feel the readings are connected with the larger themes of the class. Each reflection should be 1–2 pages in length. At the top of each reflection paper, please include a single question, idea or topic that captures something of your thinking for your paper, as well as something you would like to learn more about.

Reflection paper evaluations are based on:

Have you done the assignment? Have you read the required readings (and watched the required videos) as well as some of the supplemental readings? Have you included a discussion question? Do you get the “main idea” of the assignment?
Is your essay interesting? Do you have something important or useful to say? Do you “connect the dots” between the readings (and videos) for the week with those from previous weeks?
Do you ask good questions? Do you make good observations? This is totally subjective but some questions are trivial (eg: What year was MIT founded?) and can be answered by a Google search. I look for questions and observations that make me think.
Do you show a steady maturation in your thinking from week-to-week? Do your essays get better?

Archives and Museum Workshops

This class introduces students to both the Institute Archives and Special Collections and the MIT Museum. Special interactive workshops have been developed to help students learn how to access primary source material as well as see some of MIT’s most special treasures firsthand. The worksheets below were developed for use in conjunction with exercises led by the archivists and curators and may not be as useful absent the instructor’s introductions.

Worksheet (PDF)

Using Artifacts as Evidence (PDF)

Project Assignments

Document Report

This may be a unique writing exercise for you. On the surface, it is very simple: Pick a single document from the Institute Archives that relates to some aspect of MIT history from 1861 to 1906 that interests you. About two pages of this report will be formulaic, meaning you will be asked to answer a set of questions about your chosen document or artifact. You will need to generate another page of sources—books, articles, websites, videos—that relate to your document or artifact. Finally, you will write a one-page essay that tells an important story about MIT through the lens of your document or artifact.

Artifact / Plan Report

Like the document report, you will be asked to identify a single artifact or architectural plan from the MIT Museum collection. These materials will relate to the period 1906 to 1920. Like the document report, you will have a series of questions to answer, a list of sources and a one-page essay.

Final Project

The capstone assignment for the class is a comparative exercise. You may pick any aspect of MIT history that interests you. Your final project will be a “then and now” comparison. For example, how was physics taught in 1916 compared with today? If you decide to write a research paper, we will explain the requirements but it will be approximately 5–7 pages in length. If your project is something different, you will still be required to submit a project report with appropriate documentation (e.g.: Photographs).

Plan Report Assignment

The last project was all about learning about MIT in the 19^th century through the careful study of textual sources. This project is about the analysis of visual sources and will focus on (not surprisingly, given this year’s celebrations) the design and construction of the Cambridge campus. Our focus will be on a set of drawings created by architects, engineers and draftspeople who worked for William Welles Bosworth (MIT’s new campus architect) and Stone & Webster (the builders and interior designers).

This project is quite different from the previous one in that you will only consult other sources incidentally. Most of your time will be spent observing (and recording your observations), drawing and photographing. I want you to really look at and appreciate the history of this remarkable campus.

Thus, I want to introduce you to some of the techniques used by historians for basic analysis of visual sources. Your final report will include drawings, sketches and photographs as well as your notes and answers to some basic questions. You will also be asked to write a short caption for your drawing that could potentially be used for a new website.

Your Plan

Every student will be assigned a construction plan from one of the original buildings designed by William Welles Bosworth in the 1913–1916 period. This plan may have been created by Bosworth’s team or by the engineers from Stone & Webster. Each student will work on a different plan, of the 60 on loan.

(Students in STS.050 were given access to plans of MIT from the Facilities department. These plans cannot be shared with the public.)

Researching Your Plan

The first step is to carefully study your plan. Plan to spend at least 20 minutes (you are allowed to spend longer) just looking at the plan and taking as many notes as can in that time. I strongly recommend using pencil and paper. Write down anything and everything from inscriptions you notice, details, decorations, patterns, shapes, colors, how many openings (windows and doors), how many stories or how many rooms, what is the scale, or even how this plan makes you feel, etc. There are no guidelines, no right answers for this step, but the quality and quantity of your observations will be assessed. You will need to include your notes with your final report.

The second step may seem strange at first. You need to pick a familiar space—your dorm room, a classroom—and “draw” that space, mimicking your drawing. In other words, if you have a floor plan, you should sketch a floor plan of your room; if you have an elevation, you should go outside and draw an exterior elevation. You will need to be able to take some basic measurements (width, length, height) so pick a space that is both accessible and manageable (ie: Simple is better). This is not a masterwork. The sketch can be pretty crude. The goal is to get you to appreciate what went into making your plan and to notice details that you might have missed the first time around. You will include your sketch with your final report.

The third step is an exercise in consolidating the raw observations and notes and focusing on the “design” and “functions” of the structure (rather than its “form”). I would encourage you not to attempt to do this before you have completed the first two steps.

Going back to your plan, please consider the following questions (in no particular order):

Again, what are you looking at?
How is your plan organized? Is it one drawing or several?
What kind of information does you plan communicate?
These are construction plans but what is being “constructed”?
Looking only at this plan, what can you tell about the structure’s functions?
Please explain how people move around in this structure? How do they gain access and egress? What can you tell about circulation?
Can you tell what building materials the architect or engineer hopes to use?
If you have an exterior elevation, how are the volumes arranged? Where is the weight concentrated?
If you have an interior plan, can you find the utilities? Heating, Ventilation? Light? Can you figure out how these are provided for?
Looking again at the aesthetic elements, can you figure out what “problems” this plan is trying to solve?
Do you think this plan makes sense?

To complete this step, you will need to write a short essay (200 words, or a little less than one page double-spaced) that consolidates what you have learned about your “structure,” how it was designed and how you think the architects and engineers thought it would “work.”

Finally, the fourth step: I want you to go onto campus and look at the real structure. Your goal is to figure out the actual space that is represented in your plan. Walk around the public spaces, inside and out. You may want to bring your printout with you and sketch on it today’s configuration. What are the building and room numbers (today)? What is the same? What has changed? Take notes, take pictures. Again, you will include these notes and pictures (maximum 10) in your final report.

Please answer this question (1 paragraph): Considering only the space represented by your plan, do you think the people who created MIT in 1916 would be surprised by what exists today?

Report Requirements

General Information:

Your final submission will be a mix of notes, sketches, pictures and a small amount of text that summarizes what you have learned about your plan.

First page
1. Your report needs a cover or title page that includes your plan number (found on the plan itself as well as the name of your document) and your name.
Information Summary Sheet
1. Because we hope to use your report to help catalog these plans you need to include the following information:
- Short Title (a modified version from the plan itself)
- Title on the Plan
- Firm responsible for the plan (either William Welles Bosworth or Stone & Webster)
- Maker (many of the plans have initials or names of the people that drew them)
- Materials (these are all ink on linen)
- Place Made
- Date Made
- Geographic location (include current building number plus Cambridge, MA)
- Plan Type (most of these plans are elevations or floor plans; this information is usually on the plan)
- Description (short description of the plan content)
- Other notes or relevant information (you may want to reference handwritten notes or other details about your plan)
- Label (In 50 words or less, describe your plan in a way that would help someone identify what it is and some particularly interesting or relevant feature that you think would be important to know.)
Notes, drawings, sketches, photographs and essays.
1. Please collect these materials together. If you don’t have access to a scanner, you can always photograph your notes, drawings, and sketches from steps 1–3. You will include your responses for Steps 3 and 4 here. Please label these pages (eg: Notes for Step 1, Drawing for Step Two, Essay for Step 3 etc.)
Acknowledgements
1. Please acknowledge any resources you may have drawn on to help you with this project. For example, if someone gives you permission to look at their office, please include their name and MIT address. If you use a book or website to gather information, please list here.

Submission Deadline(s)

Early submission with option to revise:

You have the option of submitting your completed report early. Reports submitted the week prior to the final due date will be graded with time to revise for the final due date during Week 10. You have the option to revise and resubmit your report by the final due date, at the end of Week 10. While there is no guarantee of a higher grade, you cannot receive a lower one.

Final Due Date is Class 18

Expectations:

Students often wonder how much time it should take to do an assignment. In general, this project should take 4–5 hours to complete.

Go back and reread all the steps! Then get out your pencils…

Document Report Assignment

“To see a world in a grain of sand….” is how the poet William Blake began one of his most famous poems. This assignment asks you to “see” MIT in a single work. On the surface it is very simple. Pick a single document or artifact that relates to some aspect of MIT history from 1846 to 1909 (1920 if the subject is athletics) that interests you; learn everything you can about it; and tell a good—but short—story that reveals something new and compelling about the Institute.

Finding A Document

You have had the opportunity to visit the Institute Archives, a key repository for MIT history, but there is material everywhere from sheet music in the Lewis Library to the reference files of the MIT Museum. From your study of the MIT150 Exhibition, it should be clear that you can tell a broad range of stories about MIT from the most unusual artifacts. (One of the best displays I have ever seen about the Civil War involved uniform buttons!)

Your first step is to consider what topics interest you. Maybe you want to learn about some aspect of student life (a dorm, fraternity, sports team, The Tech). Maybe you like biography and want to learn more about one of MIT’s faculty members or a student like Katherine Dexter McCormick. Maybe you want to know about admission requirements, tuition costs or budgets? Do you want to know what mechanical engineering was like in 1900? Or what experiments did first year Physics students conduct? Are you curious about what others thought of MIT? Truly, anything you have read or heard or interests you about MIT should be what you decide to explore.

When you have a general idea, you need to explore. You can do that online, but also by asking. You don’t need to find the “perfect” document to tell a great story. Just find something that gets you started.

There is one exception to this: You should not choose a President’s Report, The Tech, Technique, and Course Catalogs, because you will be expected to consult these as sources.

When you identify your document, please take a picture(s), scan or download a copy to include with your report.

Report Requirements

General Information

There are three parts to this assignment:

Part I: The first 2–3 pages of this report will entail answering questions very similar to the ones that were on the worksheets you used at the Archives and Museum. This is a formulaic exercise but essential to determining what you can learn from this source.
Part II: You will need to do a fair amount of creative research to dig up good sources—books, articles, websites, videos—that relate to your document and a brief note about these sources.
Part III: Write a 500–750 word (maximum) essay that tells an important story about MIT through the lens of your document or artifact.

Specific Requirements:

Part I: Questions to answer about your artifact or document. Just cut and paste this list and type your answers to each question. Your answers should be brief, accurate, and neatly presented. Be intelligent in your responses but do not guess or speculate.

Please identify the document.
Please indicate where you found the document. If you are using a digital surrogate (aka: Digital scan of an original online), please provide the URL but also indicate where the original is located. Often archives or museums will provide information about collections, box, folder or object numbers. Please record these.
Please prepare a proper bibliography (any style, Chicago, MLA is acceptable) citation for your document.
Briefly, in no more than 3 sentences, describe this document. What is it?
Please provide a short physical description. Include measurements if possible.
How was this document made?
Who are the people represented in these materials? (Some suggestions for what to report: Names, titles, and positions.)
What events or activities are documented?
What are the dates of the materials? When was it created, circulated, annotated, altered? (Give a reasoned guess if it’s not clearly indicated.)
Which geographic places or locations are represented in the item?
What do you think was the purpose of the item? Why was it created? What did its creators want to achieve?
Who was the intended audience of the item? Who might have seen it? Was it for private or public consumption?
What does this item tell you and what does it leave out? What would you like to ask about it?
What other kinds of information can you derive from your materials?
Do you think your materials are authentic? Why or Why not?
Other important observations? Please note anything that you feel is critical to know about your document or object but not recorded elsewhere.

Part II: Sources to learn more about and from your document and object.

You should have no fewer than 7 unique items (more than 15 would be excessive). By “unique” we mean type of source. In other words, you might consult 10 course catalogs but that only counts as one source. You need to indicate what you learned from these sources.

For example, you have selected an early chemistry examination as your document and consulted the course catalog to figure out who taught the course and what subjects it covered. Then, you might look up Eliot and Storer’s textbook or come across this fantastic book: Chemistry in America, 1876–1976, which is filled with all kinds of statistical information. Maybe the Chemical Heritage Foundation or the MIT Museum’s collections databases might have provided some photographs of students in chemistry labs. You might write a short note for each source or a single “essay” about your sources. It is up to you.

Bottom line, this is your bibliography for this project. Historians usually follow the Chicago style but pick any style you like. Just be consistent and make it easy to find your sources. (We will check.)

Part III: Essay

Everything you have done so far should enable you to figure out a smart angle on the “big picture.” Every historical investigation must have an element of originality to it. You are not writing a research paper but rather a short essay that teaches your reader something important about MIT. 500 words minimum, 750 words maximum.

Some of you have prepared “elevator speeches”. The 150 Exhibition labels averaged 150 words. Your essay needs to be excellent in exactly the same way: Short and smart. It should reveal the extent of depth and breadth of your investigation without hitting the reader over the head. Use footnotes if you make a direct quote, but fundamentally this essay should be all yours. Don’t borrow the organization or style from someone else.

Want to know if it is an outstanding essay? Read it to your friends and roommates. If they’re bored; chances are we will be too. Be interesting. Make us feel like this document or object is incredibly special. In other words, make us feel like you can “see a world in a grain sand.”

Assembling Your Report

Make sure you have a title page with your name on it. Put all the parts together in sequence and include a copy of your document or object. Feel free to include additional illustrations. The completed package should be between 7 and 8 pages (not including your document).

Submission Deadlines

Early submission with option to revise:

You have the option of submitting your completed report early. Reports submitted by Class 9 will be graded by Class 11 (end of the day). You have the option to revise and resubmit your report by the final due date, Class 12. While there is no guarantee of a higher grade, you cannot receive a lower one.

Final Due Date Class 12

Expectations: Students often wonder how much time it should take to do an assignment. In general, this project should take 8–10 hours to complete (including time in the archives finding a document, looking up sources, drafting your responses and essay).

General Information

The capstone assignment for the class is a comparative exercise. You may pick any aspect of MIT history that interests you. Your final project will be a “then and now” comparison. Examples include:

How was physics taught in 1916 compared to today?
What was crew like in 1916 compared with today?
If I were applying to MIT in 1916, how would that compare with today?
What was “The Tech” like 100 years ago?
What did students wear?
How many first generation students were there in 1916? Today?
Who was a favorite MIT professor in 1916? Who are the favorites today?
What was the cutting edge discovering 1916? Today?
How did MIT address sustainability in 1916 compared with today?

Once you have an idea, you have to decide how you want to present your investigation. There are several options:

Write a short paper (5 pages in length)
Develop a guided tour (Yonward is a free app that can help you do this)
Write a policy recommendation for the senior administration (1 page recommendation, 3–4 pages of report)
Document your project or performance from the May 7th Move Celebration and compare it with the 1916 event

If you come up with another idea, please get it approved beforehand.

Because it will be the easiest to complete, many of you will want to write a research paper. If you decide to do this, there will be an early / final due date arrangement (similar to previous assignments). If your project is something different, you will still be required to submit a project report with appropriate documentation (e.g.: Photographs) by the final due date.

The goal of this assignment is to get you to think about the things you have learned during the term. Your grade will reflect the quality of your work, but also your ability to draw important conclusions about historical change. MIT is the same, MIT is different. Your job is to make this clear. Your research will be based on materials from the syllabus, as well as your own independent research using the many sources available at the Institute, such as the Institute Archives, MIT Museum, and various digital resources such as The Tech, President’s Reports, Catalogs, etc.

Requirements

Research Paper

Paper should be 5 pages (1250–1500 words max) with footnotes. Illustrations or other images will affect the page count so use the “word count” tool or put the illustrations at the end. Your final version should be a Microsoft Word document, paginated, double-spaced, 12-point font with normal 1-inch margins.
Please check spelling, punctuation, and grammar carefully. This is a formal piece of work. It should represent your best effort. Use the spell and grammar checks on your computer, but consider having a friend read it over as well.
This is a research paper. You should seek out both primary and secondary sources available at repositories such as the MIT Libraries, Institute Archives, and the MIT Museum, as well as important online collections. The exact number of sources will vary by topic. Use the skills you were asked to practice for your document / artifact report.
Footnotes: The purpose of the footnote is to help the reader understand the sources you used, as well as assess the strength of your analysis. Just as cooks look at the ingredients of a recipe first, we will likewise read your notes and bibliography first. Great sources make a great first impression. There are several styles, but typically history papers use the Chicago Manual of Style.
Illustrations: It is entirely appropriate (but not required) to incorporate illustrations, technical diagrams, tables or other visual material. These need to be labeled and must indicate the source they were derived from.

Tour

If you decide you would like to try creating an online tour, you will need to use an app like Yonward, Whitepoint, or another free app.
Whichever tour app you choose, you will need to work out a coherent “tour” idea. What would you like the person using your tour to learn from the experience of taking it? It is not good enough to just pick a bunch of random spots and provide equally random data. An example of a good tour might be a “then and now” comparison that has you compare historical photos with current ones, and contains information on how the buildings have evolved.
Prepare a short report (2–3 pages) that includes the name of your tour, your goal, the text, photos, narration that you developed, plus a bibliography (or footnotes) of sources. You will need to include at least one page of reflection on how this project has helped you better understand the history of MIT.

Policy Recommendation

MIT produces many reports and recommendations. You have had the opportunity to read several for this class, so you can consider those as models, but below are other examples:
Your project should be what is sometimes referred to as an “Executive Summary” (2–4 pages) which highlights your key points and provides some evidence and information.
All reports come with a cover memorandum. Yours should be addressed to the relevant person at MIT. Your cover memo should include a very short synopsis of your hypothetical report, but also an explanation of what you have learned about MIT in preparing it.
This report is distinctive because your evidence should draw on history. If you want to say something about housing today, draw on information about student housing a century ago. For example, you might want to talk about security, but you should investigate what kinds of security (if any) was provided to students 100 years ago. If you want to discuss food, consider how students fed themselves during the first decade in Cambridge.
Your report must include footnotes, especially for the historical information.

Move Day Celebration Project Report

For those of you that want to capture your performance or project and compare it with events of June 1916, you will want to become intimately familiar with the July 1916 issue of Technology Review. There are 454 pages of details about every aspect of the event. There are also accounts in the Boston papers (all available online through the Libraries) and plenty of materials at the Archives and Museum (especially photographs).

You should divide your report into 3 parts. About 2 pages (plus photos, links, to videos, etc.) should describe your contribution to the event on May 7 2016. Pages 3–4 should compare this to some aspect of the 1916 celebration. The final page should contain a reflection of what you have learned from this “reenactment.” What did your experience teach you about the original dedication? What can we learn about history by “doing” history?
Please remember to include footnotes, especially for the historical information, but document your own sources as well.

Other Projects

We will determine the right format, but there will be some sort of writing, a means of capturing your sources, etc.

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Course Info

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The History of MIT

Assignments

Class Participation

Reading / Video Reflection Papers

Archives and Museum Workshops

Project Assignments

Plan Report Assignment

Submission Deadline(s)

Final Due Date is Class 18

Document Report Assignment

Submission Deadlines

Final Due Date Class 12

General Information

Requirements

Research Paper

Tour

Policy Recommendation

Move Day Celebration Project Report

Other Projects

Course Info

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Departments

As Taught In

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Learning Resource Types