#Twitterstorians am I the only one who keeps an email folder called “Student Excuse Hall of Fame”? Mine goes back to 1997. Admission standards are high : not quite 50 in 28 years. Dead Grandmothers need not apply. Still at #1: skipping class in hiding from an arrest warrant for parking tickets. 🤔

Oh, this is so exciting! Thank you @lizcovart.bsky.social for the invitation. And while I'm here, pleased to announce that @uchicagopress.bsky.social is bringing out a paperback in Spring 2026!!!

My grading callus makes me feel honest & hard-working. Proud. All hail the writing bump! Drain that green pen! (Green for Go!)

Teaching a favorite session today on #FrederickDouglass #Narrative — after decades of scrounging cheap original printings (1799 - 1832) of the #ColumbianOrator … I finally have enough to give one to each student & say, DISCUSS: What kinds of things could an enslaved teenager learn with this book?

Excited to hear that Jeff Hiller won an Emmy for his work in Somebody, Somewhere. He was so fantastic in that show. What a charmer, too. A beautiful show that was all about small stuff and small moments in a small town that felt real and lived in.

If Jeff Hiller's charming Emmy acceptance speech is the first you're hearing about SOMEBODY SOMEWHERE, you really owe yourself to check it out. It's been my show of the year two years running: newrepublic.com/article/1875...

That trip turned into this photoessay: emergencemagazine.org/essay/of-wan...

www.npr.org/2025/09/06/g... Drum rolls and fanfares for Lt. James Reese Europe and his Harlem Hellfighters Band, which I learned all about in the amazing book Stomp & Swerve by @davidwondrich.bsky.social
🎶🎺🪕🥁🎷🎵

Tomorrow morning on my live podcast, “History Matters:”

Standing Up Matters!

We’ve seen a lot of push back this week from people in high places.

And it matters—more than you might think.

Join us for some reckoning.

Friday 10AM ET
NCHEteach.org/conversations

This Is Not How You Support the National Park Service #NationalParks open.substack.com/pub/kevinmle...

That’s exactly the point why faculty claim syllabi are their intellectual work. If you need AI to build a syllabus for you, you shouldn’t be teaching a class.

Syllabi represent YOUR pedagogical approach (or one built *hopefully* by your department with thought to building student knowledge). 6/🧵

So I'm doing a commonplace book assignment with the students in my #earlymodern women's history course this semester. Big thank you to everyone who shared resources and ideas!

Watch this space for updates and reflections.

#teaching #pedagogy

I am assigning this in my grad seminar. Such a wonderful article and technique!

Such a good essay. Highly recommended.

This is great!

Young adults do also like notebooks! I think analog, assign them to purchase a notebook they *like* and a pen they like writing with. That part of the assignment alone is valuable.

I'm doing the same thing--basing mine on Joseph Adelman's assignment here josephadelman.com/2014/09/04/c...

There was a thread a month or so ago with some good suggestions.

In my Constitution course, they earn 10 points toward 100 total for copying out the Bill of Rights, and another 10 for copying out Article II. Quid pro quo isn’t a bad teaching strategy.

The oldest Aldabaran tortoise at Blank Park Zoo is currently... in time out. For climbing the fence in an escape attempt. Love it.

I’m teaching the old fashioned way: no Canvas, no PDFs, no e-books, no uploads, no turn-it-in checks. Everything on paper. Day one I gift each student an old-time comp book. Last year, many students filled 100 sheets/200pp w/ handwritten notes & thoughts. Some filled 2 books! Best discussions ever!!

I’m teaching the old fashioned way: no Canvas, no PDFs, no e-books, no uploads, no turn-it-in checks. Everything on paper. Day one I gift each student an old-time comp book. Last year, many students filled 100 sheets/200pp w/ handwritten notes & thoughts. Some filled 2 books! Best discussions ever!!

You would not believe the amount of calories I burn each day just restraining myself from posting responses to all the bad political news. The effort has been working lately, but it dawns on me how much work it is just to remain sufferable online.

PLEASE REPOST 🥺🙏

The Canadian Letters & Images Project is an online digital archive of Canadians’ experience during wartime at home & in battle. It contains thousands of personal letters & photos that reveal people’s experience through their own words & eyes.
www.canadianletters.ca/content/abou...