A Diamond in a Coalbin

Ms. Chizitere Cassey showed up in my U. S. history II class in Summer 2003. She is an international student from Nigeria and has proclaimed herself a pre-engineering major. This week, she accomplished something of note. Out of the blue, she sent e-mail to Dr. Jon Butler, Coe Professor of History and Chair of the Department of History at Yale University. Ms. Cassey requested help with a topic out of my course requirement that each student must make an in-class presentation bringing information above and beyond that contained in the anthology used for this assignment. Further, I demand that my students seek information in scholarly sources: monographs published by university presses or articles in scholarly journals. This is not pedantry, although most Amarillo College students think it to be such. Most would rather peruse encyclopedias (good for grades K-5) or mass-circulation periodicals (good for grades 6-8) or trade books and even textbooks (adequate—not good— for grades 9-10). Most have never looked at a scholarly journal. Most have never paid attention to the publisher of a book. So, Ms. Cassey's accomplishment is outstanding among Amarillo College students. Most of my students whine that they can't find any information. Most now want to go to any fly-by-night Web site and drag such nonsense into class. Unfortunately, AC students like Ms. Cassey are like diamonds in a coalbin. However, it is moments like this that make my heart sing. If this be (fair & balanced) self-pity, so be it!

Ms. Chizitere Cassey (HIST 1301-004) wrote two (2) Mail messages to Dr. Sapper and included the reply to her from "her" author in Taking Sides, Professor Jon Butler of Yale University.

1. Hi Dr Sapper, can you schedule an appointment with me for a pre-debate conference on friday? I have a classes from 8:00am to 8:50 am, and then from 10:00-10:50, and 11:00-11:50. I also wanted to let you know that i sent an e-mail to Dr. Jon Butler at Yale University( the author of the article that defends my side of issue 5 in "Taking Sides, Vol. I"). He replied the very next day, and his e-mail contained an article, and some scholarly monographs that provide information to support my side of the issue. No library in Amarillo has any of the books he suggested, so i used inter-library loan, courtesy of Lynn library.Thank you so much, because if you hadn't mentioned the idea in class, i don't think i'd have had the courage to try it.
   
   -Ms. Cassey.



2. Hi Dr. Sapper, Dr. Butler mainly suggested monographs, i'm not sure whether "Early American Literature" is a journal, I'll go to Ulrich's web to find out, but that'll be on monday when i go to Lynn Library, because i can't access the database from home. Do you know for sure if it's a journal? And thanks for taking the time to walk me through the pre-debate conference earlier today.
   
   I just thought i should send you the whole e-mail. I actually got two of the books he suggested today, via inter-library loan.
   
   -Ms. Cassey.

Dear Chizi Cassey:

Thank you for your note.

One of your problems is that rather than arguing directly that the "Gt Awak" was an interpretative fiction, historians have in the main just lowered their sights, so to speak, and described the revivals more modestly but kept the name. An example is Frank Lambert, Inventing the "Great Awakening" (Princeton, 1999), which uses the name but reduces the claims for the revivals' social and cultural upheaval and especially for their importance to the coming of the American Revolution. You might also see Joseph H. Conforti, "The Invention of the Great Awakening, 1795-1842," Early American Literature, 26 (1991), 99-118, which is a preview to Joseph H. Conforti, Jonathan Edwards, Religious Tradition, and American Culture (Chapel Hill, 1995). A survey of the subject can be found in Allen C. Guelzo, "God's Designs: The Literature of the Colonial Revivals of Religion, 1735-1760," in New Directions in American Religious History, ed. Harry S. Stout and D. G. Hart (New York, 1997), 141-172. A rather silly modern book by an exceptionally eminent economic historian, Robert William Fogel, The Fourth Great Awakening & the Future of Egalitarianism (Chicago, 2000), assumes the old view but then adds a new "awakening" in present time; my own review of the book appears in Business History Review, 74 (2000), 699-702.

I hope this helps. Good luck with your debate.

Sincerely,

Jon Butler, Chair
Department of History
William Robertson Coe Professor of American Studies and History
Professor of Religious Studies
Yale University

(Sapper posted the Cassey/Butler exchange on the WebCT Bulletin Board in all classes. The following message was for Sapper's students and Ms. Cassey.)



You have read an example of excellent work by a student at Amarillo College. As far as this required in-class presentation assignment is concerned, this is one of the best efforts to seek information that I have encountered in the two decades+ of this required assignment in my history courses. This is what people do in real college work. Kudos to Ms. Cassey and kudos to Dr. Jon Butler!

By the way, Early American Literature is a FINE scholarly journal.

-Dr. Sapper