Sample Assignments
How to Analyze Visual and Material Culture
As a first step to analyzing historical objects, this worksheet challenges students in my advanced and introductory courses to interrogate a single object or visual image from the past using a series of analytical questions. After this initial exploration, students have gathered enough data and questions about their object to begin research using secondary sources for a paper assignment or a collaborative online exhibition assignment.
Digital Narratives
In groups of two or three, St Lawrence University students collaborate during the second half of my medieval and early modern survey courses to create a digital project. Each student’s contribution to the site, or digital narrative, explains the history of a particular object, architecture, or pieces of visual culture of their choice. Together, the class creates an online museum of objects from the time period of the course through a series of linked websites. For an example of one such project based around a pilgrims’ badge of St John the Baptist, click here.
Viking Funeral
Rather than a final exam or a traditional research paper, students in my St Lawrence University global special topics Vikings: Raiders, Traders & Enslavers course research, design, and perform a viking funeral at a firepit on campus. Their creativity and scholarship provides the basis for the public experiential learning activity as well as a final original research paper on viking grave goods and the role of objects and archaeology in articulating early medieval identities.
Resources for Educators
online resources for creating assignments, syllabi, exams, lectures, and discussion questions
Teaching the Middle Ages in Higher Ed - A series of interactive assignments crowd-sourced from medieval syllabi
Medieval Europe Online - Online companion to Judith M. Bennett's Medieval Europe: A Short History and provider of great resources like timelines, maps, bibliographies, and links to medieval news stories
The Animated Bayeux Tapestry - Follow the story of the 1066 invasion through the famous embroidery now on youtube
A Short History of the Middle Ages - Barbara Rosenwein's online textbook companion with study questions, genealogies, and glossaries
Schoenberg Institute Manuscript Series - Flip through Penn's collection of medieval manuscripts with curators & scholars on youtube
International Medieval Bibliography - Bibliographic resource for medieval and early modern studies (subscription required)
Medieval primary sources
TEXTS
Early Medieval Texts - Alphabetical list with links to translations of key early medieval authors & texts c. 300 - c.800
The Internet Medieval Sourcebook - Archived collection of texts in translation from late antiquity to the Reformation
TEAMS Middle English Texts Online -Textual editions of Middle English texts geared toward students
The Labyrinth - Collection of texts, resources, websites, & introductions to medieval historical topics & themes
Perseus Latin Dictionary - Online Lewis & Short Latin dictionary and facing-page translations of classical texts
OBJECTS
Index of Christian Art - Online visual database of medieval art & architecture (subscription required)
BM Medieval Objects - Rooms 40 and 41 (c. 300 - 1500) at the British Museum, London, with high-res images
Anglo-Saxon Churches - Database of all churches containing Anglo-Saxon architecture from Harold Taylor's 3-volume series
Medieval Object Lessons - A digital project of medieval material culture & 3D scanning at Harvard University (currently in beta)
Staffordshire Hoard - Educational website dedicated to the display and conservation of 7th - 8th c. gold and silver Anglo-Saxon objects found in 2009
The Digital Pilgrim Project - the British Museum's ongoing database of 3D models of medieval pilgrims' badges & souvenirs