This class covered a lot of interesting material. I wasn't crazy about the professor (read more about that below) but I found many aspects of the course quite intriguing, and while a lot of work, the assignments were much the same.
There were two 50-minute lectures a week, and one 50-minute tutorial a week.
ASSIGNMENTS
1st Paper (10%)
For the 1st paper, we had to write about a Vergerio document answer the question: "What were critical facets of this new educational programme that reveal the influence of Renaissance culture?" It was only 500 words long and not too hard.
TIP: Get familiar with Chicago style citations. You will use them a lot in the course, and (from my understanding) other histories as well.
Here is the link to the Online Style Guide.
2nd Paper (15%)
We read a Scribner document on magic and analyzed it: was it significant? Why or why not? We also had to elucidate his arguments, etc. The hardest part of this assignment was actually picking apart the document, but once that was done it wasn't bad. Learning about magic was certainly interesting, I found. This was 1,000 words long.
TIP: Contact your TA if you are having trouble. They are there to help! It seems obvious, but a lot of people forget about this.
Research Report (30%)
The big daddy. We had to write on either Medicine and Science or Witchcraft, and use a bunch of primary and secondary sources in the paper (some were supplied, some we had to find on our own). 1,200 words long, and proper citation was a must this time around. This was a pain to do I found, as while I liked my topic, finding and dissecting so many sources took a while. As long as you put the work in you should be fine, though.
TIP: Do not procrastinate with this report. Seriously. Every time you are thinking of procrastinating, think about this review and GET STARTED! (You're welcome).
Tutorial Participation (15%)
In my tutorial the TA would put marks next to our names whenever we said something relevant. Once you got three marks, he would stop. I'm not sure if other tutorials operated this way, but for the full 15% make sure you say at least three things every tutorial (the more the better!)
TIP: Think of these sessions as free marks, and don't be afraid to speak up. Even if you are totally off, at least you tried- and you will be rewarded for that.
Final Exam (30%)
For the first part of the exam we were given twenty-eight terms (The Black Death, Petrarch, The Bastille, Galileo, etc.) and told ten would show up on the exam, where we would have to write about five. (Oddly, there were actually fifteen on the exam.) The second part was an essay where we were given four questions, told three would show up on the exam, and we would have to write about one. As long as you prepare in advance and study the provided terms, you shouldn't have trouble. The hardest part is remembering the dates.
TIP: Make cue cards. Put the term on the front, and all the relevant information on the back. Make one for all the terms you need to know (only twenty-three if you think about it- there are twenty-eight in total and you have to write about five, so there is no reason to study them all) and quiz yourself using them.
PROFESSOR
Dr. Armstrong certainly knew what she was talking about. However, she went off on tangents every now and then, and her PowerPoints had almost no information on them. As someone who handwrites notes, it was sometimes difficult to keep up with everything she was saying. It was also annoying to hear her say: "We have no time to talk about this..." only to have her talk about it for five minutes. Oh, and be warned: do not talk in her class, as she hates it and will stop the lecture and wait for you to cease before continuing. She is by no means a bad professor though; as I said, she definitely knows what she is talking about, and has her funny moments.
My TA was Frank Nosic, and he was absolutely fantastic: a fair marker, funny, helpful, always prompt with e-mail replies, and available for help when/if you needed it. I would take another course in a heartbeat if I knew he was TA'ing it.
OVERALL
I wasn't crazy about Dr. Armstrong's lecture style, but the material itself was quite interesting. I also had an amazing TA, which certainly made the course more enjoyable. All in all, I would recommend this class; it is quite a lot of work, but much of it is engaging. I learned a lot!