History 566: Introduction
Contemporary Latin America, Spring 2019
Text: Skidmore, Thomas E., et al Modern Latin America 8th edition. New York: Oxford University Press. 2014.
Also, find a good periodical source for regional affairs (e.g., New York Times, The Economist, Dissent, The LA Times, and the Miami Herald), and have a three ring binder for handouts.
Class Meetings: This class will typically meet three times a week, as is true of most 500 level history courses. The reason for the fewer meetings is because the readings are longer. Please budget your time accordingly and mark your text so that you can easily refer to it during our discussions. Annotation is part of the homework assignment. If you miss a class please be in touch with me as soon as possible BEFORE the next class to get catch up on what you missed or might need for the next class.
Grading
1. Geography. There will be map quizzes culminating in a major quiz at the end of the term on countries, cities and geographical features of Latin America.
Here is an online country quiz: https://online.seterra.com/en/vgp/3016?c=JSSGT; The easier cities: https://online.seterra.com/en/vgp/3218?c=JC9GE
Geography quiz: https://lizardpoint.com/geography/s-america-physical-quiz.php
2. Essays. TBA
3. Class participation.
4. Point people. Each of you will be assigned a Latin American country and will give an occasional report on the latest news from that place. You will be asked to keep a journal. The journal should have at least one entry per week during the whole term. It may include information from the news or about your country. I will be collecting these at some point.
5. Glossary of terms. Contribute to our glossary of terms relevant to Latin American history.
For more on Mr. Jordan's policies, etc., read my Course Requirements page.