Statement of Core Learning Outcomes

The History Department at Dartmouth strives to teach students to think historically, developing a broad range of knowledge, skills, and understanding on which good history and good thinking depend. These include an awareness of the diversity of human experiences as they have changed over time; an understanding of the evolving relationship between past and present and present and past; and an appreciation of the provisionality of historical knowledge and interpretation.

Individually and collectively, our courses are committed to the following learning outcomes:

Cultivating information literacy. Students will learn to identify and evaluate credible information, an increasingly urgent skill in today's world. They will be able to navigate databases and the resources of Dartmouth Library, and work with research librarians to collect and analyze sources and identify their provenance.

Using evidence. Students will be able to critically evaluate both primary and secondary sources and marshal these sources as compelling historical evidence.

Constructing coherent arguments. Students will display the capacity to formulate research questions and to provide sound answers to those questions informed by historical evidence.

Demonstrating historiographical awareness. Students will work to identify the contours and stakes of historiographical debates and to situate their own interventions in larger scholarly conversations.

Communicating effectively. Students will refine their ability to express ideas and to generate sustained arguments, both orally and in writing.