Goals for Class as a Whole:

• To gain exposure to nine additional books in the history of medicine by reading the synopses prepared for the class before the scheduled presentation and to listen attentively to the in-class presentation of the book.
• To prepare questions for the presenters and participate in the class discussion.

Goals for Individual Groups:

• To present an informative online summary of the book and supply the class with a critical, in-class discussion of the author's subject matter and interpretation.
• To respond to class questions and encourage student discussion of the book.

How to Complete the Assignment:

This project has three parts:

a collaborative writing component,
an in-class presentation
an individual short essay

Collaborative work:

Students will work in groups of three or four to create a collaboratively written summary of the book, to be posted online.

Groups must communicate with instructor or GTA (to discuss presentation and questions) before turning in the online review.

Book summary must be online at the time of the class meeting before the scheduled presentation. Group must submit review for posting--on a disk, written in either Word or WordPerfect--to Sarah Mitchel . Contact her (scotton@vt.edu) to arrange this procedure.

On the day of the scheduled discussion all group participants will act as facilitators for class discussion and as resource people.

Structure of the Online Report:

Names of Reviewers

I. Author, Title (Place of Publication: Publisher, Date of publication)

II. One paragraph introduction that provides a brief overview of the book

III. Chapter -by -chapter description (several sentences): include chapter titles

IV. One paragraph review/critique of the book. What did you like about the book? What flaws did you find in the author's interpretation?

V. Several questions you want the class to think about--these questions will provide the basis for your class presentation. They should try to tie the book to the themes of the class, and connect it to previous readings and discussions.

Individual Essay

Each student in the group will also prepare a one-page individual essay explaining the relevance of the book to the themes of the class. This essay will be due the day of the class presentation.

Books and Dates for Presentation

Jan. 27: Bushnell, The Gifts of Civilization (health impact of European arrival in Hawaii)
Feb. 1: Brumberg, Fasting Girls (history of anorexia nervosa)
Feb. 3: Cherniack, The Hawk's Nest Incident (WVA industrial health disaster from 1930s)
Feb. 26: Rothman, Living in the Shadow of Death (a history of tuberculosis)
Mar. 1: Howell, Technology in the Hospital (development of the modern hospital, early 20C)
Mar. 17: Galambos, Networks of Innovation(business interest in vaccine development)
Mar. 24: Rosenberg, The Cholera Years (different responses to three epidemics, 19C)
Mar. 31: Proctor, Racial Hygiene (public health and medicine in Nazi Germany)
Apr. 7: Jones, Bad Blood (Tuskegee syphilis experiment)

Goals for Class as a Whole

To discover why allopathic medicine has never been as hegemonic as the American Medical Association would have us believe by reading the resource pages created by other groups and attending the class presentations.

What alternative practices have been available to Americans? When and why have the different alternative medical systems appealed to vast numbers of Americans?

Goals for Collaboration

To research and prepare a class presentation about one alternative medical system

 

To develop a creative webpage of resource material related to one alternative system

How to Complete the Assignment

This assignment has three parts:

an in-class presentation
a webpage; and
an individual essay.

In-class presentations begin April 19.This project description includes a timeline for completing the assignment

The In-Class Presentation:

Each group should be prepared to present a detailed report on one medical system .
This report should include:

• a historical account of the advent of the practice, particularly when and how it appeared in theUnited States and biographies of important individuals
• descriptions of the ideas shaping disease definitions and practices of healing
• a status report on the current state of the practice

Questions each group should address in its presentation:

• When did the system become popular in the United States and why at that particular point in time? (What is the social context? The medical history context?)
• Who were the healers and who were the patients? (Race, class, gender identities?)
• How did practitioners in these systems explain disease, and what therapies did they offer? How did the explanations and therapies change over time?
• How were healers trained? and, Have the procedures changed?
• Did/ or Why did the regular medical profession oppose this system of practice when it first appeared in the United States?
• What is the contemporary state and status of the practice? What is the present relationship between the alternative practice and modern biomedical professionals?

Allow time for questions and discussion. Design some questions you would like the class to discuss; be prepared to answer questions and to ask questions about other presentations.

Practice your presentation together.

Alternative Medicine Webpage

Each group will construct informative resource pages about its subject.

Pages should tell the history of the alternative system and provide documents that help to answer the same questions to be addressed in the class presentation. Each page should include (but should not be limited to):

• short reading assignments for the class
• images related to the subject
• links to important sites (with a critical evaluation of the site's content)
• an annotated bibliography including all books and articles consulted for the presentation and the names and dates for any interviews conducted. An annotated bibliography is one in which each entry has a brief discussion of the content of the item and its usefulness for the assignment.

For online information about website construction check the "How to Create Your Own Web Site" page put together for this class. But as a general rule, simpler is better - your time is better spent developing the content of the page instead of developing technically sophisticated graphic designs.

IMPORTANT NOTE:
This project is to be completed collaboratively.You will work together as a group, dividing up responsibilities for the presentation and the webpage construction. Each group member must participate in the in-class presentation and each must contribute to the webpage construction.

Share the work--each of you should be responsible for a part of the presentation and the webpage, but all of you should be familiar with the entire history of the alternative system.

Each student will be asked to complete an evaluation of how successfully group members worked together to complete this project. The forms will be available in-class and online.

Evaluations:

All students are expected to evaluate the webpages of all other groups.  Follow this link to see a copy of the webpage evaluation form. Evaluations of webpages are due at the time of the in-class presentation. For example, each student will read and evaluate the pages about botanical healing and bring the evaluation to class on the day the botanical medicine group does its presentation. These evaluations will be shared (anonymously) with the authors of the webpages.

You might WIN A PRIZE : The History Department offers an annual award for the best web-based research project completed in a history course. All pages will be eligible.

Individual Essay, Essay #3:

The third component of the Alternative Medicine Project is an individual essay. This essay is the final assignment for the class. It must be turned in no later than the scheduled time for the final exam. Eager beavers can get an advance copy of the final essay online.

TIMELINE FOR COMPLETING ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE PROJECT (Dates also appear on the Semester AssignmentTable)

Jan. 18-Feb. 15: Hold planning meetings for this project. Divide the tasks and identify skills of individual group members that might be tapped for the group's benefit. Begin the research for this project.

Feb. 16-17-18: Meet with Professor Jones to discuss your plans

Groups should have a working bibliography for the research, and a plan of action (who is doing what? when and how often will the group meet? what deadlines has the group set for itself?)

Feb. 23-24-25: Webpage tutoring. In Major Williams Room 502.

Mar. 5: A skeleton of the unit's webpages must be online. A homepage with links to other pages that should at the least be titled and "under construction."

April 9: Drafts of webpages are due. Sarah and I will scan them and provide comments by April 12. Since you will have only a few days to make revisions, this draft should be as complete as possible.

April 12-April 16: Make Revisions.

April 16. All pages must be complete by this date. After this date you may add additional material to your class presentation, but not to you webpages.

April 19-May 3: Presentations (evaluations due for each presentation)

Saturday, May 8, 10:00AM: Final Essay on Alternative Medicine due.

Webpages for Spring 1999

Apr. 19: Botanical Healing

Apr. 21: Nutrition

Apr. 23: Hydropathy and Hydrotherapy

Apr. 26: Christian Science

Apr. 28: Chiropractic Medicine

Apr. 30: Acupuncture

May 3: Midwifery