Your focus this week should be on completing your Journal and in getting a good start on your Sites Of War Memory Assignment if you have not already done so.

1)  The Journal is due on April 2 (35%).

You should submit your entire semester-long Option 1 or Option 2 Journal, including what you hand in for your required Journal-In-Progress Check-In, as one file.

The Journal should contain syllabus materials up through Week 9 of the semester (March 15-21), though it is fine to include materials from the later weeks if you choose to do so.

My expectation is that you have been working regularly on the Journal throughout the term and doing your best to keep up with the week-by-week schedule.  It is not required that each syllabus topic or even each week be represented in your Journal.  I will be evaluating the degree of your engagement overall.  You should already have the bulk of your Journal finished, so this deadline should not be a burden.

Those students who did not submit the required March 1 Journal-In-Progress should expect a lower grade on this assignment than they otherwise would have received, with those students who neither submitted that assignment nor regularly engaged in the Discussion Forums being at particular risk.  I will be checking in with any students if I have concerns about possible violations of codes of academic integrity. ( Community Code of Academic, Personal and Professional Conduct (3-06) )

2)  The Sites Of War Memory Assignment is due on April 11 (20% of course grade).  This assignment will be the sole focus for Week 12 of the semester.

This project calls on you to research 6 or more particular sites (Battlefields, Museums, Monuments) associated with war and its remembrance.  You will be asked to provide a summary of your research findings and analysis for each of these sites.  You should also write a page or more of overall conclusion.

A number of pages on the Assignment Page of the War and Memory teaching web-site provide orientation for the assignment.

Clicking on the Sites Of War Memory Assignment provides access to instructions for the assignment and a long, alphabetically-organized list of some possible sites.  Note that while I provide a link or two here to identify the site, this is a project that will be dependent upon your independent research.  You should try to find a minimum of 5 sources for each of your sites and also should include a bibliography with the assignment.

There is also a downloadable template (Sites Of War Memory Template) on the Journal page.  You should download a copy of the template and then fill out the boxes for each of your chosen sites.

It is not mandatory that you choose a given theme or themes that link your different selections.  I strongly recommend that you consider that approach, however, since I think it will provide more meaning to the exercise and facilitate comparative analysis.  I thus have listed some Possible Themes For Sites Of Memory and some of the Sites of War Memory that fit within each theme.  See if there is one or two of these that seem interesting to you.

You are not restricted to the themes or indeed the sites that I have provided.

Anyone who would like to include a Powerpoint Slide Show for any or all of their individual sites with this assignment or for individual sites is welcome to do so.  This is completely optional and would involve significant extra work.  If you do choose that option, I would still like you to use the Sites of War Memory Templates as places to collect your research and for you then to hand those in as one combined file with your Powerpoint.

3)  Those of you who have time are encouraged to engage with the syllabus materials about German collective memories of World War II and American collective memories of the Civil War.  The comparisons are explicit in Heather Souvaine Horn's New Republic article.  I will also post a Discussion Forum Topic inviting analytical comparison between the respective cases.  The "Rape Of Europa: The Systematic Theft And Destruction Of Europe's Art Treasures" is a superb 2-hour documentary about the Nazis' World War II era raiding of the art collections of Europe.  You will need a Vancouver Island Regional Library Card to watch this optional video.  The history of museums during war-time is a particularly appropriate focal point for thinking about war and memory.