Course design
A course organized around problems, evidence, and judgment.
A problem-centered history of the North American West from the eighteenth century through the late twentieth century. The course begins with Indigenous worlds and competing empires, then follows borderlands, migration, state and corporate power, labor, race, gender, environment, sovereignty, and public memory. Northwest Missouri and the Platte Purchase serve as a recurring local lens.
- Instructor
- Rob Voss
- Communication
- robvoss@nwmissouri.edu
- Office
- Valk 120
- Office hours
- Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, 8:30–11:00 a.m.
- Meetings
- In person, Tuesday/Thursday; Exact time and classroom are posted in Canvas
- Regular meetings
- Tuesday, August 25, 2026–Thursday, December 3, 2026; 28 class meetings
- Finals
- December 7–10, 2026; no separate comprehensive final is built into this plan
- Required core text
- Robert V. Hine, John Mack Faragher, and Jon T. Coleman, The American West: A New Interpretive History, 2nd edition (2017); assigned weekly, not separately graded
Learning outcomes
Students leave able to define, analyze, argue, interpret, research, and communicate.
- 01
Define and contest ‘the West’ using spatial, temporal, borderlands, environmental, and Indigenous frameworks.
- 02
Explain changing relationships among Native nations, empires, the United States, Mexico, corporations, migrants, and local communities.
- 03
Analyze primary sources through sourcing, contextualization, corroboration, and close reading.
- 04
Construct evidence-based historical arguments that engage recent scholarship and acknowledge uncertainty.
- 05
Interpret how race, gender, class, labor, environment, and sovereignty shaped western histories.
- 06
Conduct ethical local or public-history research using archives, digital collections, and responsible citation.
- 07
Communicate historical interpretations to academic and public audiences in written and visual forms.
Grading architecture
Six categories balance repeated practice with sustained interpretation.
Canvas applies these category weights. The course letter-grade scale and department-required reporting conventions are posted in Canvas before graded work is returned.
Ten checks: three retrieval items and two short evidence-and-judgment prompts
Four annotation, memo, transfer, and Decision Record cycles
Boundary sketch, annotated map, and rationale
Comparison, unseen synthesis, and revision
Question/scope, source dossier, public artifact, and decision log
Dated artifacts, teach-backs, and evidence audit