Title: Public History Capstone: Interpretive Artifact and Decision Log
Course: The American West: Power, Place, and Memory > Section: Week 13 · November 16–20, 2026: The Postwar West: Suburbs, Water, Nuclear Landscapes, and Red Power

THE AMERICAN WEST

Public History Capstone: Interpretive Artifact and Decision Log

ASSIGNMENT

Public History Capstone: Interpretive Artifact and Decision Log

Purpose
Produce rigorous, accessible history for a defined public audience.

Fall 2026 deadline: Friday, November 20, 2026, 11:59 pm Central

Automatic grace period: through Sunday, November 22, 2026, 11:59 pm Central; no permission is needed and no penalty applies. Work is not accepted after the grace period without pre-approval or extenuating circumstances.

Task

Create an approved public artifact with a clear historical claim, primary-source warrants, engagement with scholarship, counterevidence or uncertainty, audience rationale, and access/rights documentation. Submit a production decision log and the common Decision Record.

Submission

File or website URL plus accessible backup PDF/transcript.

Criteria for success

1. Historical claim and accuracy (10)
2. Evidence warrants and counterevidence (8)
3. Scholarship and context (6)
4. Audience, access, and rights (5)
5. Decision log and Decision Record (6)

AI boundary

AI may help with organization, copyediting, troubleshooting, or accessibility only after interpretation is established. It may not generate the thesis, evidence claims, narrator voice, or ethical decisions.

Decision Record

1. State your initial claim or plan before substantial AI assistance.
2. Name the most consequential interpretive choice you made and explain why.
3. Identify one plausible alternative you rejected and the evidence behind that decision.
4. Name evidence that changed, narrowed, or complicated your thinking.
5. State one claim you cannot fully establish with the available evidence.
6. Record AI use: tool, purpose, what you accepted, rejected, and verified—or write ‘No generative AI used.’

Process checklist

- My question or thesis is specific, contestable, and historically situated.
- I identify creator, date, audience, purpose, and collection context for key primary sources.
- I corroborate rather than asking one source to prove more than it can.
- I distinguish evidence from inference and acknowledge uncertainty.
- I cite sources and rights information; media includes captions, alt text, or a transcript.
- If I used generative AI in a permitted way, I include the required process disclosure.

Evaluation

This assignment is evaluated on four levels—Exemplary, Proficient, Developing, and Beginning—across the listed criteria. Ask for clarification before submitting if the purpose, task, or criteria are unclear.