The American West Power · Place · Memory

33-582 · Fall 2026 · Northwest Missouri State University

The West is not a place you simply find.

It is made—through movement, law, land, labor, violence, survival, and memory. This course asks you to decide how that history should be interpreted, then defend those decisions with evidence.

How was the American West made—and who has had the power to define, inhabit, govern, remember, and remake it?
See the 15-week journeyAsk the course guide
  • 15weeks
  • T/Th75 minutes
  • In personAugust 25–December 3, 2026

Contact and course policies

Clear expectations, with approved absences protected.

Email is the best way to reach the instructor. Canvas announcements remain the authoritative source for course-specific updates.

Attendance

Required

Attendance is required. University-approved absences do not count. You may have up to three counted absences without an automatic reduction; each counted absence beyond three lowers the final course grade by one-third of a letter grade.

Deadlines

Friday + Sunday grace

Assignments are generally due Friday at 11:59 p.m. Central. An automatic, no-penalty grace period extends through Sunday at 11:59 p.m. Work is not accepted after Sunday unless an extension was approved in advance or extenuating circumstances apply.

How learning works here

History is a practice of judgment.

You will not be graded only on polished products. The course makes your reasoning visible through annotations, in-class writing, alternative interpretations, conferences, defenses, and revision.

  1. 01

    Notice

    Identify a historical problem, tension, or silence.

  2. 02

    Claim

    Make an interpretation before the evidence feels complete.

  3. 03

    Test

    Use primary sources and scholarship to challenge the claim.

  4. 04

    Choose

    Weigh alternatives, limits, audiences, and ethical costs.

  5. 05

    Defend

    Explain the warrant connecting evidence to judgment.

  6. 06

    Revise

    Show what changed—and what remains uncertain.

The course journey

Fifteen weeks. One accumulating argument.

Each week adds a different institution, actor, archive, or scale to the question of how the West was made.

Monday, September 7Labor DayNo effect on T/Th meetings
Friday, October 30Walkout DayNo effect on T/Th meetings
Tuesday, November 24 and Thursday, November 26Thanksgiving breakNo class or new work due
01Aug. 24–28Where—and When—Is the West?

What changes when the West is treated as a relationship and process rather than a fixed region?

First meeting Tuesday, Aug. 25; diagnostic map and course launch.
02Aug. 31–Sept. 4Indigenous Worlds and Competing Empires, 1700s

Who held continental power in the eighteenth-century West, and how did mobility make that power?

Reading & Reasoning Check 1.
03Sept. 7–11Borderlands, Louisiana, and the Platte Purchase

How did distant imperial claims become local dispossession and governance?

Labor Day is Monday and does not remove a T/Th meeting. Mapping the West is due Friday, Sept. 18.
04Sept. 14–18Removal, Sovereignty, and the Mexican North

How did treaties and removals remake western space without eliminating Indigenous sovereignty?

Mapping the West due Friday; Source Lab 1 annotation in class.
05Sept. 21–25Manifest Destiny, War, Slavery, and Gold

Was expansion a national project, a sectional crisis, an imperial war—or all three?

Source Lab 1 and Check 3 due Friday.
06Sept. 28–Oct. 2Overland Migration, Death, and Environment

How did routes depend on Indigenous landscapes, family labor, and unequal exposure to risk?

Source Lab 2 and Check 4 due Friday.
07Oct. 5–9Civil War and Continental State-Building

How did the Civil War extend into the West, and whose freedom did wartime state-building secure?

Capstone Question and Scope and Check 5 due Friday.
08Oct. 12–16Railroads, Corporate Empire, and Dispossession

What did railroads connect, and what relations of land, labor, and violence did they conceal?

Campus classes meet Oct. 13 and 15; the online-professional break does not apply. Historiographical Portfolio due Friday.
09Oct. 19–23Reservations, Allotment, Education, and Indigenous Persistence

How did assimilation policy reorganize land and family life, and how did Native people survive and reshape it?

Reading & Reasoning Check 7 due Friday.
10Oct. 26–30Racial Regimes, Labor, and Border Violence, 1880–1920

How did law, labor markets, and public narrative make race in the modern West?

Walkout Day is Friday and does not remove a T/Th meeting. Source Lab 3 and Check 8 due Friday.
11Nov. 2–6Conservation, Reclamation, Extraction, and Tourism

When reformers called western land public, whose uses and histories became illegible?

Capstone Source Dossier and Check 9 due Friday.
12Nov. 9–13Crisis and Mobilization in the West, 1920s–1945

How did crisis, federal development, and wartime mobilization redistribute opportunity and vulnerability?

Source Lab 4 and Check 10 due Friday.
13Nov. 16–20The Postwar West: Suburbs, Water, Nuclear Landscapes, and Red Power

Who benefited from postwar western growth, and who bore its environmental and political costs?

Capstone artifact and Decision Log due Friday.
14Nov. 23–27Thanksgiving Break

No campus classes Tuesday, Nov. 24 or Thursday, Nov. 26.

No new reading or course work due.
15Nov. 30–Dec. 4The Contemporary West and the Politics of Memory

How do sovereignty, migration, water, climate, and public memory continue to remake the West?

Showcases and defenses Dec. 1 and 3; final materials due Friday, Dec. 4. Finals run Dec. 7–10.

Assessment architecture

Your grade is evidence of how you think.

Every category pairs a produced artifact with reasoning that is observed, explained, defended, or revised. Due dates below are the published fall plan; Canvas is authoritative if a date changes.

30%

Public History Capstone

Research, public artifact, showcase, and oral defense

20%

Historiographical Judgment Portfolio

Comparison, unseen synthesis, revision, and conference

20%

Source Reasoning Labs

Four annotation, memo, transfer, and Decision Record cycles

10%

Mapping the West

Boundary sketch, annotated map, rationale, and live defense

10%

Reading & Reasoning Checks

Ten retrieval and short historical-reasoning checks

10%

Seminar Practice & Reflection

Dated artifacts, teach-backs, evidence audit, and conference

Major work and deadlines

11 published assignment stages
01
Due Friday, September 18 · grace through Sunday, September 20 · 11:59 p.m. CTMapping the West

Make and defend a consequential boundary argument.

100 pts

Evidence you will produceIn-class sketch · annotated map and 750–900 word rationale · four-minute defense · Decision Record

AI boundaryAI may test organization or clarity after the in-class sketch. It may not create the historical argument or be used during the defense.

02
Due Friday, September 25 · grace through Sunday, September 27 · 11:59 p.m. CTSource Lab 1: Treaty

Read a treaty as a negotiated, translated, contested political instrument.

25 pts

Evidence you will produceIn-class annotation · 450–600 word memo · transfer question · Decision Record

AI boundaryNo AI during annotation or transfer. Afterward, clarity feedback is allowed; generated treaty analysis or translation is not.

03
Due Friday, October 2 · grace through Sunday, October 4 · 11:59 p.m. CTSource Lab 2: Mobility

Reconstruct migration without treating movement as inevitable.

25 pts

Evidence you will produceComparative annotation · 450–600 word memo · transfer question · Decision Record

AI boundaryNo AI during annotation or transfer. Organization feedback is allowed only after you draft the reasoning sequence.

04
Due Friday, October 9 · grace through Sunday, October 11 · 11:59 p.m. CTCapstone: Question & Scope

Define a feasible, ethical public-history question and audience.

10 pts

Evidence you will produce350–500 word proposal · rejected alternative · five-minute conference · Decision Record

AI boundaryAI may generate search terms after you record your initial question. It may not choose your question, audience, scope, sources, or ethical position.

05
Due Friday, October 16 · grace through Sunday, October 18 · 11:59 p.m. CTHistoriographical Judgment Portfolio

Judge how historians’ questions, evidence, scale, and causation shape interpretation.

100 pts

Evidence you will producePosition cards · page-anchored matrix · in-class unseen synthesis · revision · conference

AI boundaryNo AI for cards, matrix, in-class synthesis, or defense. Later clarity/organization feedback on your own revision is allowed and must be documented.

06
Due Friday, October 30 · grace through Sunday, November 1 · 11:59 p.m. CTSource Lab 3: Newspaper

Interrogate how print culture produced racial knowledge and public narrative.

25 pts

Evidence you will produceIn-class close reading · 500–650 word comparison · ethics/transfer question · Decision Record

AI boundaryAI may not select or interpret passages. Clarity feedback is allowed after you draft the comparison and ethical choice.

07
Due Friday, November 6 · grace through Sunday, November 8 · 11:59 p.m. CTCapstone: Source Dossier

Build and defend a credible, ethical research base.

20 pts

Evidence you will produce8+ primary and 5 scholarly sources · provenance/limits · rights check · source defense

AI boundaryAI may suggest repository search terms. It may not write annotations, invent provenance, assess rights, or receive restricted material.

08
Due Friday, November 13 · grace through Sunday, November 15 · 11:59 p.m. CTSource Lab 4: Oral History

Evaluate memory as evidence while respecting narrators and collection context.

25 pts

Evidence you will produceIn-class segment annotation · 500–650 word memo · ethics/transfer question · Decision Record

AI boundaryDo not upload oral-history media or transcripts to AI. No AI during in-class work or for analysis of testimony.

09
Due Friday, November 20 · grace through Sunday, November 22 · 11:59 p.m. CTCapstone: Interpretive Artifact

Produce rigorous, accessible history for a defined public audience.

35 pts

Evidence you will producePublic artifact · primary-source warrants · counterevidence · access/rights check · decision log

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

10
Due Friday, December 4 · grace through Sunday, December 6 · 11:59 p.m. CTCapstone: Showcase & Defense

Defend evidentiary, interpretive, audience, and ethical choices.

35 pts

Evidence you will producePublic claim · evidence explanation · unanticipated questions · revision decision · accessible delivery

AI boundaryNo generative AI during the showcase or oral defense. Prepared slides remain subject to the course policy and Decision Record.

11
Due Friday, December 4 · grace through Sunday, December 6 · 11:59 p.m. CTSeminar Practice Portfolio

Make preparation, contribution, revision, and intellectual growth visible.

100 pts

Evidence you will produceDated in-class artifacts · teach-backs · evidence audit · final conference

AI boundaryNo AI for in-class artifacts or the conference. Sentence-level feedback may follow your own artifact selection and draft.

AI and historical work

Use tools. Keep the judgment yours.

AI may support production, but it may not substitute for historical judgment.

AI is useful when it helps you test, organize, edit, or make your work more accessible. It is not a substitute for reading evidence, forming a thesis, weighing limits, making ethical choices, or defending an interpretation.

May support
  • Brainstorm search terms or questions after recording your initial question.
  • Ask for alternative structures or counterarguments to test.
  • Request clarity, accessibility, or sentence-level feedback on your own draft.
  • Use approved accessibility tools after the historical analysis is established.
Always required
  • Complete the same Decision Record whether or not you use generative AI.
  • Verify every quotation, citation, factual claim, and source description in the original source.
  • Retain notes, annotations, and meaningful drafts until the work is graded.
  • Be able to explain and defend every submitted claim and interpretive choice.
May not replace
  • Do not use generative AI during designated in-class reasoning, source markup, conferences, or oral defenses.
  • Do not submit generated thesis language, source analysis, evidence claims, citations, translations, images, or transcripts as your own.
  • Do not use AI to replace required reading or upload private, restricted, culturally sensitive, or personally identifiable archival material.

Required with or without AI

The Decision Record

A short record attached to major work makes your interpretive choices, alternatives, evidence, limits, and tool use visible.

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

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