Course: U.S. History to 1877 (HIST 1301) · Silver Oak University (fictional sample) · Prof. Hartwell
Module: Week 1 of 16 · Fall 2026 · in-person, two 75-minute sessions
Objectives covered: Objective 1 — practice historical thinking and source analysis · Objective 2 — Indigenous America, European contact, and the Columbian Exchange.

This file holds two pieces: (A) the Module 1 Overview page ("Start Here") and (B) the Welcome Announcement that drips out when the module opens. Dates below assume a Tuesday/Thursday pattern with Week 1 meeting Tue Sep 1 and Thu Sep 3, with end-of-week work due Sunday Sep 6, 11:59 p.m. Adjust the day-of-week and times to match your section.

(A) Module 1 Overview — Start Here

Welcome to Week 1: Doing History & Worlds Before 1607

This is your home base for the week. Read it first, then work the checklist below from top to bottom. Everything you need is linked inside the module.

This week is the foundation the whole course is built on. Before we tell the story of the United States, we have to answer a basic question: how do historians actually know what happened — and how do we read the leftover evidence without being fooled by it? Then we set the stage, by meeting the millions of people already living in North America before any European arrived, and the collision — the Columbian Exchange — that remade two hemispheres. You'll leave this week with the four habits that make the rest of the course possible: sourcing, contextualizing, close reading, and corroborating a document.

The week's big question

"How do historians turn old documents into trustworthy knowledge — and what worlds met, and were transformed, in 1492?"

By Friday you'll be able to tell a primary source from a secondary one, run the four core moves of source analysis on a real document, describe the diversity of Indigenous North America, and explain what the Columbian Exchange moved in each direction — including the disease catastrophe that reshaped the continent.

By the end of this week, you can…

Use this as a checklist. If you can do all four out loud, you're ready for the quiz.

• [ ] Tell a primary source from a secondary source, and explain why historians prize eyewitness evidence — carefully.
• [ ] Run the four moves of source analysis — sourcing (who, when, why), contextualization (what world produced it), close reading (the exact words), and corroboration (cross-checking against other sources).
• [ ] Describe the diversity of Indigenous North America before 1607 — that it was many peoples and societies, not an empty wilderness.
• [ ] Explain the Columbian Exchange — what crossed from the Americas to the wider world, what crossed back, and why disease was the deadliest cargo.

What's due this week, and when

Work these in order — each one gets you ready for the next.

Heads-up on the AI tools: you'll use a chatbot to draft and explain, and then you judge its work against the documents and the record. Chatbots routinely invent quotations, misdate events, and put modern words in old mouths. Catching the model is the point — in the tutorial, the assignment, and the workshop.

Late policy reminder: 10% off per day late. If life happens, reach out before the deadline — I'd much rather hear from you early.

How to succeed this week

• Lead with the question, not the date. History isn't a list of years to memorize — it's an argument about evidence. Every term this week is a plain-English habit first (a primary source is just evidence made at the time; corroboration is just "check it against another source").
• Memorize one tiny hook. "Source, situate, read close, cross-check." Those four moves are the whole craft, and you'll use them every single week.
• Read the document twice. Once for what it says, once for who's saying it and why. The second read is where history happens.
• Treat the chatbot as a confident intern, not an oracle. It will hand you a quotation that sounds perfect and never existed. Your job all term is to check it against the source.
• Approach hard history with steadiness. This course tells the American story honestly — including conquest, disease, and slavery. We work from the evidence and treat people in the past as real, not as cartoons.

You don't need any background for this week — just curiosity and a willingness to ask, of every claim, how do we know that? Come to class ready to argue about what the word "discovery" should mean. See you Tuesday.

(B) Welcome Announcement — Module 1

Release setting: post on the module's start day (offset = 0 days), i.e., Tue Sep 1, 2026 — not before. If your platform won't preserve the scheduled date on import, post this as a draft labeled "Release: Tue Sep 1."

Subject: Welcome to U.S. History — how do we know what happened? 🗺️

Hi everyone, and welcome to U.S. History to 1877!

Quick warm-up before we start: how do we actually know anything about 1492? Nobody alive was there. What we have are documents — letters, laws, narratives, maps — each written by a particular person, for a particular reason, who saw only part of the picture. This week we learn the craft of turning that messy evidence into trustworthy knowledge, and we meet the two worlds that collided in 1492: the millions of people already living across North America, and the Europeans who arrived believing they'd reached Asia.

This week — Doing History & Worlds Before 1607 — we tackle the big question: How do historians turn old documents into knowledge, and what worlds met and were transformed in 1492? By Friday you'll source, contextualize, closely read, and corroborate a real document; describe Indigenous North America before contact; and explain the Columbian Exchange.

Three things not to miss:
1. Lecture Tutorial 1 — work through the week's ideas with one approved chatbot (Gemini, Claude, or ChatGPT) and submit the share link. You'll catch the model's mistakes, not just trust it. Due Sun Sep 6.
2. Primary Source Workshop 1 (Columbus's 1493 letter), Quiz 1, Discussion 1, and Assignment 1 also close Sun Sep 6 — the workshop is the heart of the course, so start early.
3. Open the Start Here page first — it lays out everything in order with due dates.

One promise: this is a course about how we know the American past, not a list of dates to memorize. We lead with the documents and the arguments every single week. By Friday, the next time someone tells you what "obviously" happened in history, you'll know exactly what to ask: what's your source, and how do you know it's reliable?

Bring your curiosity (and maybe a strong opinion about the word "discovery") to class on Tuesday.

See you soon,
Prof. Hartwell