ABSTRACT
Last year you were assigned to teach world history. Your content knowledge may have been limited to one or two non-Western courses and you may not have taken a truly global history course. You talked to the teacher who previously taught the course or maybe you are the first to embrace the challenge. You have an inherited textbook or you selected one that kept you one or two pages ahead of the students all year, and you have dutifully taught the first year of a massive course to thirty or 120 students. Chances are that you did lots of lecturing since you had all those notes you took from the text. You have many ideas for improvement, but you do not believe that you will ever own the course. The trick is to find your passion and reveal it through the course. Your students may not remember the historical facts, although you certainly hope they develop skills such as reading, communication, and analysis well enough to incorporate them regularly into their future lives as they follow the news, pursue disparate careers, and vote in elections. Yet what the students will always remember is your enthusiasm for the subject. Thus, you have to figure out how to incorporate your hobbies and passions into the course. I can assure you that world history is the perfect vehicle to explore your interests and motivate your students.
