ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses both the theoretical and practical challenges of innovation in a core, required course in history that is based on a widely accepted canon of scholarship reproduced in multiple versions of standard textbooks. Topics covered include descriptions of the institutional context identifying the traditional academic structures and values that needed challenge as well as the institutional and disciplinary barriers circum vented. A step-by-step account of how the courses took shape includes
defining central questions, selecting course materials, developing pedagog ical strategies, and assessing both student work and the course design.
