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Teacher’s Guide

Undergraduate and graduate students are important contributors to Explore Baltimore Heritage through partnerships around specific courses and through internship and volunteer opportunities. This is a collaboratively edited set of guidelines to help support these partnerships.

How are student contributions used on Explore Baltimore Heritage?

Examples of how student contributions have been integrated into Explore Baltimore Heritage include:

  • For an undergraduate history course, an optional assignment to write an 400-600 word Explore Baltimore Heritage story on one of a selected list of Baltimore authors. The assignment substituted for an alternate research project.
  • For a graduate public history course, a required assignment for students to write individual research papers on a historic building selected from a prepared list of buildings on Downtown’s West Side. Students then worked in teams to revise the papers into short 300 word Explore Baltimore Heritage stories organized into thematic groups of for each team.
  • For a graduate mini-course in multimedia production, students researched and wrote scripts, collected archival images and narrated short historical documentaries about buildings on Downtown’s West Side.
  • For a spring internship, an advanced undergraduate student adapted an existing script for a volunteer-led Downtown walking tour into a series of Explore Baltimore Heritage stories.

Examples of student learning involved other Curatescape-based projects include:

  • A student intern who worked with the Newcomb Archives to build an interactive website exhibit and mobile walking tour of Newcomb College as part of the New Orleans: Project Poster

We encourage contributors to think of Explore Baltimore Heritage as a online platform for publishing and sharing research and writing about local history with an engaged audience of area residents with an interest in Baltimore’s buildings and neighborhoods.

What can students contribute to Explore Baltimore Heritage?

The contribution by a student or group of students Explore Baltimore Heritage may be limited to a single assignment completed in a short period of time or one of several products from a semester long project. Students contributions may include:

  • Adapting existing research or interpretation for Explore Baltimore Heritage
  • Creating individual stories with a narrative and selection of images
  • Working as a group to create a thematic tour with multiple stories

What can students learn from contributing to Explore Baltimore Heritage?

In working on Explore Baltimore Heritage, students may develop or refine skills including:

  • Research with primary or secondary sources
  • Writing for interpretation
  • Multimedia production for audio or video
  • Collecting oral histories

What can Baltimore Heritage provide if I am planning an assignment or project with Explore Baltimore Heritage?** 

Baltimore Heritage can offer a range of materials that can help you to craft an assignment and set clear expectations for your students. At a minimum, the materials we can provide include:

  • A general overview of Explore Baltimore Heritage with clear expectations for the editorial and publication process
  • A set of guidelines for composing and formatting materials for Explore Baltimore Heritage
  • A list of story topics _or _guidelines for choosing their own topic
  • A local history research guide
  • A guide to local archival sources for historic images

Schedule permitting, Baltimore Heritage can also offer a 30-90 minute presentation introducing students to Explore Baltimore Heritage and reviewing the basics of local history research and writing. If the course is focused on a neighborhood or topic area where Baltimore Heritage has additional background information or other resources we may be able to provide:

  • A general bibliography of relevant secondary sources to the story topics
  • A collection of images with reference information

What questions should I ask while planning an assignment or project with Explore Baltimore Heritage?** 

  • Are students picking their own topics or are topics being provided?
    • If they are picking their own topics, are images available? Are primary and secondary sources available?
    • If topics are provided, how many options should be available? What topics are relevant to the goals the course?
  • Are students researching and selecting images to accompany their stories?
    • Unless the students are working from a specific collection of images with prior arrangement, clearing rights to use images for Explore Baltimore Heritage or other online projects may require more time than the semester will allow. If students are researching images, we encourage preparing a list of images and allowing Baltimore Heritage to secure the rights following the conclusion of the course.
  • How will student work be edited? Will the instructor or Baltimore Heritage be primarily responsible?
    • We encourage assignments that provide sufficient time to integrate revisions and feedback from the instructor into a revised story.
    • Student work that does not meet our editorial standards may require additional revisions after the conclusion of the semester.
    • If a story requires substantial revisions, the writing credit for the piece may be assigned jointly to a student and their instructor or a student and Baltimore Heritage staff or volunteer working on revisions.
  • What is the timeline for the course? When do students expect their contributions to be published?
    • Establishing an overall timeline for the project helps to ensure that students get feedback as needed and that the instructor can see the work revised and published within a set time period
  • Are any other deliverables required beyond the stories? If students are producing a video, will they provide the original project files? If students have additional research notes, how should those be shared?
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