Chalk and eraser style

So every once in a while, I like to go au natural with my teaching. Not naked, mind you (though that would add a certain dynamic to the lecture)--rather, I like to go sans technology. Kick up the chalk, tell a few stories, and ask a few questions. Of course, this isn't exactly smiled upon these days, esp. when our kids live at the speed of text.

How to do it? It's something I working up to, even now. But I've formulated these three keys to doing an au natural lecture right:

1) Every story is boring; every story is exciting

I think about the famous historians of our generation (I use the term loosely, if only b/c some of these writers are frowned upon by the academy, and sometimes for good reasons): McCullough, Goodwin, Ellis, and Ulrich--all of them knew something about details, about characters, and about anecdotes. They wrote their stories as though someone might actually care about who these people are. Their characters could be boring under most circumstances--yet they know how to contextualize them in ways that go beyond "he was a man of his times."

2) Show the power
No one likes hearing a story about the pathetically oppressed--even stories of Communism highlight the "people's revolt," riots, and populist action. Showing the character's *agency* under even horrible circumstances moves students more than any analysis ever can (Elizabeth Smart is a good example of this).

3) Be a little quirky
Go out of the box occasionally--it'll jolt the students out of their txtmsg stupr. Get happy, get sad, even get a *little* angry at the topics being discussed. Bottom line: get something.

No one else in America cares about history, except in some sort of abstract way. If we don't do it, then their historical understanding is hosed.