Understanding History through Making in HIS395H5: Cold War East Asia
Like most 300-level History courses, HIS395H5: Topics in History: Cold War East Asia aimed to encourage students to engage deeply with course materials and develop their critical thinking skills. However, instead of writing papers, the course assignments consisted primarily of group projects designed to encourage students to explore alternative modes of learning, especially learning through making.
Each group consisted of three to four students. The purpose of these assignments was for students to use their imagination to create works that engaged with selected course themes and materials. The final projects could be realistic, abstract, metaphorical, and so on. While these historical topics are serious, students were also encouraged to incorporate humour into their work, making the projects potentially more playful and engaging. The assessment of these projects was not based on the artistic appeal of the final product. Instead, the emphasis was on the intellectual processes of conceiving and developing the work as a group.
Because the everyday experience of the global Cold War was a central focus of the course, these projects provided opportunities for students to reflect on historical conditions from the ground up, moving away from state-centric narratives. In one project, for example, students used oil on canvas to recreate a section of a wall based on a real structure in a Chinese village, and then pasted posters with revolutionary slogans onto it. The political slogans and propaganda posters were developed by the students themselves based on their research. Because they did not understand Chinese, they drew computer-translated characters on the posters, which allowed them to experience writing Chinese characters for the first time. Another group wrote a script and performed it based on the imagined experiences of two workers during China’s Cold War mobilization. The final product was a 10-minute video of the performance. In another case, students created a diorama of a Cold War “secret city” discussed in readings and lectures.
Overall, these final projects indicate that students engaged productively with the study of everyday life in East Asian societies, as they considered the spatial, visual, and material dimensions of lived experience across different contexts. In a sense, this approach can be described as a form of process-oriented “slow learning,” a practice that requires students to take time as they discuss, develop, design, and implement their projects. Because project implementation required students to overcome various logistical challenges, the extended process and group conversation often inspired them to conduct additional research and make new discoveries.
Finally, in presenting their group projects to the class, each group was asked to explain their choices and rationale, the paths not taken, as well as their collaborative experience. Although students were told that aesthetic quality and visual appeal were not primary considerations in the assessment, the final products were often poetically designed and beautifully executed. They demonstrate that our students are not only creative, critical, and thoughtful, but also, in many cases, artistically talented.
