History of Ancient Egypt: 1700 to 1000 BCE

Purpose: to help other instructors teaching the same course

Common Course ID:   History 4530
CSU Instructor Open Textbook Adoption Portrait

Abstract:   Instead of students purchasing three textbooks, students read articles on specific topics written by the specialist, and they read a few select chapters from the standard textbooks.  This allowed students to engage more with the primary data of the class and understand how history is written.  Additionally, students engaged in multiple contradictory histories written by different authors that they then discussed and debated.  All PDFs were provided on Canvas taking into account all proper copyright issues.

Course Title and Number  - History of Ancient Egypt: 1700 to 1000 BCE  (History 4530)

Brief Description of course highlights:  Studies the political, economic, and social past of ancient Egypt during the Second Intermediate Period and the New Kingdom. Incorporates themes such as international war, empire, colonialism, Queenship, administration, religious heresy, international relations and war, foreigners in Egypt, civil wall, tomb robbing, and governmental collapse. https://catalog.csusb.edu/coursesaz/hist  

Student population: Junior and seniors in the History Major

Learning or student outcomes:  List student learning outcomes for the course.
Knowledge
1.1 Students will acquire knowledge of relevant historical facts and contextualize the history and culture of Ancient Egypt.
1.2 Students will gain the ability to frame historical questions regarding ancient history.
1.3 Students will demonstrate an awareness of historical interpretative differences especially in regards to how secondary sources interpret, skew, or misinterpret primary data.

Research
2.1 Students will demonstrate the ability to use a broad range of historical sources. Textual, artistic, and archaeological sources will all be part of our analysis.
2.2 Students will demonstrate the ability to evaluate and analyze primary historical sources.
2.3 Students will demonstrate the ability to develop an historical interpretation based on evidence.

Communication
3.1 Students will demonstrate the ability to write clearly through short papers and daily assignments.
3.2 Students will demonstrate the ability to speak clearly through discussion and debate.

Key challenges faced and how resolved:  The main challenge was that all of the readings were written by someone else, so there was not a consistent narrative. However, my lectures and discussion become the consistent narrative, and the multiple voices actually led to a much better outcome.

Instructor Name - Kate Liszka
I am a History professor at the California State University, San Bernardino.  

Please provide a link to your university page.  https://www.csusb.edu/profile/kate.liszka

Please describe the courses you teach.  I teach courses on Ancient Egypt

Describe your teaching philosophy and any research interests related to your discipline or teaching.  I want students to look at the primary data themselves and make their own decisions. I want students to know what is written in standard books is a version of history, but it might be more complex or even different than what is presented. And I want to encourage them to write their own versions of history.

OER/Low Cost Adoption Process

Provide an explanation or what motivated you to use this textbook or OER/Low Cost option. I wanted the students to do the reading. And no matter how inexpensive a book is, many students won’t by it. I find I have better participation and engagement when I provide the students materials for free.

How did you find and select the open textbook for this course? I know the subject and found my own resources in journal articles, books, and encyclopedias.

Sharing Best Practices: I really recommend not making the students by anything, even if it is more work on your part because most students will do the work and be engaged in the class.  It is also more equitable. .

Describe any challenges you experienced, and lessons learned. My challenges were that I needed to find, scan, OCR, and upload all the readings myself.  And then I needed to rearrange my lectures to be more of a through line connecting all of the voices in the various writings.   But it worked well and students really appreciated it.

Textbook or OER/Low cost Title: 

Brief Description:  There was lots of different primary sources and secondary articles always written by the leading specialist on the topic.  Students read a lot of primary sources especially from Mariam Lichtheim’s The Literature of Ancient Egypt. They also read specific interpretations of data, like paragraph’s of Aidan Dodson’s Amarna Sunset. But basically, they had different reading every class based on who the expert of the material was for that topic. 

Authors:  Very many authors from lots of sources

Student access:  Students were provided access to all the course materials as PDFs on Canvas for free. All of the PDFs were OCRed and accessible for visually impaired students.  Instead of having students purchase these books, I implemented three, free strategies to assist with student learning:

1. Reading and discussion of more primary texts for students to analyze themselves
2. Reading and discussion of articles written by specialists on specific topics
3. Lectures overviewing large subjects and reading of occasional chapters from the textbook for continuity of the course material.

Provide the cost savings from that of a traditional textbook.  The Old Books:  Most other classes on Ancient Egyptian history assign three books to students, which are both expense and becoming out of date:

Oxford History of Ancient Egypt, ed. Ian Shaw, 2002 costing 19.99
A History of Ancient Egypt, Marc Van De Mieroop, 2010 costing 45.25
Amarna Sunrise, Aidan Dodson, 2016 costing 19.95

In the past, students would be asked to pay $85.19. In Fall 2023, 25 students were enrolled in History 4530. These practices saved the students a total of $2,129.75 for that term alone. This class is taught every two years. Over the next decade, our students will save over $10,000.