Course Syllabus

HI/POL 451

History of Modern Hawaii

Chaminade University of Honolulu

Instructor:             

Terrence Monroe

4954-3 Kilauea Ave.

Honolulu, HI 96816

(808) 734-8079

Experienced as an instructor of in-class courses (since 1974) and online courses (since 2000) in various disciplines of world history and contemporary Asian civilizations for colleges and universities throughout the United States. Educational background: Master of Arts Degree in Asian Studies, University of Hawaii at Manoa, 1974; Bachelor of Arts Degree in Asian Studies, 1973.

Diverse professional and personal interests in liberal arts, science, and business, and a published author of original writing on Hawaii’s lifestyle and of articles on Asian history. Author of a novel, Wolohu’s Sunday School, concerned with the various excesses visited upon Hawaii from historic through contemporary times. Publisher of “Hawaii: A World Apart” —a print-version and Internet (www.hawaiiaworldapart.org) magazine that portrays “the inside story” of Hawaii’s way of life. Magazine features writing on Hawaii’s lifestyle, Island-style graphics and arts, and an editorial focus on courses of constructive long-term change for Hawaii.

Course Overview:

The course surveys the history of Hawaii from its pre-contact period (prior to 1778) up to the present. Following a brief examination of political and social institutions that existed in the time of Kamehameha I, the course focuses on the transformation of the Hawaiian land tenure system in 1848 and its effect on the Hawaiian people. In addition to political developments, the course covers the social and cultural changes that have shaken Hawaii since its annexation by the United States.

Learning Outcomes: 

To understand today’s Hawaii in light of its past.

To understand the causes of the 1893 overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom

To appreciate the formation of an American Hawaii with its unique local culture.

Text:

There is no text assigned for this course; reading will be comprised of the online lectures.

Course Requirements:

Successful completion of this course depends upon:

Completion of one website summary each week on any topic of your choice having to do with modern Hawaiian history. The website summary should be 300 – 500 words in length, and should explain why your topic matters—in other words, how it affected the Big Picture of Hawaiian history. Be sure to refer to the Orientation for further details on how to write these summaries.

A careful reading of the online lectures and your textbooks, and the exercise of initiative in researching websites that relate to the topic that you’ll write about each week.

Participation in weekly online discussions. You should try to make a total of at least five or six substantive postings (of 100 words or more each) in the course of responding to at least several of the discussion topics posted for that week and in responding to the responses posted by your classmates.

Completion of a proctored final examination, to be comprised of a comprehensive essay of approximately 1,000 words discussing the main points of the course material.

Schedule and Grade Policy:

Since this course begins on a Monday, each course week runs from Monday through Sunday of that week. Discussion postings should be posted throughout the week and must be posted before the week closes each Sunday night. Discussion postings may not be made up once the weekly discussions close; if you miss a particular week’s discussion, you may not go back in after the Sunday night deadline for that week and post. Similarly, the weekly website summary is due by the Sunday that ends each week of instruction. I do accept late summaries (not discussion postings), but I will assess a 2 percentage-point penalty for every day that your weekly summary is late. So, if your summary is four days late, and your grade is otherwise a 90, your adjusted grade (including the “late fee”) would be an 82.

Still, you are expected to complete all assignments on time. Please bear in mind that an Incomplete is generally not an option, since there is no way to make up the group discussion element of your grade once the course is finished (after all, the group will have moved on, and there wouldn’t be anyone to discuss anything with). Please bear in mind also that participation in online discussion is what makes an online course work.

There are 10 weeks of instruction in this course: instruction begins Monday, July 5^th and ends Wednesday, September 14^th. Your website summary, discussion, quiz, and final exam grades will be posted in the Gradebook within ten days of their due dates. Each website summary grade will have a maximum value of 100 points (for a total of 1000 points), and each week’s discussion participation will have a maximum value of 100 points (for a total of 1000 points). The final exam will have a maximum value of 500 points. Total points for this course: 2500.

Grading Scale:                  

A:       90 - 100 (2250-2500 points)

B:       80 - 89 (2000 - 2249 points)

C:       70 - 79 (1750 - 1999 points)

D:       60 - 69 (1500 - 1749 points)

F:       less than 60 (less than 1500 points)

Participation Policy:

One of the reasons why people take an online course is that other obligations make it difficult or impossible to attend traditional classes. When you work on your assignment is entirely up to you, but you should plan to spend at least ten hours a week on this course--in reading, researching websites, thinking, writing, and in discussion in online forums. You should log onto WebCT to attend the classroom at least several times a week, and when you do so and from where, of course, is up to you. It is best to log onto WebCT once a day, if just to check for announcements and to read through the discussions. If you procrastinate and fail to log in for more than a few days, you will begin to get lost. What’s more, if most students wait until the end of the week to make their discussion postings, then there won’t be much until then for others to respond to; therefore, a good discussion grade depends on the student making consistent postings from the beginning of each week on through the end of the week; students who wait until the end of the week to make their discussion postings will be penalized for their procrastination. Many people who drop out or fail online courses do so because they have not developed the habit of logging in often to stay in touch with things.

Academic Integrity (DO NOT FAIL TO READ THIS):

It is important for you to keep in mind that all of your work for this course must be in your words, however humble. Your website summaries and exam essays are not evaluated on compositional excellence, but on quality of insight. Please understand that after some thirty years of reading student writing—and of reading and researching the corpus of professionally produced writing on our subject--it is usually instantly recognizable to me when a submission is not a student’s own work.

My policy is to submit anything that arouses suspicion to Turnitin.com, an academic service to which I subscribe that utilizes an algorithm-based methodology to compare the suspect sample to all published material on the Internet. Keep in mind that the Internet these days includes many web-based counterparts of conventionally published materials (meaning that, if it’s been published anywhere in print—whether in an old encyclopedia, a magazine or newspaper, or in a brand-new best-seller—it’s probably on the Internet somewhere). If Turnitin indicates that there is a significant match between your work and a previously published source, some very pointed questions will be asked

Consultation:

I’m always available via email, or you may call and leave a message at any time, day or night. My phone ringer is turned off, so don’t worry about calling in the middle of the night—it’s okay! I will try to return your call within 12-24 hours. For those of you who are outside Hawaii, calling Hawaii these days is cheap—free on most cell phone plans, several cents a minute with a prepaid phone card, 10-25 cents/minute with phone company long distance plans. If you just leave a quick message, you shouldn’t suffer much financially, and I’ll pay for the return call, of course. As far as email is concerned, I will try to respond to your message within 24-36 hours; however, please do not expect me to respond on weekends or holidays—I need to have a life of some kind!

Now, don’t forget to read the Orientation!