Possible Field Trips

One-day trips

Weekend trips

Your paper should accomplish two goals:

First, your report must describe your individual experience on your field trip. Describe what you observed. In short, your job in this portion of your paper is to convince me you visited the location with an "up close and personal" account. Obviously your paper will include information about the location/topic that you learned while there, but your paper must weave that information in with a description of your experiences as a visitor.

Secondly, your paper should analyze and evaluate your experience. Here is a list of questions you might wish to consider in your paper. Do not feel compelled to consider each and every question in a "laundry list" fashion. Strong papers may be focused on one or two questions, although you must be certain that your analysis connects to the topics and themes we have covered in our course. This means that your paper should make explicit reference to course materials.

How did this visit enhance your knowledge of the modern American West? Does it complement what you learned in class? Contradict?
How does your visit compare to what you have read in the readings or in any additional reading assignment?
Was this a valuable learning experience? Why or why not?

Suggestions

Take notes - you’ll be getting a lot of information and it’ll help to write down the important/interesting stuff.
Start in the first few days after the trip - it won’t get any easier the longer you wait. Even if you only have time to do a rough draft/outline right after the trip, you’ll still have started the paper with the trip fresh in your mind.
Even though its only two pages, write it with the same considerations as a longer paper, i.e. grammar, form, content, and style DO matter.