Open Educational Resources
Document Type
Lesson Plan
Publication Date
Fall 11-20-2025
Abstract
Overview:
“Queens: an Urban Palimpsest” is a 2-3 week module about community archives, primary source research, and the importance of place in collective memory. It is centered around the digitally-accessible archival documents hosted by the Queens Historical Society in Flushing, NY.
This resource is offered in three parts: most substantially, five class sessions, written up as instructor scripts; second, a list of additional resources to scaffold the module, which, in its initial design and implementation, kicks off the second of three units in my College Writing I course; and, lastly, an outline of several possible ways of continuing beyond this module: an in-person class visit to the QHS, if feasible, and options for both individual unit compositions and a collaborative class annotation project.
Intended Use:
This module is designed as a stand-alone sequence that could be adapted in a number of directions, but its first use-case will be in my English 110 course, “Collective Memory: Sites and Stories,” as the beginning of our second (of three) major units. Importantly, the first unit of this class is built around many of the sources listed here under “preliminary scaffolding.” Owing to the skills focus and assignment requirements of ENGL 110 within the QC curriculum, the student work contemplated by this module, both in and out of class, is mostly written.
Goals:
This module aims to:
- Concretize students’ understanding of how community spaces and texts shape collective narratives and histories through forays into present-day Flushing and sustained engagement with primary sources drawn from local Flushing archives.
- Test academic theories of cultural and historical knowledge production—especially Pierre Nora’s concept of the “lieux de memoire”—against the actual practices, and local case studies, of cultural documentation, preservation, and curation.
- Connect college and community, building upon earlier visits to on-campus institutions like the Rosenthal Archives and Godwin-Ternbach Museum and offering students opportunities to reflect on how QC, as a community, is both contiguous with, and distinct from, its surrounding borough.
- Give students practice in several modes of CWI composition: probative (exploratory) writing; hands-on research; primary source engagement via annotation; and writing for specific, local audiences. (Some of these specific modes are dependent upon how the module is developed by the instructor, beyond the visit to the QHS.)
Place-based Engagements:
As currently conceived, the module’s primary place-based engagement will be with the Queens Historical Society. Given potential challenges to accessible access and logistics of off-campus work, this module focuses on elements of the QHS collection that have been digitized and are publicly accessible. However, a physical visit to the QHS’s Kingsland Homestead home, and the adjoining Weeping Beech Park, is entirely contemplated as a possible extension of this essentially preparatory work. Instructors might also engage other sites: the Olde Towne of Flushing Burial Ground, The “Flushing Freedom Mile,” and other local “sites of memory” that might emerge out of the QHS and/or Queens Memory Project activations. (Many thanks to Dr. Johnathan Thayer for the introduction to many of these resources.)
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 4.0 License.
CUNY OER Funding
CUNY OER Initiative
