Rees feels skills are built through interpretation and discussion, requiring a fluid approach in the classroom. Tethering to a textbook – even an excellent one – demands one of two options: keeping the class where the text is (rather than where the students are) or assigning reading that may not be covered in the classroom. Rees opted for the latter for much of his teaching career, and it posed a constant aggravation. “How can I make someone read something I don’t have time to teach?” he wondered.

Rees had already begun a gradual movement away from texts when his colleague revealed her abandonment of them altogether. It was the impetus he needed to go rogue, taking a path he feels many want to explore but hesitate because they feel bound by tradition. “I think it’s uncommon to chuck the textbook completely,” says Rees. “Assign one textbook and one reader.… You’re supposed to do it that way.” But for Rees, it wasn’t good enough for him or his students.

A textbook market in flux

Rees isn’t the only one questioning the viability of the traditional model of a text for every class. Among students – and their checkbook-wielding parents – there’s growing resentment about the hefty price tags that texts often bear. According to a 2006 Government Accounting Office study, the cost of college textbooks rose at twice the rate of inflation in the previous twenty years, amounting to what nonprofit activist group StudentPIRG estimates is an average of now more than $900 per student/per year. Publishers blame high costs on increasing demand from professors for teaching tools that support the text and ease classroom burdens, but students are often caught in the middle: a captive audience with little power to drive down the cost. A report from the Scholarly Publishing Office of the University of Michigan Library characterizes the rising cost as a “textbook problem” that warrants examination to find “low-cost instructional materials for students, making education and resources more affordable.”

Many are watching the emergence of the e-text as the ballast that will bring the market back to equilibrium, but there’s little evidence to suggest that. “People in the industry and general public love to focus on e-textbooks – are they here, are they coming, do students want them, and on and on,” says Neil Schlager, publisher of Milestone Documents, an online primary source reader designed for history and social studies courses. “But in many ways that misrepresents where the battle lines are. There isn’t much reason for a student to choose an e-textbook over a print textbook when the price is about the same and the e-version is basically just a PDF of the print.”

Schlager and his team conduct ongoing research with students which has shown that students are happy to have a digital solution if it’s less expensive and provides a different way of learning – one that leverages the use of digital technology. However, price is a key issue, and Milestone Documents’ research points to an increasing number of students who, when faced with a high text price, simply opt out of the purchase.

“Professors may not focus as much on the cost issue, but it’s a big underlying reason for the disruption in the industry,” says Schlager. “Students are choosing not to buy and clamoring for other options. Once the professors begin to grapple with those questions, then the decision to find an alternative to using a text becomes more compelling.”

Indeed, for professors such as Rees – those who continually work to become better teachers – student frustration with texts may just accelerate them on a path they have already established for themselves: a new model that better fits their classroom style.

A movement away from tradition

Rees began teaching his own courses in 1997, after training as a TA in graduate school at the University of Wisconsin – Madison. As a new teacher, he carefully developed notes for each class. In retrospect, he says he was teaching “at” his notes, looking at what he had written to himself rather than at his students to see how they were absorbing the information. Student and professor don’t work together in that pattern; rather, they take separate paths over the same ground. Then, PowerPoint provided a breakthrough: Rees began moving away from notes to a shared focus on a screen at the front of the room. He began integrating pictures, primary sources and just a little text to label the pictures – a method he continues to use.

“I can throw a document up on the screen and look out at faces,” he says. His ability to read those faces enables him to see what’s engaging students or confusing the issues, which in turn builds greater opportunities for conversation in class. “I’m always happiest when a discussion breaks out.”

PowerPoint addressed one connection issue with students, but the imbalance between classroom and textbook continued as a friction point. Because Rees was moving with the flow of the classroom, textbook material that was assigned was often not covered in the class.

To add an additional headache, textbooks began to appear on smart phones, providing students with a legitimate reason to be looking down at small screens. Rees lamented in his popular blog “More or Less Bunk” about the inability to distinguish between a student looking at assigned text material and one updating a Facebook status. Again, student and professor were on different paths. It was time to make a change.

Ditching the Text

Inspired by his colleague, Rees simply eliminated the text from his class, opting to rely on his PowerPoint-based notes and a digital reader – Milestone Documents – with unique, comprehensive access to primary sources. Rees compares the move to the Sugar Act of 1764, when the British reduced the breadth of an unpopular but easily evaded tax on colonists. “I reduced the amount of reading but stepped up enforcement,” he says.

Indeed, now Rees and his students are in step with each other. He’s teaching what they’re reading. Further, students no longer had to pay up to $100 for a paper textbook. They pay less than $20 for complete, semester-long access to Milestone Documents. Rees feels there’s significantly less frustration among students. “No one asks me ‘why do I have to read this?’” he says.

With three textbook-free semesters under his belt, Rees says he’s a happier teacher. He likes the freedom to pick and choose the contents of each class and teaches directly on the screen – face to face with his students. The a-la-carte approach allows him to customize, moving the pace faster or slower… the level of discussion up or down, depending upon the students’ fluency in the material.

The use of Milestone Documents has been a pivotal element in Rees’s success with the text-free option. While students may be initially smitten with its affordability, the resource leverages some significant advantages of digital technology. Without the limitations of print, it’s able to provide far greater breadth of coverage – currently containing more than 1,200 historical documents – delivering tremendous flexibility that support Rees’s interest in a custom approach that moves with the class. The resource also includes in-depth analysis by respected scholars from around the world, connecting students with a diverse network of historians and their perspectives. The analysis boosts the level of class discussion, but also evens the playing the field among students – those who need extra help in understanding primary documents are able to consult the analyses, giving them ample preparation for class.

For Rees, the satisfaction comes from the content he’s teaching: the raw material of history. Rather than rote memorization of facts, he and his classes explore primary documents together, sharing thoughts, interpretations, and impact. “This isn’t Jeopardy. If we make them just recite answers, we’ll turn more people off than on,” he says. “We need to prepare them … teach them how to think for themselves.”

Sharing the model, avoiding the angst

“I was open to Milestone Documents because I was unhappy,” says Rees, and he’s helping others find their teaching bliss. He shares insights in “More or Less Bunk,” rails against models that can force educators into lock-step paths, and fights for quality education that eschews slick tech gimmicks that deliver little value. His twitter feed connects followers with bold, unblinking views of the state of education that will inspire even the most complacent professors to protect the core values of higher learning. In short, he’s a voice worth listening to … especially for those who find the traditional structure of text+reader boxy and limiting.

And fresh dynamics in the textbook market may push even the most risk averse professors to seek new models. As digital versus print – and packages of the two – fight for presence, traditional suppliers and online retailers will be drawn into the battle. In his article “The New Economics of the Textbook Business” (The Deal, October 2011), Richard Morgan predicts an outcome that is “a dizzying array of enemies and alliances … of a complexity not seen since keiretsu characterized business in postwar Japan.”

But, in Rees’s classroom, there’s little drama. He teaches. The students engage. They share a path across history and they all learn together.

Learn more about Jonathan Rees by visiting his website.

About Milestone Documents

Milestone Documents is an online primary source reader developed for use in history and social science courses. Pairing the most significant primary documents of all time with award-winning analysis by a global network of 300 historians and scholars, Milestone Documents has an expanding document collection of more than 1,200 primary sources. It is accessible via the Web, the iPad, and any smart phone.

Visit MilestoneDocuments.com/evaluation to learn more or launch a free trial.

• February 6: Henry Highland Garnet, a gifted speaker with a reputation as a firebrand, was a founding member of the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, which advocated political action as the primary way to achieve emancipation. He delivered his “Address to the Slaves of the United States of America” at the National Convention of Colored Citizens in Buffalo, New York, in 1843.
• February 7: One of the most significant civil rights activists of the nineteenth century, Frederick Douglass was born a slave in Talbot County, Maryland, on February 7, 1818. From the most humble of beginnings, Douglass rose to become a world-famous orator, newspaper editor, and champion of the rights of women and African Americans.
• February 8: Long before the term Black Power became a rallying cry for dispossessed communities throughout the African diaspora, the Jamaican-born activist Marcus Garvey gave voice to the black self-determinist impulse in such speeches as “The Principles of the Universal Negro Improvement Association.”
• February 9: W. E. B. Du Bois was the leading African American intellectual of his day, earning a PhD from Harvard and then working as a professor at Atlanta University and as the founding editor of the NAACP’s journal, the Crisis.
• February 10: Barack Obama graduated from Harvard Law School, worked as a civil rights lawyer, and taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School before becoming America’s first black president.
• February 11: Harriet Jacobs was born into slavery in Edenton, North Carolina, on this day in 1813 and escaped to freedom in 1835. On the cusp of the Civil War, in 1861, Jacobs published her personal narrative Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl.
• February 12: The writer, diplomat, civil rights activist, and educator James Weldon Johnson was part of the migration of hundreds of thousands of African Americans from the mostly rural South to northern industrial centers in the two decades before World War I. In “Harlem: The Culture Capital,” Johnson describes the past, present, and what he envisions as the future of the New York City neighborhood that black intellectuals considered the black capital.

• January 30: On this day in 1649, King Charles I was executed, and England became a commonwealth. Read his Speech on the Scaffold, with expert analysis by William Burns, George Washington University.
• January 31: The Thirteenth Amendment passed Congress on January 31, 1865. Read the amendment that legally ended slavery, with in-depth commentary by Michael Thomas Smith, McNeese State University.
• February 1: On this day in 1933, Adolf Hitler delivered his Proclamation to the German People by radio. Read the proclamation, with observations by scholar Michael J. O’Neal.
• February 2: Adam Clayton Powell delivered his Speech on Civil Rights to the U.S. House of Representatives on February 2, 1955. Omar H. Ali of Towson University provides a detailed explanation.
• February 3: Written sometime in the second century CE, Ptolemy’s “Letter to Flora” presents a sophisticated critique of the Jewish scriptures from the perspective of one of the major schools of Gnostic thought. The expert analysis is by Timothy Pettipiece, University of Ottawa, Canada.
• February 4: On this day in 1887, President Grover Cleveland signed the Interstate Commerce Act and created the Interstate Commerce Commission to regulate businesses, especially railroads. Read the act, with comprehensive commentary by Caroline Fuchs, Mina Rees Library/CUNY Graduate Center.
• February 5: The biblical book 1 Samuel (8–12) contains the memories of how kingship emerged in ancient Israel. Robert Gnuse, Loyola University, New Orleans, wrote the detailed analysis.

• January 23: On this day in 1861, Robert E. Lee wrote a letter to Custis Lee, sharing his thoughts on secession and the Confederacy. Read the letter, with commentary by Brooks D. Simpson, Arizona State University.
• January 24: On January 24, 1965, Winston Churchill died. Read his Iron Curtain Speech, proclaiming that a divide had settled between Western capitalist democracies and Eastern European Communist dictatorships. Our in-depth analysis is by David Simonelli, Youngstown State University.
• January 25: Read Cleanthes’ “Hymn to Zeus,” a religious and a philosophical record of the attitudes of ancient Greek thinkers of the early Stoic school. The expert analysis is by scholar Eric May.
• January 26: On this day in 1944, Angela Davis was born in Birmingham, Alabama. Read her essay “Political Prisoners, Prisons, and Black Liberation,” written while she was incarcerated in Marin County, California, in 1971. Veronica C. Hendrick of John Jay College of Criminal Justice wrote the comprehensive commentary.
• January 27: Read the Laws of Manu, a legal and a religious text that elaborates on the basic tenets of Hinduism and provides a window into the religion, culture, and society of ancient India. Rupa Pillai of the University of Oregon offers a detailed explanation.
• January 28: On this day in 814, Charlemagne died. Read the Capitulary of Charlemagne, part administrative decree, part constitution of the Holy Roman Empire, and part sermon. Scholar Michael J. O’Neal provides the commentary.
• January 29: On January 29, 1850, Henry Clay delivered his Remarks on the Compromise of 1850 Resolutions, his final attempt to solve the problem of expansionism in the context of the slavery dispute. Our analysis is by scholar Barry Alfonso.

• January 16: On this day in 1865, William Tecumseh Sherman issued Special Field Order No. 15, on the resettlement of freedpeople. Our in-depth commentary is by John David Smith, University of North Carolina at Charlotte.
• January 17: On January 17, 1896, Theodor Herzl published his essay “A Solution to the Jewish Question,” arguing the need for a Jewish homeland. The expert analysis is by Timothy May, North Georgia College & State University.
• January 18: Hakuin Ekaku, one of the most influential figures in Japanese Zen Buddhism, died on this day in 1769. Read his “Song of Meditation,” with observations by Dong Zhao, Beijing Foreign Studies University, China.
• January 19: On this day in 1917, German Foreign Secretary Arthur Zimmermann cabled Heinrich von Eckhardt, German minister in Mexico, to approach the Mexican chief of state, Venustiano Carranza, concerning the possibility of a German-Mexican military alliance against the United States. Read the Zimmermann Telegram, with explanation by Justus D. Doenecke, New College of Florida.
• January 20: On January 20, 1949, Harry S. Truman delivered his Inaugural Address. Read the speech, with in-depth observations by Tom Lansford, University of Southern Mississippi.
• January 21: On this day in 1970, the Ayatollah Khomeini gave the first of a series of lectures that would form the basis of Islamic Government. Read the text, with analysis by scholar Michael J. O’Neal.
• January 22: On January 22, 1973, the U.S Supreme Court issued its opinion in Roe v. Wade. Read excerpts from the decision, with commentary by Leigh Dyer, Charlotte Observer.

• January 9: Read an excerpt from the Rig Veda, hymns that make up the oldest and longest of the Vedas, the earliest stratum of Indian literature. The expert analysis is by Brian Collins, University of Chicago.
• January 10: The Chartist movement sought political and social reform in the United Kingdom through the fulfillment of the People’s Charter of 1838. Read the charter, with observations by Stephen Balzarini, Gonzaga University.
• January 11: On this day in 1908, Theodore Roosevelt declared the Grand Canyon to be a national monument. Read Roosevelt’s Statements Pertaining to Conservation, with expert analysis by William N. Tilchin, Boston University.
• January 12: Read an extract from Germaine de Staël’s Considerations on the Principal Events of the French Revolution, with commentary by William Burns, Washington University.
• January 13: On this day in 1777, Prince Hall and seven other African American men—most of them probably free—submitted a Petition to the Massachusetts General Court, asking for freedom for African Americans in the state. Read the petition, with in-depth analysis by Daniel R. Mandell, Truman State University.
• January 14: On January 14, 1935, Senator Huey Long delivered his “Share Our Wealth” radio address, castigating President Franklin Roosevelt for not acting on his promises to redistribute the wealth of Americans. Read the address, with observations by Carl Rollyson, Baruch College, The City University of New York.
• January 15: Read a sampling of the Middle Assyrian Laws, collected during the reign of the Assyrian king Tiglath-pileser I. Our in-depth commentary is by Mark Chavalas, University of Wisconsin–La Crosse.

• January 2: President John Adams appointed John Marshall as the chief justice of the United States on January 2, 1801. Read Marshall’s opinion in McCulloch v. Maryland, affirming the power of Congress to incorporate a national bank. Our expert analysis is by Stephen Clark, Albany Law School.
• January 3: On this day in 1925, Benito Mussolini announced that he would take dictatorial powers in Italy. Read his article “The Doctrine of Fascism,” with observations by scholar Robert Stacy.
• January 4: On this day in 1896, Everett Dirksen was born in Pekin, Illinois. Read his speech “An Idea Whose Time Has Come,” in support of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The expert commentary is by Frank H. Mackaman, The Dirksen Congressional Center.
• January 5: Read Percy Bysshe Shelley’s “Defense of Poetry,” one of the fullest statements of the Romantic aesthetic. Our in-depth analysis is by scholar Michael J. O’Neal.
• January 6: Read Han Kuan’s Discourses on Salt and Iron, reconstructing the debates between the ministers of Emperor Zhao of the Chinese Han Dynasty and Confucian scholars over state monopolies on salt, iron, and liquor production. The expert analysis is by Keith N. Knapp, The Citadel, Military College of South Carolina.
• January 7: Read Mary Wollstonecraft’s treatise A Vindication of the Rights of Woman with in-depth observations by scholar Marcella Bush Treviño.
• January 8: Read Nizam al-Mulk’s treatise on kingship and model for governance Book of Government; or, Rules for Kings, with explication by Timothy May, North Georgia College & State University.

• December 26: On this day in 1991, the Soviet Union was officially dissolved. Read the Farewell Address of Mikhail Gorbachev, with comments by scholar Michael J. O’Neal.
• December 27: Read the Hymn of the Righteous Sufferer, written to celebrate the primary Babylonian deity, Marduk. Our expert analysis is by Cy Ashley Webb, Stanford University.
• December 28: On this day in 1885, the Indian National Congress was founded—the first step toward Indian independence from British Rule. Read the Constitution of India, adopted in 1949. Our in-depth commentary is by Sadan Jha, Centre for Social Studies, Surat, India.
• December 29: On this day in 1865, William Lloyd Garrison published the final issue of the Liberator with his Valedictory Editorial. Read the editorial, with in-depth observations by James Brewer Stewart, Macalester College.
• December 30: Read an excerpt from Allan Kardec’s Spirits’ Book, a fundamental text of the paranormal-based movement referred to as Spiritualism. Our expert analysis is by Salvador Jimenez Murguía, Miyazaki International College, Japan.
• December 31: On this day in 1600 the British East India Company was founded. Read Emperor Qianlong’s Letter to George III, in response to the East India Company’s efforts to secure diplomatic relations and improved trade conditions with the Qing Dynasty. The commentary is by Q. Edward Wang, Rowan University.
• January 1: On January 1, 1808, the Act to Prohibit the Importation of Slaves, which ended large-scale importations of slaves into the United States, took effect. Read the act, with in-depth analysis by Paul Finkelman, Albany Law School.

• December 19: On December 19, 1998, President Bill Clinton was impeached by the House of Representatives on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice. Read the Articles of Impeachment, with in-depth analysis by Carl Rollyson, Baruch College, City University of New York.
• December 20: Read the Egyptian-Hittite Peace Treaty between the Egyptian pharaoh Ramses II and Emperor Hattusilis II, ending some eighty years of warfare between the two ancient superpowers. The expert commentary is by Peter J. Brand, University of Memphis.
• December 21: On this day in 1898, President William McKinley issued an executive proclamation setting out how government should operate in the Philippines. Read his “Benevolent Assimilation” Proclamation, with in-depth observations by Lewis L. Gould, University of Texas at Austin.
• December 22: Read the Italian patriot Giuseppe Mazzini’s “Essay on the Duties of Man: Addressed to Workingmen,” written in exile and putting forward his republican ideals and calls for social reform and improvement through education and civic virtue. Our expert analysis is by scholar Luca Prono.
• December 23: On December 23, 1815, Henry Highland Garnet was born a slave in New Market, Maryland. Read his “Address to the Slaves of the United States of America,” delivered at the National Convention of Colored Citizens in Buffalo, New York, after his escape to freedom. Our analysis is by Allan L. Damon, Horace Greeley High School (Ret.).
• December 24: Read Catherine the Great’s Grand Instructions to the Commissioners Appointed to Frame a New Code of Laws for the Russian Empire, which set forth her proposed program for legal reform. Our in-depth explanation is by William Burns, George Washington University.
• December 25: On this day in 438, the praetorian prefect Faustus presented the Theodosian Code to the Senate of Rome. Read excerpts, with observations by scholar Bradley Skeen.

• December 12: On this day in 2000, the U.S. Supreme Court decided the case of Bush v. Gore, halting the Florida recounts and effectively naming George W. Bush president-elect. Read excerpts, with observations by Charles L. Zelden, Nova Southeastern University.
• December 13: The two Koreas signed the Agreement on Reconciliation, Nonaggression, and Exchanges and Cooperation on December 13, 1991, pledging to end their ongoing state of political and military confrontation. Read an excerpt, with expert analysis by Paul M. Edwards, Center for the Study of the Korean War.
• December 14: Read the Raag Gond, part of the Sri Guru Granth Sahib—the holy book of the founders of Sikhism. Our in-depth commentary is by LaChelle E. M. Shilling, Claremont Graduate University.
• December 15: On this day in 1812, Simón Bolívar issued the Cartagena Manifesto, a key document in the Spanish American wars of independence, which took place from 1808 to 1829. Read the manifesto, with observations by scholar Michael J. O’Neal.
• December 16: On this day in 1653, Oliver Cromwell was sworn in as Britain’s Lord Protector, ruling until 1658. Read his Speech at the Opening of the Protectorate Parliament, with expert commentary by William Burns, George Washington University.
• December 17: Read Benjamin Franklin’s “Proposal for Promoting Useful Knowledge among the British Plantations in America,” which he wrote in an effort to create a society that would support learning in natural philosophy. The in-depth observations are by scholar Kirk Beetz.
• December 18: On December 18, 1944, Hugo Black wrote the opinion for the Supreme Court majority in Korematsu v. United States. Read the opinion, addressing the question of discrimination against the Japanese as a result of wartime legislation, with analysis by scholar Lisa Paddock.

 


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