iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Dr. Natalie Mendoza @drmendozan.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

🗃️ We should always be good neighbors at home* *Yes, this is a shameless reference to my forthcoming book, Good Neighbor at Home: Mexican American Politics in the World War II Era (Penn Press)

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Dr. Natalie Mendoza @drmendozan.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

🗃️ Some of us have been saying this for awhile (like Lindsay and OP). It’s simple. Give faculty time and resources to teach, per basic pedagogy practices, no innovation needed. It’s a matter of prioritizing this as necessary for the university to do well as an institution of higher learning.

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Dr. Natalie Mendoza @drmendozan.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

🗃️ Bright spot in my day: A student said my voice is very calming ❤️ I said: But then I laugh and it’s not so calming 😂

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Dr. Natalie Mendoza @drmendozan.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

🗃️ Printing and cutting up paragraphs in a draft never fails to help me re-organize and tighten my topic sentences (and thus my claims). Good writing is rewriting AND reorganizing! (and omg this manuscript is almost done 😬)

Whiteboard with paper copies of paragraphs from a portion of Natalie’s manuscript. You can see how she’s reorganized the paragraphs: they are numbered but some are out of order because she moved them. She’s also highlighted key claims and made notes to herself for changes she’d like to make.

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Dr. Natalie Mendoza @drmendozan.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

Walking past 2 students talking about needing to take humanities courses. One says, “but humanities courses are pretty cool.” As I zipped by I said with a smile “they *ARE* cool,” then added: “I’m a professor.” They laughed, then he said loudly “THE HUMANITIES ARE AWESOME!” 🤓 🗃️ @colorado.edu

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Dr. Natalie Mendoza @drmendozan.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

Right? I have thousands of scans from archival trips and I’ve used just a fraction of that in my book.

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Dr. Natalie Mendoza @drmendozan.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

Oh right! I’ve stopped writing in cursive when I write on the whiteboard in class. In general I think that’s a good thing no matter what, but I realized some students might not be able to read it 😬

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Dr. Natalie Mendoza @drmendozan.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

YES. Many things are digitized, and I love the access, but in my other class I’m having my students go to the library archive to see where those digitized items are held physically. Same with scholarly articles. I had to bring in a journal to show them where the article they downloaded came from.

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Dr. Natalie Mendoza @drmendozan.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

Oh wow! Please share what you find!

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Dr. Natalie Mendoza @drmendozan.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

I agree. Deserves a conversation. All the talk about AI as a tool while students lose this one. I suppose that’s why we taught it, it was a tool for communicating. Now we have devices we can use to type.

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Dr. Natalie Mendoza @drmendozan.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

Sometimes a quick pic is helpful! My photo library is full of this, not unlike all the scraps of paper and sticky notes on my desk 😂

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Dr. Natalie Mendoza @drmendozan.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

This is my 2000-level undergraduate class, so mostly freshmen and sophomores. I know some grad students have already not been taught this, though, ie they didn’t learn in elementary school.

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Dr. Natalie Mendoza @drmendozan.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

Holy crap I bet CU moves more slowly!!

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Dr. Natalie Mendoza @drmendozan.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

Right. Which would mean limiting voices/perspectives. I’ve been told medieval historians already do this, paleography.

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Dr. Natalie Mendoza @drmendozan.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

This is what some others have said! Thanks for clarifying that tidbit, Cate :) And I’m so glad to see you enjoying your new institution!

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Dr. Natalie Mendoza @drmendozan.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

Right? It was awesome. I said, yes, please, my dude, read it for us!

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Dr. Natalie Mendoza @drmendozan.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

That’s great about California (my home)! So that gives us time…

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Dr. Natalie Mendoza @drmendozan.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

Right? We need to discuss this at the AHA or OAH. Or has there already been a discussion?

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Dr. Natalie Mendoza @drmendozan.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

Oh that’s good to know. For what you say in the first reply but also with internships. Our department can’t single-handedly address that, but we definitely need to think about it as a discipline and our curriculum, for undergrads and grad students (many of whom are in their 20s). Thanks for sharing!

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Dr. Natalie Mendoza @drmendozan.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

This sounds so much like language acquisition. My own example: I can understand some Spanish but I don’t speak it (very well).

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Dr. Natalie Mendoza @drmendozan.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

That too. Are you talking about grad students working in archives? Or undergrads? I’m the internship coordinator for my department and I don’t think I’ve seen librarians list “ability to read cursive” listed as a required skill (that would be a good thing for me to ask them for the spring).

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Dr. Natalie Mendoza @drmendozan.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

Oh that would be a good reason to learn!

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Dr. Natalie Mendoza @drmendozan.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

Seems so! Something to learn from our colleagues who do paleography.

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Dr. Natalie Mendoza @drmendozan.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

But seriously: Our discipline (History) needs to think about this, especially if we’re going to continue training MAs and PhDs interested in studying earlier periods. Will this be similar to having language fluency? 🗃️

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Dr. Natalie Mendoza @drmendozan.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

Today in class: Looking at a WWII poster, when we got to the artist’s signature, I stopped to ask “do you all know how to read cursive?” They didn’t respond, looked a little stricken. One student’s hand shot right up, though. He knew how to read cursive. He was like, “now’s my time to shine!” 🗃️

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Dr. Natalie Mendoza @drmendozan.bsky.social · 23/08/2026

Yep, chronicling is still a type of narrative construction.* *Which is why we should understand that textbook authors don’t just state facts but make implicit arguments (my WWII class this fall will be digging into this) 🗃️

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Dr. Natalie Mendoza @drmendozan.bsky.social · 22/08/2026

Well, what other choice do you have? (Silver lining in this new era of food deregulation?)

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Dr. Natalie Mendoza @drmendozan.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

omg I had the same reaction! I didn’t understand how quoting like that was allowed. I have other not so favorable thoughts, but the search committee descriptions and quotes caught my attention real quick.

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Dr. Natalie Mendoza @drmendozan.bsky.social · 06/08/2026

Me too. At home, on the corner—we need tacos everywhere!

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Dr. Natalie Mendoza @drmendozan.bsky.social · 05/08/2026

I love that the food choice discussed here is a burrito. 🗃️

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Dr. Natalie Mendoza @drmendozan.bsky.social · 07/07/2026

🗃️ JOB: History and Social Science Education at San Jose State University

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Dr. Natalie Mendoza @drmendozan.bsky.social · 04/07/2026

Ends and Beginnings: The United States at the Turn of the Twenty-First Century (winter 2026) www.oah.org/tah/ends-and...

oah.org

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Dr. Natalie Mendoza @drmendozan.bsky.social · 04/07/2026

🗃️ Piece by newly minted PhD @violaburlew.bsky.social on teaching about race and World War II using posters and visual analysis (America in a World at War issue). www.oah.org/tah/america-...

oah.org

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