In this time frame, I have been able to simplify my topic down to Mental Health instead of Emotions due to the scale of the issue compared to the time that I have. This is a shorter class and would like to use this site as a undergraduate version of what I have learned from The Bills of Mortality project Death by Numbers.
There are a few challenges with this new focus. One challenge is that most of the information I had was about emotions, so I have had to do a of extra research on what to use. Second is the question of Suicide as a part of this subject. There is a lot to consider when discussing suicide in the Early Modern period, from religion to legality of the action, that it could be its own course. I decided to mention it in the final activity for students to research on their own if they choose to do so. That means most of my focus is now on melancholy and anxiety, which is not a bad thing, just shifting the focus and activities.
My focus audience is undergraduate students so I will be doing activities that will be asking the students to become familiar with the era, subject, and asking questions about the sources presented. Asking the students about a primary versus secondary source and how that can change the perspective. Ultimately, I see this being a one week (one or two class) long lesson on the topic within a class. I spent this week cleaning up small parts of the site. Now I just need to piece together the activities. Below is a site I found that explains the pieces of the historical thinking process!
https://historicalthinking.ca/historical-thinking-concepts