For several years I have been teaching a course to economics PhD students in the University of Oporto. Most of these students are planning to write dissertations on fields other than HET, so they need to be persuaded that the subject is relevant to them. Though this course is too long to fit into a week, or even two, something shorter but along similar lines, might work in a summer school. The intended audience (those doing PhDs in other subjects) sounds similar. It is certainly not the only model (I would approach the problem of engaging students with Smith or Mill rather differently) but it works for quite a few students. The largest part of the course is a series of lectures (with as much discussion as I can stimulate) on the history of economics since Marshall. These take the story up to the present day and, importantly, I think, include discussion of the history of some of the applied fields in which most of them plan to make their careers. The type of coverage is mixed, depending on the availability of material: where material is available, the coverage is more contextual or "thicker" than for other topics where less has been written, and the mix of context and theory changes as new things appear. There is enough on the theories that they can relate this to what they study in macro, micro etc, and at the same time they are also exposed to the idea that historical questions go beyond the theory itself. Students also have to write an essay, normally on a topic related to their proposed dissertation field. An important part of this is working out a topic that is addresses some interesting historical question. I think that having to do this is important in helping them realise that simply surveying "x's contribution" is not in itself interesting (though it may enable me to lead them on towards a more interesting question). A good number of students manage to do interesting essays (bearing in mind that they normally do not have access to archives) but I think the main benefit for them is learning how to formulate an interesting historical question which, I hope, gives them more respect for history. Some of them certainly have to think hard to come up with a topic that is sufficiently historical to satisfy me! There is some discussion of alternative ways to approach history (centred on Roy's paper in the Oxford Review of Economic Policy and some of my own papers), but mostly this arises out of specific topics. The idea for approaching it this way came from Antonio Almodovar and Fatima Brandao who, when they recruited me, made it clear the type of course they wanted. Roger Backhouse