DEPARTMENTAL US HISTORY ESSAY PROJECT
INSTRUCTIONS: The student will be responsible for choosing an event, time period or person in American History, and creating an argument on its significance using historical evidence of at least one primary and one secondary source. The student will also analyze and interpret the primary and secondary sources by explaining how the material impacted their chosen topic. 1. Choose a topic to conduct your research on (MY TOPIC IS DEMOGRAPHIC CHANGES) – keep in mind that it needs to be American History focused and must be within the time frame of this course. 2. Remember that sources are important. Use the Purdue OWL website to help you properly cite your sources. 3. Conduct the research – you locate at least one primary and one secondary source directly related to your topic. You must ensure that your sources meet the criteria for primary\secondary sources. Analyze the benefits and the disadvantages of primary and secondary sources that you’ve selected for your project 4. Analyze your chosen documents using purpose, value, origin, and limitations to help you determine how you should be incorporating them into your writing. 5. Write up your project according to the following criteria: Write at least 1000 word synthesis of your topic and sources.- need primary and secondary sources, citations of ALL sources, and • Your analysis should begin with a brief overview or summarization of your chosen topic. • Next, you will provide a description and analysis of each of your sources. • Lastly, you’ll need to corroborate all of your chosen sources and discuss how they relate or add information\perspective to your topic. You will be submitting your project through SafeAssign. I expect formal academic writing and you should have taken the time to review your writing project for grammatical errors and mistakes. You will also need to formally cite the sources you use at the end of your project through a Bibliography\Works Cited as well as within your writing if you use any sort of direct quotes SIMPLIFIED INSTRUCTIONS WITH EXAMPLE: 1. Pick a theme. For example, new technology. (Again mine is DEMOGRAPHIC CHANGES) 2. Pick events that support your theme. So, new technology, cotton gin, steamship, submarines, modern tanks, flamethrowers, cars, television, radar, etc. Highlight these events. What did your theme do to American history. For example, how did the cotton gin change farming and later urbanization, etc. 3. Use primary sources and secondary sources. Cite them! 4. Analyze your sources- any bias? any concerns? 5. Summarize your theme as it relates to our historical time period. HELPFUL INFO: These were the chapters covered in this class along with the time frames. Chapter 1: The Americas, Europe, and Africa Before 1492 Chapter 2: Early Globalization: The Atlantic World, 1492-1650 Chapter 3: Creating New Social Orders: Colonial Societies, 1500-1700 Chapter 4: Rule Britannia! The English Empire, 1660-1763 Chapter 5: Imperial Reforms and Colonial Protests, 1763-1774 Chapter 6: America’s War for Independence, 1775-1783 Chapter 7: Creating Republican Governments, 1776-1790 Chapter 8: Growing Pains: The New Republic, 1790-1820 Chapter 9: Industrial Transformation in the North, 1800-1850 Chapter 10: Jacksonian Democracy, 1820-1840 Chapter 11: A Nation on the Move: Westward Expansion, 1800-1860 Chapter 12: Cotton is King: The Antebellum South, 1800-1860 Chapter 13: Antebellum Idealism and Reform Impulses, 1820-1860 Chapter 14: Troubled Times: the Tumultuous 1850s Chapter 15: The Civil War, 1860-1865 Chapter 16: The Era of Reconstruction, 1865-1877 I will attach the textbook used in this class https://s3.amazonaws.com/lumenlearning/success/tx/sanjac/US-History-I-OS_12-7-16.pdf
