Historical Analysis Assignment
Historical Analysis Assignment
To understand people in the context of their times and to think critically about what people have written/said: Why did people think as they did? How do we understand that past society?
Analysis Assignment
Write and type up a two-to-four paragraph analytical essay in which you consider the similarities and differences between the industrializing North and the expansion of cotton plantations in the South. Be sure to have a thesis and put it in your first paragraph. Use support from course readings to support your argument.
Use must use and provide information (quotation) from at least two of the following documents:
- Old Apprentice; and
- The Cotton South
AND for background make use of course lecture and:
American Yawp, Chapters 8 and 11 (assigned sections).
Think about the following questions, which may help you identify a thesis:
- To what extent were the North and South united in terms of outlook, labor relations.
- What did Harriet Martineau and the old Apprentice think about some of the changes that were occurring in the South and the North? What did their tone or examples suggest about their views?
- What did people in each region think about the changes; how did they react?
- Why did the North industrialize and the South focus on plantation expansion? How did these changes affect the workers in each? How did they impact the employer/masters? Your essay MUST include:
- 1) A thesis statement (this is the main point you want to make such as the 1927 handout which asserted that “America is the child of Europe.”) Your thesis should be in the first paragraph.
- 2) An argument/interpretation (tell me what the readings demonstrate about the society/how we should understand the documents and this society using proof or evidence from the documents/textbook.) See above questions for ideas.
- 3) Should include a timeframe, which should be in the first paragraph and preferably a part of the thesis; and
- 4) At least one partial quote from the primary source document(s) that support your point(s) (e.g., Queen Juana believed that the Indians of Hispaniola were inferior to Spaniards due to her description of the Indians them as having “evil inclinations” and being predisposed to their “customary idleness and vice.” Otherwise you may paraphrase your support from the textbook/documents.
Other General Requirements
- – Use the secondary sources for background information. Put information from these sources in your
You must proofread your paper. But do not strictly rely on your computer’s spell-checker and grammar-checker; failure to do so indicates a lack of effort on your part and you can expect your grade to suffer accordingly. Papers with numerous misspelled words and grammatical mistakes will be penalized. Read over your paper – in silence and then aloud – before handing it in and make corrections as necessary. Often it is advantageous to have a friend proofread your paper for obvious errors. Handwritten corrections are preferable to uncorrected mistakes.
Use a standard 10 to 12 point (10 to 12 characters per inch) typeface. Smaller or compressed type and papers with small margins or single-spacing are hard to read. It is better to let your essay run over the recommended number of pages than to try to compress it into fewer pages.
Likewise, large type, large margins, large indentations, triple-spacing, increased leading (space between lines), increased kerning (space between letters), and any other such attempts at “padding” to increase the length of a paper are unacceptable, wasteful of trees, and will not fool your professor.
The paper must be neatly formatted, double-spaced with a one-inch margin on the top, bottom, and sides of each page. When submitting hard copy, be sure to use white paper and print out using dark ink. If it is hard to read your essay, it will also be hard to follow your argument.
