twelve Years a slave essay.

Directions:  Respond to or expand on one of the following questions in 5 typed pages. There is no expectation for you to consult outside sources, but if you do please limit yourself and fully cite the source.  Your thesis is to address a particular “problem” in the text that the following questions broadly suggest.  Your task is to narrowly focus and refine one of the questions into an argument.  Provide and analyze specific details (significant scenes or dialogue) from the text to support your argument. 

Twelve Years a Slave is available for free here:  http://docsouth.unc.edu/fpn/northup/northup.html

We will discuss the book during week 12. You need to be prepared to share what your proposed thesis is for the paper. After you have submitted the paper to the dropbox and I have graded it, you must load the paper and the rubric into your ePortoflio to receive credit for the paper.

1.  How has your reading of this primary source challenged or changed your interpretation of slavery?  Or some aspect of Antebellum American society?

2.  What is the role of women in the narrative?  Focus on only two or three women in your discussion.

3.  How does Northup represent the feelings of slave owners?

4.  How does Northup represent white people? Beyond the differences between Northern and Southern whites is there something he is saying about “whiteness?”

5. Compare and contrast with the film. Be sure to site particular scenes from the book and movie as support for your argument. (be sure you make a clear argument)

6. How does Northup cope with his enslavement?

7.  What does Northup’s narrative reveal of racial attitudes among Americans at the time?

There are multiple other possible paper topics, and generally the best papers are the ones that you come up with based on your reading. Questions that develop as you read, or certain patterns you may notice often lead to a good, argumentative, thesis.