History

History.docx

For this last assignment you will find your own primary source document to analyze. Chose any protest song you want, from the entire time period of US history we cover (including the present), and write A COMPLETE historical essay on it.

You want to be sure that you pick a song that, not only interests you, but is ALSO one to which you can relate historical details from our readings in some way. That means, first of all, that it fits into the time frame of our class 1877-present and that it is a primary source document from American history. But also, if it’s a current song about current events, that means, then, that you should be sure you can match those current issues and events to earlier themes, issues and events from our study of US history and shed a deep light on the song’s lyrics from an historical perspective.

Take note, as well, that there are certain songs which have been done so much that they have been permanently retired from our assignment (see below).

If you are picking a song ahead of where we are currently, you will have to look over readings from the Unit covering that part of US history and, obviously, the same goes for songs originating from eras we've already covered.

If you choose a current or very recent song, then you will have to make sure you include all the relevant background historical details and specifics that relate to whatever aspect or theme of US history the song relates to and which we've studied in class: that means that, for instance, if you choose a current or recent song related to the historical theme of civil rights, then, in addition to going over the current events that relate to that song, you must also bring in the relevant background material we've covered pertaining to the theme of civil rights.

Have fun but don't lose track of what you need to do in order to generate the maximum points for this important assignment! Your main goal here is to demonstrate you know relevant historical knowledge and can effectively explain it, along with details, facts, dates, etc.; the song itself and you explaining what it says is of only secondary importance to your grade.

This assignment is worth twice as much than the previous one so this is your chance to put together all the things, we've been working regarding writing an analytical essay and a complete essay so be sure to include any and all things that may have been missing in previous assignment.

Go over the assignment comments and rubric scores from your last essay, the TR Assignment, and make sure you are crystal clear as to what things you will want to make sure you do on this essay that you didn't do on that assignment. Take note of them and and then go back over those notes when you finish this essay.

Also, keep in mind that assays are about presenting your work so be sure to put in the necessary prep-work and analysis BEFORE start writing. The simple truth is that most of your success in an essay is determined before you type your first word.

Be sure to go over and follow the procedure outlined in How to Write an Analytical Essay. When you look at it notice how writing the essay is the last part and represents only 1/3 of the work you will do for this assignment. If you try to work out the first two-thirds of your work on the fly, so to speak, while you are writing the essay, doing the last third, your essay will look disorganized and confused to your reader. Work out your research and analysis before you start writing so you know exactly what it is you are going to do, say, explain and prove in this essay and your essay will be that much clearer and easier to understand for your reader.

To review the basics again regarding Writing a Complete Analytical Essay, your essay must have an introduction paragraph, at least one paragraph for the body and a conclusion paragraph. The introduction must effectively introduce the documents being examined, as well as establish a main analytical point for your historical essay on the primary source. These are NOT descriptive essays.

Make sure that you explain the specific historical context of the song in the intro (when it was written, by whom and what specific historical issue it was written about) and establish a main point there for your essay based on your analysis of the song. Work out and explain what specific historical issues it is engaging and analyze how it engages those issues by examining specific lyrics from the song. Check over the rubric requirements before you submit.

Songs permanently retired from contention (i.e., don't pick these songs if you want to pass this assignment):

"Brother Can You Spare a Dime"

"Ohio", Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young

"Fortunate Son", Creedence Clear Water Revival

"A Change is Gonna Come", Sam Cooke

"Eve of Destruction", Barry McGuire

"War", Edwin Starr

"Blowin' in the Wind", Bob Dylan

"I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-to-Die Rag", Country Joe and the Fish

'I ain't Marching Anymore,' Phil Ochs

'Give Peace a Chance' & 'Imagine' John Lennon

Some Rubric

Some Rubric
Criteria	Ratings	Pts
This criterion is linked to a Learning Outcome Does the essay introduction successfully introduce the document and its author in its proper and relevant historical context?		5 pts
This criterion is linked to a Learning Outcome Does the essay introduction successfully and clearly state a main point for the essay based around the critical and historical analysis of the document?		10 pts
This criterion is linked to a Learning Outcome Does the body of the essay contain specific quotes from the document which are critically analyzed in order to support the essay's main point?		10 pts
This criterion is linked to a Learning Outcome Does the body of the essay make use of specific and fully explained historical knowledge drawn from class in its analysis of the document and the specific quotes?		10 pts
This criterion is linked to a Learning Outcome Does the body of the essay contain analysis that is relevant to a deeper understanding of either the historical document or the particular era from which the document originates?		10 pts
This criterion is linked to a Learning Outcome Does the conclusion of the essay expand successfully on the essay's main point by discussing the broader implications of the now proven main point to US history?		5 pts
Total Points: 50

Writing a Complete Analytical Essay

Critical Thinking is the state mandated learning outcome for this class. Analysis, argument, and main point: these are the words that I WILL BE STRESSING in going over your essays this semester. Critical thinking IS analysis, consequently we are NOT looking for book reports on the documents I am asking you to write about. I will take for granted that you can read and comprehend at the basic level of telling me what a document says; what I will be grading for the is your ability to tell your reader (in this case, me) what the document MEANS, and for this class the only RELEVANT meaning pertains to what HISTORICAL insights can be derived from it. I'm aware that writing an essay like this might be uncharted territory for many of you so I'll just make a few general comments on this subject.

In our case you don't have a football game or a movie but an historical document. One that I've especially chosen because it is historically significant, usually for a variety of reasons any one of which could potentially become the main point for your essay provided you use your analytical skills effectively and properly. But how to find the starting point for your analysis and how to discover your main point?

First of all, you cannot conduct proper analysis of the document unless you FIRST read up on the historical background and historical characters associated with that document. For our first assignment, you need to know who Jefferson was, and a little bit of the historical circumstances of when he said these things. Then, more importantly, think about what these documents say from within the history of the Industrial Revolution we are studying in Unit One.

You must then read the document WITHIN THE CONTEXT of this knowledge. Avenues for potential analysis arrive when doing this. Look for incongruities. It is usually in the very things that don't seem to make sense where historical meaning and insight is hidden. Think of yourself as a detective interviewing a witness when approaching these documents and just like a detective DO NOT simply accept what is presented to you at face value. Use your logical (critical) ability to figure out why there is an inconsistency. Is the document or person misrepresenting historical facts? Why might it do this? Or is this incongruity the result of the difference between the modern way of seeing things and the perspective from the time period? What might this old way of seeing things evident in the document tell us about the different attitudes and values from this period? Why might they have these different attitudes or values and how might they have influenced the way history developed then? Asking these type questions (as well as the specific study questions for the assignment) will help you find something to actually write your essay about, what I call a MAIN POINT. Every essay needs one otherwise your reader will rightly ask why am I bothering to read this?

Try your best. So long as your work contains analysis and a main point that you can show both is supported by the document (you must supply some quotes from it for this) and the historical record as contained in the class readings, then that is good enough. You can even be wrong, and I will tell you that you are wrong in the comments for the assignment, but I can still give you an A because your main point made sense given the material you derived it from. Even if it doesn't quite make sense but you are trying and presented an otherwise well written and presented essay, I can give you a B or B+. Make no main point and offer no analysis and simply present a well written book report on the contents of the document then the best you can do is a C+/B-.

Writing a Complete Essay

Finally, let’s talk a bit about what an essay is for this class. There will be no word count or page length requirements for the essays which you in our class; instead, there will be form and content requirements by which you work will be evaluated. In those assignments where you will be asked to write an essay, it should be in the form of a three-paragraph essay. Your essay should include the following paragraphs with the following items.

It should start with an introductory paragraph in which you both introduce the primary source documents and author, as well as explain their proper historical context. Key elements required in presenting historical context include the specific date in which the document was created, any specific historical events or issues to which the document responds and/or any important historical events that directly relate to the document. The reader should also be made aware what general theme of history the document relates to (i.e., the Industrial Revolution, Political Machines, or the Progressive Movement) and what specific issues related to that theme this particular document sheds light on. In introducing the document, the reader needs for you to explain why you are looking at and analyzing this particular document and why doing so will be useful. Finally, you should end this introductory paragraph by clearly stating for your reader a main point for your essay, based on your work historically analyzing this specific document.

How to Write an Analytical Essay

The Process of Analytical Writing

Using facts and informed analysis of facts to make a point.

Analysis tells the reader something that is not obvious about the document being analyzed and that offers deeper insight into US History in general.

Step One: Object of analysis: the historical document

The purpose here in the beginning is to start the process of critically reading document. so that you can figure out what you will analyze, what you will say, how you will say it and how you will prove it

The Last thing you will work out BEFORE you write your paper, will be to develop this analysis into a main point that can tell the reader something specific about the historical era which the document comes from and then to write an essay in which you both explain this point, prove it, and then examine its consequences or implications to US history moving forward after this time.

Start by understanding what kind of document it is: a letter, book, photograph, article of clothing, etc. and ask yourself what kind of insight will this type of document offer? What can a public speech tell us that is different from reading out of a private diary? What different insights will these different types of primary sources offer us?

Then understand why and how it was created: who created this document and what logical purpose or goal did its creator have for it? If it's a speech, for instance, then the purpose is to mold public opinion or influence people in some way, so make sure you both understand what the main purpose and message of the document is and that you eventually clearly explain this as part of your analysis of the document

Since this is an historical document a significant part of understanding the nature, origins, and purpose of the document is also understanding the general historical context of the society in which it was created and the role of the document's author in that society. ALWAYS read and interpret an historical primary source by way what was going on immediately around it when it was created and try to understand it within the light of its historical context.

Read the document once just to familiarize yourself with it and understand what it says. Then reread the document thinking about the items mentioned above and underline anything that you think might be relevant for understanding the document. Just use your intuition and underline anything that catches your attention and then go over it and try to figure out why.

Step Two: Organization and Development of Analysis into a Main Point for Your Essay (putting together your essay notes)

The purpose here is to develop the various insights gained by critically reading the document into a main point you can organize your essay around.

Go through the various parts of the document that caught your attention and you underlined and try to work out how or why they might connect to some aspect of the history of that era we've covered in class.

Group or organizing them according the various historical themes or developments we've covered in our readings.

Select one group/historical theme that seems the most promising (i.e., has a fair number of quotes in the document and connects to an important or significant theme covered in class).

Notes: Pick and list three specific quotes along with an explanation as to how they relate to each other, how they relate to what you think is the documents primary point, and what specific historical theme they connect to

The first step in this process of developing your analysis is to assemble specific historical facts, events, movements, or people that relate to this theme. DON'T RELY ON MEMORY! Go back over the readings and make sure you've got the facts and historical concepts right and understand how they relate to each other.

You want to clearly demonstrate here that you both UNDERSTAND and KNOW this historical material which you've been studying. DO NOT quote from our historical readings; you must put the historical knowledge in your own words. Knowledge and understanding, and the ability to effectively demonstrate it, is what gains the trust of a reader. For our class this is the required CRITICAL THINKING or historical analysis, so compare the quotes to the historical theme and the specific historical facts that relate to it and work out in detail the nature of that relationship.

Notes: match up the historical facts, knowledge, dates, and terms with the quote it relates to and briefly explain in writing what that relation is

Analysis: examining the quotes you've selected in the light of this deeper knowledge by relating that knowledge to the quote and to the primary source document in general.

Analytical Method: Pay particular attention to the specific words chosen, the phrasings, and how, in general, this historical event is being represented by this particular person connected to it by way of the primary source. Do these quotes from the document provide a greater insight into how the historical theme is actually developing in history? Do they reflect social or cultural problems or challenges associated with this theme? Do they challenge the theme? Looking at how these quotes relate to an important historical theme is the key to coming up with a viable and relevant main point for your essay.

Notes: write down what specific phrases or words you intend to focus on from the quote, along with an explanation why you chose them specifically and what history you will relate them too--all this material will be what you WILL EVENTUALLY PUT INTO THE BODY OF YOUR ESSAY when you write it later.

And from all this preparatory work and analysis, in which you have related these quotes to specific historical knowledge and to a common historical theme or idea that we've covered in relation to this history, you will finally DEVELOP these connections into some kind of main point that you think that this primary source document can tell us about this history, or how this document relates to this history in general--this WILL GO INTO THE END OF YOUR FIRST PARAGRAPH, OR INTRODUCTION of your essay, and it will be essentially what you then PROVE in the body of the essay.

Step Three: Write, Organize, and Present your Paper around your Main Point AFTER you have finished doing your analysis and know what you are going to say.

DO THIS IN A SEPARATE SITTING after you've completed all your preparatory work, putting together the material for your essay; so that you can focus entirely here on the basic task of putting it into words and effectively communicating this information and analysis.

Explaining complicated terms and historical concepts and explaining analysis is a COMPLEX process that is usually very difficult to get right on the first try.

Effective writing is a process of REVISION and your goal must be presenting the material in such a way that ANY person can pick up your essay and understand the material presented as well what your main point and analysis is; with this goal in mind, proofread and revise your essay always asking the question: will my reader be able to understand this? If, not revise until it does.

EACH PARAGRAPH HAS A BASIC AND SIMPLE PURPOSE--Introduction paragraph: introduce the document, its author, and its basic historical context and then AT THE END OF THE INTRODUCTION state clearly your main point for the essay.

Body paragraph: Develop, explain and PROVE your main point making use of EVIDENCE drawn from the document (specific quotes) and the historical record and knowledge we’ve covered in class: interpret or analyze the primary source document in the light of specific historical knowledge (historical terms, ideas, facts, and details) covered in our class readings.

Conclusion paragraph: Once you have successfully presented your main point, explained and proved it, your main point can be taken or accepted as true so then you can conclude by discussing the broader implications of this point being true throughout US History after the document was created.

As you can see analysis and essay writing is a process so make sure you follow it. Essays that are written at the same time as the analysis is being done ALWAYS lack focus and clarity. One simple reason for this is that when doing analysis, figuring out your main point that connects all the different quotes together, and the analysis you do for each one, is the LAST thing you come up with, but when writing an essay, you must present your main point FIRST in the essay’s introduction. When reading an essay your reader is essentially following YOU through a maze.

And if you’ve ever been led by someone who has no idea where they are going then you know from experience it is obvious almost immediately.

Writing an Analytical Essay 2020

Critical Thinking is the state mandated learning outcome for this class.

Analysis and main point: these are the words that I WILL BE STRESSING in going over your essays this semester. Critical thinking IS analysis; consequently, we are not looking for book reports on the documents I am asking you to write about. Analysis offers insight into the particular object being analyzed (the document), or in other words, tells people something about that object that is not obvious to anyone who does not possess any specific knowledge related to the object being analyzed. A main point represents the next level after analysis and is developed out of your work analyzing something, tying together that analysis.

I will take for granted that you can read and comprehend at the basic level of telling the reader what a document says; what I will be grading for the is your ability to tell your reader what the document MEANS, and for this class the only RELEVANT meaning pertains to what HISTORICAL insights can be derived from it. So, the goal with historical analysis is to figure out what a specific primary source document can tell us about the general history that it directly relates to.

What is Analysis?

I'm aware that writing an essay like this might be uncharted territory for many of you so I'll just make a few general comments on this subject. On the simplest of levels, regarding what you want to demonstrate in your written work, beyond the simple ability to read a document and understand what it says, you want to show that you know and understand the history we are working on in the unit in which the assignment is placed. And you want to demonstrate that you can use that material in your writing and that you can effectively relate it to the primary source document which you were asked to analyze. When writing any kind of essay, you want your reader to be convinced that you actually know something and that you can effectively present and explain that knowledge in some kind of detail. Conversely, when writing essays for our class you DO NOT want your reader (which would be me) to come away from your essay with the impression that you do not know anything specific about the history of the time in which your document was created and that all you are offering are vague and uninformed generalities about US history coupled with your own opinions based not on objective and detailed knowledge but only on uniformed knowledge and personal feelings, biases, or beliefs.

An analytical essay digs deeper and gives the other story wherein the sports writer USES SPECIFIC KNOWLEDGE ABOUT THE GAME OF FOOTBALL AND ITS STRATEGY and then APPLIES IT TO A SPECIFIC OBJECT, THE GAME AND WHAT HAPPENED IN IT, in order to explain WHY the Gators lost and, if it is done well, it also has a main point regarding the main reason they lost, like they lost because they got away from running the ball. So, in general, in order to do any kind of analysis, you must know or be aware of a specific body of knowledge which you then make use of to analyze an object in order to offer deeper insights into that object. In history, obviously the field of knowledge would be historical knowledge, or for us, the specific things we learn about in our class.

Another analogy would be a rock. Any one of us can pick up a rock and describe its color, shape, texture etc. But that is NOT analysis. We could offer our opinions, feelings, or beliefs about the rock and what it might mean to us. But that too is NOT analysis. Analysis is not about you; it is only about the object you are analyzing and to qualify as analysis it must offer some specific insight which is not obvious or self-evident; an example of an obvious or self-evident insight would be something like this rock came from earth or came out of the ground. To effectively analyze something like a rock you must have access to a large body of specific knowledge and information about rocks and related items and use that specific knowledge to figure out specific things about that rock. That field of knowledge, in this case, would be geology, so you must use the specific knowledge generated by that field and apply it both logically and effectively to the specific details you point out in the rock in such a way that something not obvious about the rock can then become known to your reader, like it originally formed out of a volcano.

As you can see, one of the main elements required in analysis, beyond knowledge and the object itself, is specificity, or the quality of being specific: you have to point out very specific things in the object being analyzed; then you need to relate the specific things pointed out in the object to very specific pieces of knowledge that relate specifically to it; finally, you need to offer some kind of specific conclusion or main point based on your analysis. In this case, pointing out that the rock is jagged and then applying the general idea that jagged things are often the result of a break of some kind and finally offering the conclusion or main point that this rock broke away from a larger rock, does not qualify as analysis. The details pointed out are not specific, most rocks are jagged, the knowledge is not specifically related to some particular aspect of geological knowledge, and the conclusion that this rock has broken away from a larger rock is too general to be insightful: almost all rocks have broken from other rocks so this tells us almost nothing specific about this rock. On the other hand, pointing out that the rock has a glassy texture, has pieces of what look like other rocks, or clasts, embedded in it, and then noting that these details are often associated with volcanic rocks, and finally offering the specific main point that this rock came out of a volcano, does qualify as effective analysis.

Historical Analysis

In our case you don't have a football game or a rock but an historical document, or what is known as a primary source document. A primary source document is any historical object or artifact that comes from a specific time period in history (a secondary source is a source written by an historian): historical documents represent the basic facts or data that all historical knowledge is based on. The Primary Source document is the OBJECT of our analysis, or the thing being analyzed. For each assignment we will have a primary source that I've especially chosen because it is historically significant, usually for a variety of reasons, any one of which could potentially become the main point for your essay provided you use your analytical skills effectively and properly. And analysis will consist of finding and APPLYING related historical knowledge from our class to details from the primary source document, and just as with any other kind of analysis you will want to apply very specific and detailed historical knowledge to our object.

If you've never done it before applying analysis might seem daunting and even confusing but it is actually not as strange as it might seem. Let me use a couple of analogies of what analysis is. Let us start then with what analysis is not: it is not just description. But what's the difference? A descriptive essay is like picking up the newspaper after a Gator football game and reading a story describing the game and who won. An analytical essay digs deeper and gives the other story wherein the sports writer USES SPECIFIC KNOWLEDGE ABOUT THE GAME OF FOOTBALL AND ITS STRATEGY and then APPLIES IT TO A SPECIFIC OBJECT, THE GAME AND WHAT HAPPENED IN IT, in order to explain WHY the Gators lost and, if it is done well, it also has a main point regarding the main reason they lost, like they lost because they got away from running the ball. So, in general, in order to do any kind of analysis, you must know or be aware of a specific body of knowledge which you then make use of to analyze an object in order to then offer deeper insights into that object by applying it to specific details from the object of analysis (in a football game it would be the plays called and executed on the field). In history, obviously the field of knowledge would be historical knowledge, or for us, the things we learn about in our class and the object would be a primary source document and the details from it that you will specifically analyze will be quotes from that document that you APPLY the specific and detailed historical knowledge to. But how to find the starting point for your analysis and how to discover your main point?

First of all, you cannot conduct proper analysis of the document unless you FIRST read up on the historical background and historical characters associated with that document; you will rely on our history readings, or secondary sources, to do this. Secondary sources are any sources written by historian which present and interpret historical facts; they also frequently contain primary source documents in them too, along with historical analysis of primary source documents. For our first assignment, you will just be reading an essay about writing an historical essay. This is a source written by an historian so it is a secondary source and in it a primary source document is being analyzed. It is a speech presented by President Benjamin Harrison.

What you will be asked to do is to recognize what historical analysis looks like so that you have some idea what you will be trying to do in your own essays. So, when you do actually write your first essay you should have a strong idea of what historical analysis looks like, how it is done, and how it is developed into a main point. At its most basic historical analysis is APPLYING specific and detailed historical knowledge to a primary source document, and specifically to details (quotes) from that document, in order to offer insight into what that document can tell us about the history it comes from.

Try your best on your essays. So long as your work contains analysis and a main point that you can show both is supported by the document (you must supply some quotes from it for this) and the historical record as contained in the class readings, then that is good enough. You can even be wrong, and I will tell you that you are wrong in the comments for the assignment, but I can still give you an A because your main point made sense given the material you derived it from. Even if it doesn't quite make sense but you are trying and presented an otherwise well written and presented essay, I can give you a B or B+. Make no main point and offer no analysis and simply present a well written book report on the contents of the document then the best you can do is a C+/B-.

Finally, let’s talk a bit about what an essay is for this class.

Writing a Complete Essay

There will be no word count or page length requirements for the essays which you in our class; instead, there will be form and content requirements by which you work will be evaluated. In those assignments where you will be asked to write an essay, it should be in the form of a three-paragraph essay. Your essay should include the following paragraphs with the following items.

In the body of your essay, you will quote from the primary source document. You should keep your selection of what to quote short and focused and explain how the quotes you've selected relate to the overall message or point of the document. In so doing you should sum up for your reader what you think the author is trying to do or say in the document, based on your close reading of it, and you will then analyze each quote by relating both the quote and the document to specific historical facts, terms, ideas, and people we know about from our readings; in doing this analysis, by applying this historical knowledge, you will then be able to explain for your reader what this document can tell us about the time period from which it comes and thereby prove your main point. In order to effectively demonstrate analysis for a particular primary source, the body of your essay should present at least two specific quotes for analysis; three would be the best, and each quote should be presented and analyzed separately while also related to the two other quotes.

For your concluding paragraph, you will finish up by explaining how your main point, which you have just proven, relates to the general history from which it originates and do this by specifically exploring the broader implications of this main point in connection with subsequent American history leading up to today. In other words, how has what we have just learned about this particular aspect of history (the Industrial Revolution or the Progressive Movement, for example) helped us understand how our history has developed to where it is today, and what can this historical insight tell us about the related problems and issues that we face as a nation today?

No citations are needed for these assignments because the ONLY quotes you should have must come from the primary source document I am supplying. Historical facts DO NOT need to be cited. You should rely on our assigned readings, or secondary sources, for the specific historical facts and details which you make use of in analyzing the document.

You should take the details, facts, terms and concepts from our readings but you must explain, describe and present them entirely in your own words, thereby demonstrating your understanding of this material. Therefore, you SHOULD NOT QUOTE from our historical readings (from secondary sources). The task here is for YOU to use the facts and your logical ability to analyze the primary source document yourself using specific historical knowledge, so that means all the words MUST be entirely your own except for the quotes you present from the primary source document. ANY examples of plagiarism (see syllabus) will result in an automatic zero for the assignment. All work will be run through Turnitin.com.