Hst

HST 181

How to Approach the Case Study Paper (Module 6)

In light of the background reading from Wright, you need to consider the primary sources on African Americans. I’ve provided three guided questions to assist you with your analysis:

1. 2. 3.

You don’t need answer each of these questions in turn in your paper (this isn’t a worksheet to complete), but overall are the things you should consider in your paper.

Here are some suggestions for successful papers:

1. Identify the central question of the case study (see above).

2. Use the primary sources (not the secondary background) to answer the central question.

3. Use the secondary source (Wright) to provide context for the primary sources, where needed. Wright can help fill in the gaps between the primary sources or to help explain issues that might appear in the primary sources, but the strongest papers will use “primarily” the primary sources to build their argument.

4. Make sure your paper is well organized. It should have an introduction that addresses the central question. It should have organized paragraphs that address each central issue in turn and uses the primary sources as evidence. And it should have a conclusion.

5. Don’t summarize the primary sources, beginning at the beginning and moving forward, but use the primary sources to answer the question and make an argument.

Overall, what impressions do African Americans and European American

express about each other in the readings and portraits?

What factors represent dominance or submission, respect or contempt, trust

or distrust between black and white colonists?

How did enslaved Africans and European colonists adapt to the insistent

diversity imposed on each by the other?