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How Was America[*] Made Between the 1860s-1920s?
Following the requirements listed below, answer that question—How Was America Made between the 1860s-1920s?–in an approximately 800-1,100 word essay that sets out your clear answer to the question, establishes a specific interpretation/argument in the introduction, provides clear time references, and carries the reader forward through your essay by explaining your reasoning with specific evidence drawn from the course modules and course material (including links in the modules, topic guides, syllabus, and this assignment description).
- Introduction: Somewhere in the opening paragraph, give your clear answer to the question “How was modern America made between the 1860s-1920s?” Capture attention of reader with specific story, image, reference, idea, preferably in a pithy, concise way. Set up who or what is the focus of your answer. Explain your focus so that an unfamiliar reader can know what they are looking at and where you are taking them. In your introduction, plant seeds so that they will grow in the readers mind as you carry them along in your writing. Establish the themes of the essay, connecting them to the sources you are using so that the reader can have that as a base from the start. Show the reader how that theme or those themes help answer the essay question. Be sure to define one’s key terms, including modern and America or American. Those definitions will help the reader know your specific usage of the terms.
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- Students NEED to have a concise, yet sophisticated short answer that is either at the beginning of the opening paragraph or the end of it (or in a place clearly recognizable)—this is what is often called a “thesis statement.” This statement should be the organizing idea that guides the reader through the evidence.
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- Body paragraphs: Generally, produce 3-5 paragraphs depending on their length. A simple option is to have three paragraphs, with each paragraph focused on the required items listed below. Offer rich detail from the course modules—think in terms of power and what kind of changes occurred that left long-term legacies, whether in law, politics, economics, culture, emotions, or mass consumerism. Think about what kind of power an individual had to control their own lives and how they fit into the changes you are writing about. Have each of those paragraphs connect to the ideas or themes established in the introduction. Ideally, find an “arc” that becomes a kind of “road map” for the reader. Set that out in the intro and then have these paragraphs be memorable parts of that arc.
- These body paragraphs must cover the items below. Each section needs a topic sentence that serves to transition the reader to the new section and sets up the major idea/theme/topic of the paragraph.
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- Reconstruction and Early Jim Crow
- Every essay must include some discussion of the 14th Amendment and the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson decision. [In addition to the resources in the modules, students might benefit from the Cornell Law School’s Legal Information Institute’s page on the 14th Amendment https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/amendmentxiv ]
- Other parts of a students’ approach to this section can be anything drawn from Module 2—Civil War, Emancipation, and Reconstruction, 1861-1877+ or Module 3—Reconstruction in Retreat, White Supremacy as Dominant, and the Rise of the Jim Crow System.
- Industrial/Corporate Capitalism, Immigration, and Urbanization.
- Every essay must include some discussion of the Statue of Liberty and the Immigration Act of 1924.
- Other parts of a students’ approach to this section can be anything drawn from Module 4—Making Modern America, 1865-1920: Corporations, Inventions, Mass Wealth, and Immigration [also Heat+Motion+Communication+Pleasure+Fear].
- The West and Westward Expansion.
- Every essay must include some discussion of the “Cowboy” as an American ideal and the role of popular culture in shaping powerful answers to the question of “What is an American?”
- Other parts of a students’ approach to this section can be anything drawn from Module 5—Making Modern America: The West and the American Imagination, the Power of Myth and Romance.
- Reconstruction and Early Jim Crow
- Conclusion: A quick paragraph that brings the reader’s journey to an end. It should not just repeat and summarize the essay’s main points, but offer some parting ideas/conclusions that affirm to the reader that it was worth their sticking with your essay until the end. Don’t save your best arguments for the conclusion, though. Put your best ideas in the introduction.
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- Be sure to answer the question. Use clear, concrete examples and evidence to support your answer.
- Be sure to have a clear use of time/chronology and to define your key terms. Establish what you think are the priorities for what mattered about the past and explain why those things you chose matter more than other plausible choices. Remember that in making an argument about why something matters, one has to set up the context that surrounds that thing and a rationale for judging that thing more important than other things. For example, for a reader to know why apples are better than oranges, the writer has to tell them about apples AND oranges, or they can’t make assess how well the writer makes their case for apples.
- Make sure you review the Essay Evaluation/Rubric. The criteria in that rubric will be used to assess the essay.
- Make sure your essay covers the fundamentals of “What happened, how it happened, why it happened, and why is it significant?”
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- Some students may be able to do a brilliant paper at 700 words, but the expectation is that quality papers will be in the 800-word range.
- All papers must be submitted to SafeAssign through the essay submission portal in Course Content.
- All papers where it will be checked for plagiarism and similarities to items online, to other papers, and to items in Safeassign’s enormous database.
- And, as always, I am more concerned about the quality of the work than the quantity.
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- Students should use footnotes or endnotes to cite specific sources that are not Prof. Germany’s lectures, as it is the simplest way to explain research to a reader. These references help us see your used of evidence/research. They don’t have to be complicated. A basic title and a link can work for this assignment.
- Footnoting Germany’s comments in lectures or videos is not necessary unless using a direct quote. If one quotes directly, students can use a footnote or put a reference in the text such as, “as the strikingly ill-informed lecture on ___ said . . .”; or put in a simple footnote with a short title of the lecture.
- Put footnotes or endnotes as close as possible to the place in the paper where the information was used (not in the middle of the sentence, but at the end, after the period). If you do not know how to insert footnotes into MS Word, see these instructions from Microsoft: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/word-help/insert-delete-or-edit-footnotes-and-endnotes-HP001226522.aspx; if you use a different program, use Google or other internet search for the name of your word processing program and “footnotes” or “insert footnotes.”
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