Critical Response Paper HIST 1310
Scholars interpret history through the research of primary sources, or what individuals of the time period wrote and said about the world as they experienced it. History textbooks such as Eric Foner’sGive Me Libertyare often at quite a remove from this initial contact with the historical record, as they compile the conclusions made by myriad historians in books and articles, or secondary sources. The critical response paper assignment gives you an opportunity to be a historian in your own right with three primary sources to interpret and contextualize:
1. Harriet Jacobs’s Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl due 3/26
Write a 2 page double-spaced paper that summarizes and contextualizes the document within our larger course of study. Your paper will be due on the class date in which we cover the reading.
In the short paper, you are to:
1) In the title of the paper, identify the author and title of the text.
2) In the opening paragraphs, summarize the document. What is it? Who wrote it and why? Outline the basic argument or narrative set forward in the piece.
3) Next, do research to learn more about the author or subject of the document and relay interesting secondary information that informs your understanding of it. Be sure to cite one outside, relevant source (Wikipedia, History.com, biography.com excluded).
4) Finally, contextualize the document in the larger scope of our course. With what events or personalities in the textbook or lecture does it intersect? Does it change or enhance your view of any of these larger issues?
5) Be sure to edit your work for clarity and correctness, as proper prose goes far toward strengthening your argument. It is a best practice to write the paper over more than one day. It may also be useful to read your paper aloud to catch mistakes or run-on sentences. Finally, do not refer to any of the above books as novels, as a novel is a kind of fiction text but not a description of all printed literature.
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