As you know, essay exams—and especially short essay exams—require careful thought and organization. So before you begin drafting your essay, it is important that you develop at least a rough outline of your argument, carefully choose examples in support of your argument, and write clear and direct sentences to develop that argument. Again, since you face significant space limitations, please avoid the use of long block quotes. To cite an article simply use the following format at the end of the sentence in question: (Haney López, pp.12-13).
As you know, the exam is designed primarily to assess the extent to which students have actively engaged the themes raised in the prompts and accordingly, grades will be based on each student’s ability to support his or her argument by using evidence from all relevant sources in the syllabus. Please limit your citations to readings from the syllabus—the use of other sources is not allowed in this exam.
Please respond to the following prompts.
1. In their essays from weeks 5 and 6, respectively, Steven H. Wilson and Ian Haney López focus on two very different strategies that Mexican American political activists used in their efforts to achieve equal rights for the people they considered to be members of their community. Using these articles as your primary sources, but drawing on other readings, handouts, and film and lecture notes where appropriate, write an essay of 10-12 pages in which you: 1) assess the different ways Mexican American activists defined their community between the 1930s and the 1970s; and 2) analyze the strengths, limitations, and lasting historical legacies of the two civil rights strategies analyzed by the two authors.
I have uploaded the reading files here, please follow the reading resource to write the essay
