Second Formal Essay, World History 102-60 Web CT
Lewis-Clark State College, Spring 2008

Assignment Details.

DUE DATE: This is a take home exam and it is due by midnight, the night of April 30. Please send your essay to me through our course email function as a MICROSOFT WORD attachment. If you are unable to save your file as a WORD attachment, then send your essay to me AS AN EMAIL. (Write it in whatever you use & cut and paste it into an email) If you are unsure on the procedure to send an attachment, do not wait the day it is due to learn how. Unexcused late papers will be marked as such and will receive a full grade deduction for every 24 hour period late. I suggest the following as insurance on your part. 1) when you email your essay to me, also email it to yourself. That way if I do not get it, you'll have a copy that has the date and time you sent it to me. 2) don't wait until the last minute. If Web CT is gonna go down, you know it will go down about 11:50 pm when you are trying to send me that paper at the last minute.

Attention Windows Vista Users please use your "save as" function as save your essay as a .doc. If your essay is too big for our course mail, please let me know and send your essay to my elmartin@lcsc.edu address. But please only do this as a last resort.

ESSAY LENGTH: This essay is worth 25% of your overall grade and will be evaluated as such. The minimum length of your essay is four pages (approx. 1, 000 words) the maximum length is eight pages (approx. 2,000 words). Although there is not a direct connection between the number of pages you write and the grade you earn, the more you write the more chances you give yourself to answer the question you have chosen. Below is a rough guideline to keep in mind as you are writing.

  • 6 pages: you have written 50% more than the absolute minimum amount for the course essay requirement. If your essay is polished & well documented, you have given yourself a chance to cover enough material to earn a 'A' on this essay.

  • 5 pages: you have written 25% more than the absolute minimum amount for the course essay requirement. If your essay is polished & well documented, you have given yourself a chance to cover enough material to earn a 'B' on this essay.

  • 4 pages: you wrote the absolute minimum amount for the course essay requirement. If your essay is polished & well documented, you have given yourself a chance to cover enough material to earn a 'C' on this essay.

  • No essay of less than four pages will be accepted.

  • After 2,000 words of text (about eight pages), I stop reading.

  • At the end of your essay provide a WORD COUNT.

 

SOURCES: You are expected to utilize all of your class material to develop and support the points in your essay. The more references you make to class readings, lectures, discussions, & websites the better your essay will be documented.

  • Secondary Sources: your essay must make direct reference to Traditions and Encounters and at least one secondary source from Worlds of History to support your argument. You should expect roughly a full letter grade deduction for each of these missing from your essay. This also holds true for material from Bridging World History. Consider using some material from the websites we have used as secondary sources.

  • Primary Sources: your essay must make direct reference to two primary sources from Worlds of History to support your argument. Other primary sources will be considered with prior approval. You should expect roughly a full letter grade deduction for each primary source missing from your essay.
  • Other Materials such as meaningful maps, images, illustrations, graphs, charts etc… are excellent ways to demonstrate your points visually and show extra effort on your part. They do not count as pages.

MAPS, IMAGES, GRAPHS, & CHARTS AS SOURCES: other materials such as meaningful maps, images, illustrations, graphs, charts etc… are excellent ways to demonstrate your points visually and show extra effort on your part. They do not count as pages.

  • You must utilize (and refer to) a meaningful map that places your essay into the context of world geography. Your map may be an original creation, or a cited copy of a map from Traditions and Encounters, Reilly or elsewhere. You can include any details you wish on your map, but keep in mind its purpose to help you introduce the reader to the main thesis of your essay.
    • Images: If a picture is worth 1,000 words, then why not add some images to your essay? Traditions and Encounters is full of good images that would help to illustrate your points. And most of these images can be easily found on the web. Be sure to discuss the meaning of any images you select in your essay. Just don't cut and paste some pictures in without using them for something.

    • Graphs, Charts & Tables: are an effective way to present quantitative data (numbers) that support your argument. Very few students include these, so they get noticed.

DRAFTING ESSAYS: This is a formal essay and I do not expect to see first or second drafts that have been hastily written the night before. You are required to participate in a peer editing session. You should expect at least a one grade deduction if your essay was not peer edited. More details on this will be forthcoming.

CITING MATERIALS: Various disciplines (History, Anthropology, Biology, etc...) have different ways of documenting where information comes from. In this class we will use a variation of Turabian/Chicago style, which is what historians use & we will use footnotes. See the following link for a basic Turabian Style Guide. For Microsoft Word users footnotes is as simple as selecting -- insert, citation/reference, footnote. If you use another word processor we may need to chat.

Provide a full bibliographic citation and the page number the first time you use a source.
Loewen, James W. 1995. Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong. (New York: Simon and Schuster), 31.

Provide the authors last name and page number each time you use the source afterwards.

Loewen, 55.

Be carefully with the Reilly book, as it is an edited work. Reilly is the author of the introductions to each documented the 'reflections' statements at the end. Your citations from the Reilly book will look something like this:

First time using source:
Diaz, Bernal. 1963. "The Conquest of New Spain" in Reilly, Kevin, ed. 2000. Worlds of History: A Comparative Reader (New York: Bedford/St. Martin's), 43.

Each time thereafter:

Diaz, 44.

Only insert footnotes after the period at the end of a sentence. You are expected to include a bibliography (does not count as a page). Treat each document in World of History as a separate bibliographic entry (source). If you utilize material on the web, cite it according to the Turabian Style Guide.

Chose one of the following questions to answer. Don't forget to take a careful look at the grading rubric at the bottom of this page.

1. Describe and analyze the most important change that has occurred at the global level since 1800. Conclude your essay with a one page argument emphasizing how understanding the history of the change you selected would help others better understand the present. (Since 1800 means I don't expect any essays on The Columbian Exchange or the Slave Trade).

2. Write a history of globalization since 1800. Does it appear to more of a political, economic, social or cultural phenomenon when looked at historically? What does a 200 year historical perspective of globalization tell us about the contemporary world and the process of globalization. ?

3. Write a professional recommendation for the Academic Dean at LCSC who has asked for your input concerning the role of online education in the LCSC history curriculum. What are the Pros and Cons of learning college level history online? Identify and address the major problem(s) of learning world history since 1850 via an online format. What kinds of solutions do you see for these problems? Conclude your essay with a 1/2 page statement concerning how LCSC should proceed concerning the teaching of history online. [The major challenge to answering this question will be making sure you are able to address it by using examples from our primary and secondary sources to illustrate your points.]

4. Analyze the current U.S. foriegn policy towards Iraq as part of a larger historical process. First, describe the general process over the course of at least 100 years. Then, explain how the contemporary situation in Iraq fits into this process. Conclude your essay with a one page statement on what history can teach us about the present.

5. Describe the development and evaluate the role of nationalism since 1750. How is a sense of nationalism created? What have been its greatest achievements? What have been its greatest problems? Do your findings indicate that Nationalism was/is primarily an economic, cultural or political phenomenon? Conclude your essay with a 1/2 page argument that nationalism was/is in general a positive/negative experience from the perspective of the 'nationalized' and 1/2 page arguing that nationalism is/is not a relevant concept in the ‘global-age’ of the 21st century?

6. Explain and analyze the New Imperialism, the over-all anti-colonial reaction to it and evaluate the impact of colonialism on the 21st centuries. Do you your findings indicate that colonialism was/is primarily an economic, cultural or political relationship? Conclude your essay with a 1/2 page argument that colonialism was in general a positive/negative experience from the perspective of the colonized and a 1/2 page argument that issues of colonialism are/are not relevant to the modern world.

7. Select any two chapters from Worlds of History chapters 8-14 and, using the documents included in those chapters, create a narrative that demonstrates how the issues in each chapter are better understood when examined together.

8. Creative writing is not my thing. But it might be yours. If you can help me think of some better creative writing type questions the utilize our class materials, I'd be glad to hear them. Below is my rather feeble attempt.

A. Select at least three individuals that have created a primary source in Worlds of History (Gandhi, Lenin, Luxemburg, Aung San Suu Kyi, etc...) and place them in a setting where they are discussing:

1. The role of Capitalism in world history since 1850

2. The costs/bennifits of economic, political and cultural aspects of globalization.

3. Contemporary U.S. foriegn policy

4. Some other contemporary event/issue; must be approved by me

- Come up with your own essay question, but don't surprise me. All customized essay questions must be cleared with me.

 

Your essays will be graded in accordance with the following rubric.

Content (Approximately 50%)

  • Addressed question
  • Strong thesis
  • Thoughtful introduction
  • Creative and strong conclusion
  • Topic sentences linked to thesis
  • Balance of descriptive content (what happened) and analytical content (why it is important)
  • Sufficient evidence to prove points
  • Use of map to convey sense of geography
  • Adequate number of citations from:
    • At least two primary sources from Worlds of History
    • At least on secondary source from Worlds of History
    • Bridging World History
    • Traditions and Encounters

Writing (Approximately 40%)

    • Wordcount
    • Use of topic sentences
    • Sentences flow together smoothly
    • Transitions effectively connect sentences and paragraphs
    • Fragments and run-ons do not mar work
    • Paragraphs used appropriately
    • Limited misspellings.
    • Proper citation system
    • Evidence of "essay drafting" (Peer Review)

     

Miscellaneous (Approximately 10%)

A few miscellaneous comments from the person who is going to grade your essay