Assignments

You each have one more brief essay to write for this class during the exam period. Please follow the guidelines set forth in the Brief Guide to Writing History Papers, linked further down on this page, and practice the skills you have sharpened in this class this semester.  Paper length is 4-5 pages.

Here is the prompt for To Free a Family:

For most people, the word “family” connotes a sense of belonging and intimacy, though it can mean different things to different people, especially across time and space.  How did the definition and meaning of family shape and complicate the interesting life of Mary Walker?

Here is the prompt for The Sea Captain’s Wife:

For much of the semester, gender and race have occupied our attention in readings and discussion.  The story of Eunice Connelly in The Sea Captain’s Wife provides the opportunity to consider class as a considerable factor in Americans’ lives.  How did Eunice’s class status shape the decisions that she made as a woman?  Please consider also the relationship between race, class, and gender in her life story and in the lives of others in The Sea Captain’s Wife.

______________________________________________________________________

Group Research Projects 2016

Here’s your chance to do historical research that combines the excitement of individual discovery with the comfort and challenge of peer support and feedback. You will all be working on the same general historical topic, but each group will be able to hone in on their own unique research question. This work begins now, in Week 5 and will be the primary focus of all classwork in the next three/four weeks. Each group will complete a research paper [approximately 15-18 pages long] by the beginning of Week 10*.  As part of the writing, thinking, and rethinking/revision process, each group will present their findings through oral presentation and discussion in class.

Abigail & John Adams: Marriage & the Development of Early America

There may not be a more erudite and well-documented couple in American history than Abigail & John Adams. Your task is to explore the online archive of materials written by Abigail and John over the course of their long relationship. http://www.masshist.org/. This archive will form the evidentiary base for your research, though each group will also need to get to know the Adamses and what historians have asked about them [and argued about them] through an examination of relevant secondary sources.

Here are your research teams:

Laura, Lucy, Trent

Andrew, Emily, Sophie

Sarah, Sola, Tommy

Alison, Isabel, Will

Task #1: due Wednesday 3/16 — preliminary research question to present by end of class.

Task #2: due Friday 3/18 — preliminary bibliography & identification of relevant scholars due via email by 5 PM

_____________________________________________________________________________

Before you write a word for this course, please read this brief guide to writing for History:

Short-Guide-to-Writing-History-Essays-6

For Essay #1 :  What role do you think gender played in the problem of redeeming Eunice Williams?  Consider Eunice’s perspective and that of her male kin in your answer.  The information you have gained from Ann Little, John Demos, and the Deerfield Raid website should be helpful to you.  Please confine your essay to 4-5, double-spaced pages, with footnote citations.