Prompt:
ESSAY ONE DUE by Sunday, Oct. 16, by 11:59pm
Write a 4-5 essay on the following theme. You may use materials assigned in class as well as lecture and discussion section notes, but no outside sources are allowed.
Hernán Cortés and his men often remarked that the Mexica were terrified of Spanish horses, which they believed were gods. Offer a different interpretation of Mexica attitudes toward horses.
Guidelines:
To cite quotations or information from the readings or lectures, please use footnotes. The footnotes will suffice; you do not need a bibliography or works cited page. Your word processor will have an Insert Footnote function (it might be under a menu titled “References” or “Insert”). Bring your cursor to the space just after the last punctuation in the relevant sentence, click Insert Footnote, and your word processor will create a superscriipt number there and bring you to the space at the bottom of the page to write up the footnote.[1]
For our footnotes in this class, we’ll use Chicago Style citation format. Below are examples that you may use as a model, adjusting the page numbers as needed.
Tim Ingold, “Rethinking the Animate, Re-Animating Thought,” Ethnos, Vol. 71, No. 1 (Mar., 2006), 11.
Carol Delaney, “Columbus’s Ultimate Goal: Jerusalem,” Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol. 48, No. 2 (Apr., 2006), 270.
Pope Alexander VI’s Inter Caetera (1493). [No page number because none provided]
Christopher Columbus’s Book of Prophecies (c. 1502), excerpt. [No page number because none provided]
Bernardino de Sahagún, The Feast Day Called Quecholli, 4. [You may use the electronic page numbers provided by Canvas or the text’s original page numbers.]
Bernardino de Sahagún, How the Gods Had Their Beginnings, 5. [You may use the electronic page numbers provided by Canvas or the text’s original page numbers.]
Hernán Cortés, Third Letter of Relation to King Charles V, May 15, 1522, excerpts, 4.
Bernal Díaz del Castillo, The True History of the Conquest of New Spain (1568), excerpts, 3.
Alexander Haskell, “Lecture: Divided-World Cosmologies.” [no page number needed for a lecture]
After your first full citation of a text or a lecture, you may use a shortened version for all subsequent references to that text or lecture. Here are some examples:
Ingold, “Rethinking the Animate, Re-Animating Thought,” 12.
Delaney, “Columbus’s Ultimate Goal: Jerusalem,” 271.
Pope Alexander VI’s Inter Caetera.
Christopher Columbus’s Book of Prophecies.
Sahagún, Feast Day Called Quecholli, 5.
Sahagún, How the Gods Had Their Beginnings, 6.
Cortés, Third Letter to Charles V, 5.
Díaz del Castillo, True History of the Conquest of New Spain, 3.
Haskell, “Lecture: Divided-World Cosmologies.”
Please use 12-point font and double space.
Your essay does not need a cover page or a works cited page or bibliography. Please make sure to indicate your name, section number, and the date at the top of the first page.
Give your essay a title that begins to do the work of communicating to a reader what the paper is about or what it will say.
Tips:
Remember that a compelling essay is a clear one. It will be up to you to construct an argument. You don’t have room in 4-5 pages to recreate everything you’ve learned in class. Focus on answering the prompt in a way that makes good use of the space available to you. Select good examples, and develop your argument, point by point.
In making your argument, use only the materials from this class. You have all the material you need to say interesting things about the subject.
Make sure your introduction effectively conveys the topic of the paper (what the paper is about) as well as a thesis (what the essay will say about the topic). This is a good place also to situate your reader in place and time. Remember that the introduction is not the place for a great many details or for developing your argument. Stay focused on introducing the topic and thesis so your reader knows what the paper will be about and what the paper will say about that topic.
Writing for an imagined reader can help you to communicate effectively. The best imagined reader is a friend or relative who is not taking this class and who therefore needs everything explained clearly and interestingly. Never write a paper with your professor as your imagined reader, or you’re likely to take shortcuts or use the uncertain voice of a student. You’re the author of this paper, so adopt the confident persona of a teacher.
Organize your paper in a way that effectively advances your thesis. Make sure your body paragraphs begin with clear topic sentences that indicate what the paragraphs are about, always with attention to advancing the thesis. Your paper should begin with a carefully composed introduction and end with a thoughtful conclusion.
Take the time to structure your sentences well. A good rule of thumb is to make sure every sentence has a Subject and a Predicate. If you’re unclear what they are, spend some time reviewing them in your writing textbook or on an online writing tutorial.
Punctuation and word choice are also important for communicating your meaning well, so take the time to include the appropriate punctuation and choose the word that best expresses what you want to say. If you have a choice between using a fancy word and a simple one, use the simple one. For example, in that last sentence, I could have said “utilize” a simple word, but “use” works just as well and is clearer to the reader.
Remember that the point is to produce writing that reads clearly and well. Most of us are not very good critics of our own writing, and we especially struggle to see where our writing becomes unclear to readers. So, in addition to imagining a virtual reader, you might want to share your essay-in-progress with a real one. Again, the best reader is arguably someone who is not taking the class, because he or she will have no choice but to rely on your words to make sense of what you are trying to say.
A useful discussion on writing strong and clear thesis statements can be found at: https://history.ucla.edu/academics/undergraduate/history-writing-center/thesis-statements-1
