HIST 3071
001: Louisiana History
Dr. Alecia
P. Long
Spring 2024
Instructions
for Exam 2 Essay – Due no later than 1:30 p.m. on Thursday, April 4
No late
essay submissions will be accepted without a properly documented and verifiable
PS-22 qualifying excuse. Late submissions without PS-22 documentation will be
penalized 5 points for each day they are tardy. Submitting your essay on time and
directly into the Moodle module is the best approach.
Essay
Prompt:
Many people’s
lives, social status, and political/constitutional rights changed dramatically in
Louisiana in the period between statehood (1812) and the beginning of the 20th
century (1900). Despite the various ways in which individuals and groups of
people experienced those changes, there are factors that seem to have
consistently contributed to or shaped those many changes.
Your job
in this essay is to think through the history of the period under consideration
(1812-1900). Then you should do the following:
·
Identify
a factor that you think played a consistent role in shaping historical change
across the 19th-century in Louisiana. The factor you choose might be
an ideology, a belief system, a priority, a commitment to a particular way of
seeing the world, or an idea about proper social relations between and among
Louisiana’s people. There may be other ways to describe your factor as well.
·
Your
first paragraph(s) should clearly define your factor AND make a general
case for why the factor you chose provides a way to understand historical
change in Louisiana in the 19th century. You can provide a
dictionary definition (with in-text or parenthetical citation) of the factor you
chose. However, you should also elaborate on the definition to describe, in
your own words, what that factor was and how you believe it shaped historical
events and outcomes. Making a clear case for the factor you identify will play
an important role in the relative success of your submission.
·
In
the body of the essay, provide three specific examples of how the factor
you defined and described shaped historical change in 19th-century
Louisiana:
o
Your
first example should come from the period 1812-1860
o
Your
second example should come from the period 1861-1877
o
Your
third example should come from the period 1878-1900
o
Better
answers will provide specific evidence from at least one of the readings
assigned between Feb. 20 and March 26 (see the syllabus for those readings and
the links to them) for each of the three examples.
·
Conclude
by reflecting on whether the factor you identified continues to shape or impact
the contemporary history of Louisiana as you have observed or experienced it. You
can use your own experiences or observations here. However, providing specific
examples to illustrate/make a case for your conclusion will make for a stronger
(higher scoring) concluding section. For this part of the essay only, you may draw
on materials beyond readings assigned for the course. You should provide
parenthetical citation for those sources within the text and provide full
citation for them on a Works Cited page.
As with
Exam 1, this prompt requires you to think for yourself as you engage in
historical analysis and interpretation. Your assessment does not have to be
positive. Being critical of people and situations in the past is as legitimate
as being laudatory.
Successful
submissions will be well reasoned, well written, coherent, clearly expressed,
and will be illustrated with evidence drawn from the readings and (to a lesser
degree) the lectures. Making a very general introductory statement and then
tossing in random evidence from lectures will not result in a strong grade.
Aside from
the opening and concluding paragraphs, using evidence, examples, or sources
that comes from outside the course readings and lectures will not be given
substantial credit. Material taken verbatim from outside sources without
acknowledgement is plagiarism and will result in a failing grade. This includes
responses generated through use of A.I.
Formatting
Instructions
The essay responses should be approximately four
to five double-spaced pages in length; that is approximately 1,000 to
1,250 words. Do not exceed 1,500 words of core text. We will not count the
text of the Works Cited page in your word total.
Using
Direct Quotations:
In writing
this essay exam you may use brief quotations from the assigned readings or (to
a lesser degree) from the lectures. However, the bulk of the essay should be written
in your own words.
When and
if you do use direct quotes (any more than four significant words in a row
drawn from the assigned readings), indicate that you have done so by
placing quotation marks around the entire quote follow by the author’s name (of
the article or encyclopedia entry) from which the quote was drawn.
Example:
“By 1867, convict leasing was the
established practice in every southern state except Virginia” (Mancini).
Grading rubric on next page
This is the rubric we will use to
evaluate your essays.
1. Does the
student provide an adequate definition and description of the factor they select
(in the opening paragraphs)? (1-5)
2. How
effectively does the student make a general case for
the role the selected factor played in shaping historical change in Louisiana
between 1812 and 1900 (in the opening paragraphs)? (1-5)
3. How clearly described and explained is the
student’s first example? (1-5)
4. How well
does the first example connect to/provide evidence of the factor the student
chose? (1-5)
5. How
clearly described and explained is the student’s second example? (1-5)
6. How well
does the second example connect to/provide evidence of the factor the student
chose? (1-5)
7. How
clearly described and explained is the student’s third example? (1-5)
8. How well
does the third example connect to/provide evidence of the factor the student
chose? (1-5)
9. How effectively does the student use/integrate
readings assigned between and Feb. 20 and March 26? (1-5)
10. How well written, reasoned, and coherent is
the submission? (1-5)
You can score up to 50 points for this portion of Exam 2. The other 50
points will come from the objective portion of the exam. The objective exam
will be administered during our class period on Tuesday, April 2.
IN CLASS READINGS NEEDED FOR COMPLETING ESSAY
Tu. Feb. 20 Louisiana and the Age of Jackson
Read before class:
John M. Sacher, “Antebellum Louisiana” @
Daniel Feller, “Andrew Jackson’s Shifting Legacy,” @
https://ap.gilderlehrman.org/essay/andrew-jackson%27s-shifting-legacy
Th. Feb. 22 EXAM 1
EXAM 1 ESSAY DUE BEFORE CLASS MEETING TIME
OBJECTIVE EXAM 1 WILL BE
ADMINISTERED DURING CLASS PERIOD ONLY
Tu. Feb. 27 Slavery
in Louisiana I
Read before class:
Matthew Desmond, “In
Order to Understand American Capitalism, You Have to Start on the Plantation, New York Times, Aug. 18, 2019 @
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/08/14/magazine/slavery-capitalism.html
Williamson and Cain,
“Measuring Slavery in 2020 Dollars*” @ https://www.measuringworth.com/slavery.php#footstar
Th. Feb. 29 Slavery in Louisiana II
Read before class:
Walter Prichard, “Routine on a Louisiana Sugar Plantation
Under the Slavery Regime,” The Mississippi Valley Historical Review,
Vol. 14(No. 2), Sept. 1927, 168-178 @
https://www.jstor.org/stable/1895945
Lindner, Dutra, and O’Dwyer, “No Sugar-coating: The
Plantation History of Audubon Park” @
https://neworleanshistorical.org/tours/show/131
Tu. Mar. 5 Sectionalism and Secession
Read before class:
David Wilmot, “I Plead the Cause of White Freemen,” (1847);
posted to Moodle
John Sacher,
“Louisiana’s Secession from the Union,” @
Review before class:
Th. Mar. 7 The Civil War in Louisiana
Read before class:
Benjamin Palmer,
“The South, Her Peril, and Her Duty: A Discourse” @
https://archive.org/details/southherperilher00palm
John Sacher, “Civil
War Louisiana”
Spring Break March 11
– 15; no class meetings this week
Tu. Mar. 19 Reconstruction in Louisiana
Read before class:
Justin Nystrom, “Reconstruction,” @
Justin Nystrom, “Bourbon Louisiana,” @
Justin Nystrom,
“Knights of the White Camellia,” @
Paul Leslie,
“Compromise of 1877,” @
Th. Mar. 21 TBA
Tu. Mar 26 The Rise of Jim Crow
Read before class:
Matthew Mancini,
“Convict Leasing,” @
Keith Finley,
“Lynching,” @
Keith Weldon
Medley, “Plessy v. Ferguson” @
“Gleason final draft” is my last submitted essay, please make it look somewhat similar.
