Primary Source Analytical Paper: SUU E.L.O. 4.0 “Critical Thinking”
This paper assesses students’ Critical Thinking abilities per SUU E.L.O. 4.0. It states: “Students demonstrate disciplined processes of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating information.” It also includes the critical explanation of issues, comprehensive analysis of evidence, analysis of others’ assumptions about the complexities of issues, and the logical reflection about and evaluation of evidence and perspectives in order to form conclusions.
Paper Requirements:
Students should write a 5-6 page, double-spaced paper, in Times New Roman 12 point font, over ONE topic of their choosing that centers on primary sources (first hand accounts, legal documents, speeches, newspaper articles, diaries, etc.).*** Students are encouraged to exceed the page minimum if arguments require more pages.
*** Please see the Assignment Tab for potential topics. You can choose your own topic, but these topics are ones that the professor has vetted to make sure there are enough primary sources in the book to cover them adequately.
Students should choose SIX primary sources from Openstax, U.S. History textbook. All primary sources must come from this book or links found within it. Primary sources are documents or other works produced by people of the past. They provide important first-hand “voices” of people who lived through important events and/or historical developments of history.
3. The only primary sources students can use for this paper are found in several sections of each textbook chapter. These sources are in boxes/sections entitled:
“My Story”
“Americana”
“Defining American”
“Click and Explore”***
*** These boxes contain links to various web sites, however, not all of these sites contain primary sources. Students can use primary sources found on these various sites, just make sure you are using primary sources and not other writings, essay, images, other resources found on each site.
4. Papers must focus upon one event or issue that was important to U.S. history. In the past, some students have written a paper that dealt with six different topics. Please do not do so for this paper. Students should feel free to choose an event or historical issue/development that interests them. For example, if you are interested in indigenous-European (and American) relations, there are many primary documents on this large issue. If you are interested in the Cold War, there are many primary sources dealing with this large world conflict. Likewise, there are many documents where women of the past argued for women’s equality.
4. Using SIX primary sources (first-hand accounts) found within the textbook, write an essay with an introduction, body, and conclusion, addressing these questions:
a. How does this first hand account or other document produced at the time tell us about how people viewed an issue or event important to their times?
b. What kind of stories, arguments and/or view points did this person present?
c. How did this document add more personal detail or “flavor” to the issue under review compared to the textbook?
5. Make sure to quote directly from the sources being utilized. All six of the sources you use must include a quote from each source. After including a source, make sure to analyze its contents.
6. While the introduction to each source can be utilized for background information, please do not quote this material.
Formatting Requirements:
Papers must be in Times New Roman, 12-point font.
Margins must be 1” top-bottom, left-right.
Citations must be in the following format. Please follow the examples below for full credit:
Citation Requirements:
For this paper please only use this citation format:
Ex. A
Christopher Columbus displayed many common European stereotypes about non-European, non-white people of the 15th century. His writings reveal a pervasive sense of European cultural and technological superiority. As he wrote to officials in Spain in 1493, “They have no iron, nor steel, nor weapons, nor are they fit for them, because although they are well-made men of commanding stature, they appear extraordinarily timid. The only arms they have are sticks of cane, cut when in seed, with a sharpened stick at the end, and they are afraid to use these.” (Ch. 2, “Columbus’s Probanza de merito of 1493”) Here Columbus presents the native people of the Caribbean Islands as lacking technology comparable to European firearms and warships, with a clear message that they could be easily conquered and put to work.
Ex. B
European religious dissenters proved important to the colonization of North America. In the early sixteenth century, Martin Luther, a priest from modern Germany, started a movement called the Protestant Reformation. This great movement spawned most of the religious dissenter groups that immigrated to America. His main protest was against the abuses of the entrenched, Roman Catholic Church in Europe. He was against many of its practices such as the Pope selling forgiveness or “indulgences.” As Luther wrote, “Papal indulgences for the building of St. Peter’s are circulating under your most distinguished name, and as regards them, I do not bring accusation against the outcries of the preachers, which I have not heard, so much as I grieve over the wholly false impressions which the people have conceived from them; to wit, — the unhappy souls believe that if they have purchased letters of indulgence they are sure of their salvation; again, that so soon as they cast their contributions into the money-box, souls fly out of purgatory; furthermore, that these graces [i.e., the graces conferred in the indulgences] are so great that there is no sin too great to be absolved.” (Ch. 2, Internet Medieval Sourcebook, “Martin Luther: Letter to Archbishop of Mainz, 1517”)
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