This assignment involves diving deep into history through historic research and exploration of points of conflict (and potential civic engagement) at specific times in Michigan’s past. You will see how local actions have broader consequences and through your research demonstrate an understanding of how a person’s background and demographics affects and shapes how they interact with others and society. By looking at points of conflict or times of competing visions in history, you will be able to see how individuals used their voice to engage in the public realm to advocate for their own interests or for the interests of others. You will analyze how civic engagement was used to effect change or how it wasn’t used (and maybe could have been).
To summarize, you will analyze four historical events where you look at the diverse people who were involved, their competing interests, their visions for the future, how they became civically engaged (or did not and could have been), and what can be learned from the events.
To have this deep historical research journey, you will:
Research four (4) historical events (see the historical events list for the exact events you should be researching) and write at least 1000-word reports on each event (see rest of directions for details).
Write a final response paper of at least 750 words (see directions for details).
Cite the paper with footnotes (no in-text citations). All writing should be collegiate in style, plagiarism free (with proper citations of footnotes), grammatically correct, and spelling-error free. Upload your work in Microsoft Office Word (.doc or .docx)—other file formats are not accepted.
The Project Overall (see descriptions below)
Project Intro (250 words)
Four event reports (each report must be at least 1000 words, not including footnotes)
Final Response Paper (750 words)
Your project will be divided up into different due dates. See the schedule in the syllabus or the assignment dropbox area for details.
Project Introduction (at least 250 words)
Briefly describe your thoughts on the importance of civic engagement (what a person can do as a citizen to make change in their communities). To do so, consider addressing these question: In what ways do you think people are able to make change? What role does history play in the education of people and their engagement in the community? How useful is history in creating civically minded individuals? Is it important for citizens to understand the past?
List the four events chosen from the List of Historic Events document (found in D2L)
List any sources found so far
Four Event Reports
Research four (4) historical events from the approved “List of Historical Events” on eLearning and analyze the event for site/date listed. You must choose your four events from the “List of Historical Events” I created on our D2L site so they meet the outcomes for this course.
Write a report of a minimum of 1000 words for eachof the four events. Each report should analyze what happened, discuss who was involved, analyze civic engagement for each event, discuss the historical context of the event, and examine why it was important.
Each report should answer the following questions (make sure everything is factual):
What happened? Think critically about this. Give a full accounting of the event. Did local actions have bigger consequences? What conflict existed? Was one group trying to change something? If so, what kind of change were they attempting to achieve?
Who was involved? Analyze the characters involved. For instance, think about how their identity might have affected their experiences.
What were conditions like at the time? What else was going on at that time in US/world history that may have played a role in this subject? (this is historical context of the event). Historical events are often a product of their time so it’s important to look at what is going on more globally, in this case the rest of the nation. You may have to research the broader subject in order to find quality academic research so placing your work in historical context is an important step.
Did civic engagement occur? If not, was it because a marginalized group was silenced in some way by those more powerful? Throughout history, people have—through individual or collective action—worked to make a difference in their civic life. They’ve sought to make a change in their community. We can look throughout our state’s past and see times where people have joined together on issues of public concern, like slavery, prohibition of alcohol, voting rights, etc., to make a difference. Sometimes, in our past, there have been points of conflict where diverse groups competed and the choices made had a negative consequence for others in society. Sometimes, civic engagement wasn’t used, and certain groups suffered as a result. If possible, hypothesize what would have happened if civic engagement had been used.
Explain how your events are important. Why was this event important then? Why is important now? To understand importance, it might help to remember that the past is a series of choices and consequences; different choices would have meant different consequences.
Each report should have the name and date of the event bold printed at the start of the report. You should start new reports on a new page.
Each report should be typed in Times New Roman font, 12-point font, 1.5 or double-spaced, using Microsoft Word (it will also need to be uploaded in Microsoft Word–.doc or .docx).
All writing should be collegiate in style, plagiarism free (with proper citations of footnotes), grammatically correct, and spelling-error free.
Each report should have a bibliography (in alphabetical order) of the sources you analyzed for that report. You must have at least three secondary sources for each event and at least one academic article (from Jstor, Michigan Historical Review, or Michigan History magazine) or one academic book. Put your bibliography at the end of each report. See below for more details.
Cite the paper with footnotes (no in-text citations). See below for details.
Final response paper
Write a concluding report (minimum 750 words) after all four events have been analyzed that is a conclusion for the entire paper. The concluding report should:
Give your final thoughts on the events that played out. What do these events symbolize to you?
How did your research advance your knowledge of Michigan history? Reflect upon the experience of researching and writing the Civic Engagement paper.
Recap what you learned about civic engagement from this project. What issues did people encounter? What insights did you gain from studying the events?
What are your thoughts on civic engagement? Now that you have specifically addressed how it was (or was not) used, discuss the practice as a whole.
Should we make a diligent effort to ensure history is taught formally and informally so that people are more aware of civic engagement throughout time?
Bibliography & Citations
Each event should be thoroughly researched and analyzed using academic sources. You should have at least three secondary sources (at least one must be an academic article or book) that analyze the larger historical topic represented for each event (please note that the academic sources are not for the specific events themselves they are for the broader historical subjects/context of the site).
For each event, you are given an event and then a broader subject to help you know what to research. You are also provided with at least one keyword search for each event to help you start researching. To do academic research, you will largely use works written by scholars.
You will likely want to use the Jstor database first since this resource is what historians around the nation use to get academic research. Secondly, I would use the Michigan Historical Review database. Thirdly, I would use Michigan History magazine database. The Delta library has made a research guide for Michigan history where you can find these databases (which have the types of articles I’m looking for) and books; there is also a link to this Civic Engagement Project. See this link:https://library.delta.edu/HIS237/projectoverview for access to Jstor, MHR, Michigan History, etc.
Provide a bibliography of all the research that you conducted at the end of each event. For the bibliographic information, the important thing is to give me as much information as possible for each entry (title of piece, author name, publication house or journal name, date of publication, etc.). All works consulted should be included. Historians use Chicago Manual of Style for notes and bibliographic entries. Link to CMS:https://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/tools_citationguide.html
Any information that needs to be cited, should be cited in a footnote (no in-text citations). I have a video of how to do this on our site. Give full bibliographic information (see CMS for style) for each citation. Think of each citation and bibliographic entry as a map where you’re trying to give me enough information to find the source easily on my own. Make sure you are avoiding plagiarism at all costs.
If there are primary source documents or other information that you think will enhance your paper, please include them in the bibliography. You should focus your research on secondary sources.
You can use websites to better understand the events and those, too, should be listed in the bibliography.
Rubric
In general, I will look to see that all these expectations are met. If they are met at a basic level (e.g. minimum word count), then an average grade of C will be earned. Those who show heightened analysis and critical thinking will earn a grade above average. Failure to meet the writing, citation, or formatting expectations will lower the overall grade. Uploading the paper in a format that isn’t accepted (only Microsoft Word accepted) will result in a zero grade.
I look to see the following:
Researched four (4) historical events from the approved “List of Historical Events” on eLearning and analyzed the event for site/date listed.
Wrote a report of minimum 1000 words for each of the four events/subjects that corresponded to the four sites (minimum 4000 words total for this section). Each report analyzed what happened, discussed who was involved, analyzed civic engagement for each event, discussed the historical context of the event, and examinee why it was important.
The project was factual.
Each report answered the following questions:
What happened?
Who was involved?
What was the historical context?
Did civic engagement occur?
Why was this event important?
For each of these questions, in order to earn an above average grade (A/B range), I will look to see that each addressed thoroughly and analytically.
Each report had the name and date of the event bold printed at the start of the report.
Each report was typed in Times New Roman font, 12-point font, 1.5 spaced, using Microsoft Word and uploaded to D2L in .doc or .docx format.
All writing was collegiate in style, plagiarism free (with proper citations of footnotes), grammatically correct, and spelling-error free.
Each report had a bibliography (in alphabetical order) of the sources you analyzed for that report with at least three sources for each event and at least one academic source.
The project was cited with footnotes (no in-text citations).
