Clarification from Mickols:

Students are free to use whatever resources they want, they must just find at least one scholarly journal article, so I encourage them to use Gale or Ebscohost for that, but I encourage them to use other resources as well.  For example, I encourage them to use Library of Congress to find primary sources.  I am not sure why some of my students this semester seem to think they can only use certain resources. I will recommend the databases you suggested in the future, thanks.

____________________________________________

Research Paper Requirements

Introduction

Your big project for this semester will be writing a research paper.  This will require a considerable amount of work aside from your regular classwork.  Throughout the semester you will be completing a variety of assignments that will guide you through the process of researching and writing this paper.

This assignment addresses all two of our three  Expected Learning Outcomes:

• Evaluate, analyze and interpret primary and secondary historical sources and make historical arguments based on these sources.
• Apply critical thinking (including causal analysis and skeptical inquiry) to historical concepts and developments in the history of the United States since 1865.

Requirements

• 1500-2000 words (about 6-8 pages typed and double-spaced)
• Works cited must include at least 6 different sources
• Paper must include citations
• Must include a well articulated thesis statement
• Final draft due Week 15 by Sunday at 11:59 PM

Topic

The topic may be on any subject related to United States History since 1865.  During weeks 2 and 3 you will brainstorm topics and week 4 you will submit your topic proposal.  You may also email me if you have a question about whether a particular topic is appropriate for the class.

Sources

You must use a minimum of six sources to write this paper.  Among these six sources you must include the following types of sources:

• At least one Primary Source
• At least one book (digital or online copies are fine)
• At least one scholarly journal article

The remainder of your sources must be acceptable for a college level course. 

The following Assignments will guide you through gathering your sources:

• Week 3 - Introduction to primary sources
• Week 5 - Introduction to online research, locate a scholarly journal article
• Week 6 - Locate 2 more secondary sources and one primary source
• Week 7 - Annotated Bibliography Due

Book Review

You must write a book review of at least 500 words on the book you included in your bibliography.  This will be due Week 10.

Citations

Every paper must include citations.  This is how you give credit to your sources and show me how you are using your research.  During Week 12 I will demonstrate two different methods of citing sources: footnotes and in-text citations.

Thesis Statement 

Your paper must include a well articulated thesis statement. This is where you establish what the main point of your paper is and provide readers with a brief summary of the various issues you will discuss in your paper.  Week 9 I will provide you with more guidance on your thesis statement and Week 11 you must submit a draft of your thesis statement.

Primary Source Discussion

You paper must include at least one discussion of a primary source.  You must do more than simply include a quote from a primary source.  You must provide some analysis.  Tell me why the source is important, interpret its meaning, explain why it helps support a point you are making in your paper, etc...

Drafts

Week 12 you will be turning in a brief outline of your paper and Week 13 you will submit a more detailed outline.  I do not require you to submit a draft of the paper, but if you want to email me a copy to review I will be more than glad to do so, just be sure it is at least 10 days before the final drafts due date.

Originality and Plagiarism

This must be an original paper written in your own words.  It is not acceptable to submit material you have worked on for another class.  Final drafts will be scanned by Turnitin for similarity to other submitted papers and material on the internet.  Claiming an entire paper you didn't write is obviously plagiarism, but using the words of others without providing credit is also plagiarism.  In other words, you can't simply just cut and paste from other webpages to write your paper.  You can use quotes sparingly as long as you identify it as a quote and include a proper citation, but the majority of the paper needs to be in your own words.

Due Dates and Grading

The Final Draft of your paper will be worth 25% of your final grade for the course.  All other assignments associated with the paper will be worth a total of 10% of your final grade.

Eva's local history mid-term assignment.

So, Eva is building her class as she goes. Consequently, I have an update to my earlier assignment note.

She is still using the Turner Thesis and idea of equality as the basis (or lens through which students need to view three different groups) for her midterm paper assignment.

So, this week they got that lens framework.

Next week, they will need to find one article exploring one of the following groups through that lens:

• Native Americans
• Asian Americans
• Latina/o Americans

They will need to bring a background article and discussion questions to a discussion forum next week. I think Gale eBooks would be very good for that in addition to some other databases I put in the research guide. Search terms like “western frontier” and native americans or turner thesis and native americans, are useful.

Ultimately, they will need to include three groups in their midterm paper, which is due at the end of Week 5:

• One of the above groups for which they need to find an outside source of no less than 4 pages
• African Americans (GlobaLyceum readings, her lectures, and White Rage)
• Either Working class Americans or farmers (GlobaLyceum readings, her lectures, and White Rage)

Remember that there is a HIST 102 research guide and it is embedded in their class.

Hello out there,

Eva Mo released her HIST 102 midterm project this week (week of 1/25/2021), and here is their research paper midterm question:

Is the American Identity of the “democratic and capable individual” a myth and how did this truth/myth affect American society at the turn of the twentieth century?

We’ve seen this question before when I wasn’t working with Eva. I have a little bit more insight now. The concept of this question is based on Frederick Jackson Turner’s thesis (the Turner Thesis) that because Americans were able to work together (democratically) to conquer the obstacles of the Western Frontier and build communities, we were exceptional people. We were distinct from the old European world and were more capable and optimistic than other peoples. We could overcome anything.

However, the time of the open frontier was over (declared so in the 1890 census) and rapid urbanization due to the Industrial Age was upon us. So, how could Turner’s thesis have application in this world facing a great economic depression, racial tension, labor tensions, and more?

Enough of the lecture.

Things to note:
 

• Students are not required to do any outside research for this prompt.
• She wants them to use their readings (in Globalyceum), lecture notes, and book White Rage.
• They have two weeks to complete this. It’s due at the end of Week 5.
• She’s really trying to get them to think about the myth of democracy – that we are all equal.

She even tells them,

Now a really easy way to approach this essay is to say that these pronouncements are the best examples of myth making and ignores the plight of those groups that were clearly disadvantaged (then name them: African Americans, Native Americans, Hispanics, Asian Americans, the working poor, women....). Then move towards proving how this was not a society of equality because for these groups, it didn't matter how capable they were, they didn't get a square deal (equality of opportunity, equality before the law, nothing that mandated fair treatment legally, etc.).” and

What you want to do is show me what a great and active student you've been by using (citing) material from our class: Lectures, Readings, Anderson. 

So, we may get some panicked students, but other than citing and just talking through these concepts, they don’t need our help.

Eva uses Chicago NB style.

Theme of the Class: Creation of the American Ideal (based on notions of the creation of the frontier)

Here is what I’ve done in my classes:

• Lecture on the Frontier (and how this “ideal/myth” established notions of how we think of ourselves as Americans (what does freedom mean, what does democracy mean, what does it mean to be an American).
• Then I lecture on the history of the period: Reconstruction, the experience of Native American Indians, experience of African Americans, Labor movement, then progressivism (which includes Suffrage movement)

What they should learn is that this ideal of “Americans can do anything so long as they just work hard” is not quite true for all Americans. The ideals of equal opportunity is not true, there was no equal opportunity. And for some it’s even worse. Nor was it true that everyone was equal before the law.

Now they have to narrow down the topic in how to answer this question. They can focus on labor, or voting rights, or race or gender, or anything that works within the period of 1870 – 1920.

Update (31 Jan. 2018):

History 102 essential question--

What does food tell us about the working class experience from 1880-1920? 

Two Assignments:

• Peer-review article
• Substantive article

_________________________________________

Suggested sources and searches:

1. American Eras: 1878-1899 has a section on Food. I didn’t find such a listing in the index but found it using the Table of Contents.
2. America: History and Life with Full Text has mostly book reviews. Of the two book reviews I found, one was for the book she has on reserve and the other is for nineteenth-century New York called, Urban appetites: food and culture in nineteenth-century New York, which we don’t own.
   1. I did find two articles in America: History and Life using the subject food and history 19^th century.
3. In History Study Center I ran the search food history-progressive era and found several results, the first of which is a Study Unit entitled “The history of food and drink.”
   1. You can also try the search (food or diet) and united states progressive era. There’s a Study Unit in that search entitled, “Industrialisation and urban society in America.” Also, an article entitled, “The origins of state pure food regulation.” And one called, “Eating Democracy and corn puppies,” with many more results I didn’t explore.
4. I also had some luck with this search < (food or diet) and united states nineteenth century > in our full EBSCOhost Databases. For example, an article entitled, “Women and Restaurants in the Nineteenth-century united states.”

Extra credit assignment for Eva Mo's History 102 class. She understands that some of the topics she's suggested will be difficult to research, and students can use any decent source. The documents linked to below are also posted in her Blackboard shell.