Papers, Exams and Grading

Students in this class are responsible for writing three papers (two 2-3 page papers and one 5-6 page paper, including an outline and annotated bibliography), for attending and participating in class discussions and exercises, for passing two midterm quizzes, and for passing a final exam. 

Evaluations for this course will be decided on the following basis: 

Class Participation                     10%

Short Paper (2-3 pgs)                 20%

Midterm Quizzes                        20% (10% each)

Long Paper (5-6 pgs)                 25%

Final Exam                                25%

Short Paper:  The point of this paper is for you, the student of history, to gain some additional experience at working with primary sources, and to try to learn a bit more about how such sources can best be viewed, analyzed, and employed.  For this paper you should read the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906.  Using your knowledge of the historical period, explain what you as a historian can learn from this primary source document.  Alternately, if you would rather work with images, carefully examine the five World War II propaganda posters on this site.  As with the documents, write about what you as a historian can learn from these posters and place them into historical context; you must explain why these pictures were produced, what they show, what effect they were intended to produce, and what they indicate about the period.  Your final product should be well-structured, grammatically correct, and highly-polished.  (Be sure to check out the writing guidelines available on this site.)

Quizzes: The point of this quiz is to test your knowledge of a couple of identifications and to ensure that you know how to answer an identification-based question.  For each of the two quizzes, you will be presented with three identification questions, of which you must answer two in twenty minutes.  In some sense, identifications represent trivia.  While history is not simply the study or knowledge of trivia, it is important for historians to know facts and opinions.  Thus, identifications represent "necessary but not sufficient" information for historians.  In answering an identification question, you should include as much information as you know about "who, what, where, when, how, and why important."  One sentence is not enough; generalities are not sufficient.  Each of these identifications has been selected because it tells us something important about the time or the course material . . . so feel free to say everything that you know.

Final Paper: The point of this paper is for you, the student of history, to learn how to phrase and attack questions for historical research.  An additional point of this paper is for you to put together your experience with writing about primary sources and your experience with critiquing secondary sources.  A final (5-6 page) paper is due at the last class meeting.  For this paper you should come up with an interesting question (which you must submit for your instructor's approval) raised by the course, and should then answer the question using the course materials, including the textbooks, films, lectures, and primary documents, as well as any other books and documents necessary to answer the question that you have posed.  As part of this assignment, you will need to submit an outline and an annotated bibliography.  Use this as an opportunity to do some research beyond the bounds of the readings assigned in class.  As with your short paper, your final product should be well-structured, grammatically correct, and highly-polished.  You may, if you chose, write a 10-page (instead of 5-6 page) paper for extra credit. 

Final Exam:  The point of this exam is to test your knowledge of some of the fact- and opinion-based material presented in this course and to determine whether you can effectively craft your knowledge into an analytical essay.  There will be a 1.5 hour final exam.  The exam will consist of one forty-minute discursive essay on general questions raised by the class (40%), forty minutes of identification questions (you will be presented with six "identification" questions, of which you will select four to answer - 40%), and a fifteen-minute short essay question about one of the books or articles we have read for the course (20%).  A list of identifications has been posted to this website; all final identifications will be drawn from this list.  A list of the books and articles about which you might be asked has also been posted.