Overview
The Second Reflective Paper is worth 100 points (10% of total course grade).
Objective: Reflect on the growth in your familiarity with the issues involved in historical interpretation.
Due: Week 7
In Week 1 you wrote about your initial ideas regarding “What is History.” Now reflect back on how that view has changed since Week 1.
Based on your knowledge and opinions from the course materials and discussions, answer the following questions in a three to five page paper (the minimum length is three full pages and the maximum length is five full pages). The question to address in your paper has five parts to answer:
- How do you now answer What is History?
- Why do you think it is important to study it?
- What sort of historical approaches do you see yourself using in later research and why (such as in History 309 and 495)? Historical approaches means approaches such as materialism, Marxism, New Social History, Economic History, etc.
- How do you now define yourself as a historian?
- How have your views have changed about these issues and why?
Demonstrate the sources of your new ideas so cite where your new ideas and influences came from in the readings. You can use short parenthetical citations like (Title or author, page number) instead of more involved ones (you will learn the correct citation form in History 309).
A few things to do in terms of style for your paper:
- double space your paper
- indent the first line of each paragraph; you do not need an extra space in between each paragraph
- paragraphs should be between four and eight or nine sentences long (no shorter than four sentences or longer than nine sentences)
- use proper spelling and grammar
- use essay form with a thesis and a conclusion paragraph
Your paper will be graded on your ability to address these three questions in a coherent essay. Spelling, grammar, and general clarity are part of the grade as you should start working on presenting your ideas as a student in a clear and professional way. Please see the grading rubric attached to this assignment for details.
The point of this assignment is for you to think about how you have changed as a historian-in-training over the first seven weeks of the course, so try to be self-reflective in an honest way. The focus of this paper is about you and how your views have changed in this course more so than you reflecting your knowledge of the readings to me (that was the paper assignment). The aim is for you to reflect on what you have learned and how it has changed your views about History and the works of historians.
Do not go into definitions of all of the historical approaches we have studied as that will be covered on the final exam.
Submit this assignment as a Word file (either with the .doc or .docx ending) via the assignment folder.
Most of your views should have changed, but tell me specifically how your view of History has changed. Again, this is not a summary of the views of other historians. The focus is on your views. Finally, this paper is not a summary of the historical approaches we have studied. Instead, you will summarize and define the historical approaches we have studied in your final exam assignment. This paper is about you, so tell me about your changing views about History.
See the rubric attached at the end of these instructions for further details about how you will be graded.