Please read these instructions carefully. If you have a question or confusion, let me know it sooner rather than later.
If you haven't read my comments for your Midterm Essay, please do. They were meant to help you write a better Final Examination essay. Learn from the past.
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For this Final Examination, please choose ONE of the essay prompts/questions listed below and answer it in a well-crafted college essay.
As always, no late work will be accepted, especially given that this assignment has been assigned half-a-month before it is due.
What Am I Looking For in Your Work for this Essay Assignment? (it’s no secret):
Has the student in their essay -
- Demonstrated a comprehensive factual and chronological knowledge of the key events, themes, and people that we have covered so far in our assigned work.
- Carefully read and learned from my earlier comments on their Midterm Essay.
- Taken a position and argued their position or thesis on the question posed. Arguing a position means supporting your thesis by drawing on the assigned textbook and at least TWO of the primary sources assigned up to and including the week when the essay is due.
- Demonstrated the ability to interpret historical information by using analytical skills, such as using primary sources skillfully, contextualizing, and comparing and contrasting sources.
- Proven beyond question that they've mastered the assigned materials (especially the textbook) by briefly quoting from them and parenthetically citing (given proper credit to) the sources used by using quotation marks to set off the words of others? (for example: Mr. Van, “The Principal Themes in our Class,” or Corbett, p. 154). If you are not parenthetically citing your source immediately after a quotation in your essay, you are losing points. If you are giving citations that link to no clearly quoted material, you are losing points. Stop. Think. And aim higher. The heart of history (law, science, truth) is Evidence.
- Used no other outside sources other than the assigned readings, primary sources, and the discussion assignments in our course -- unless otherwise directed by the instructor?
- Written a clear, grammatically correct, well-organized essay, free of most misspellings and common grammatical mistakes? Has the student punctuated properly? Do they announce their thesis in the first paragraph and argue that thesis in the body of the essay? Is that thesis strong (arguable)? Do they finish their essay with a conclusion? That is, have they written college-level work? (To learn how to write a good history essay, refresh your memory HERE.)
The Questions
Please choose ONE of the essay questions below and answer it in a well-crafted essay that meets all of the specifications listed in this assignment. Your essay should be at minimum 1,500 words long. In determining the word total, I will only count the main body of your essay, not the title page, bibliography, or footnotes. Your essay must not be more than 1,800 words long; everything after 1,800 words will not be graded.
Submit the file containing your essay in one of these file formats: txt, doc, docx. Submit the file on this page by clicking on the "Submit" button at the top of this page. You are too smart to submit your essay at the last minute and so risk not submitting it in time. Essays submitted other than on this page will not be accepted.
In your essay, you must take a position and argue your position or thesis on the question posed. Arguing a position means supporting your thesis by drawing in a significant way on the assigned textbook. In your essay, be sure to use at minimum TWO of the non-textbook primary sources assigned up to and including the week when the essay is due. These non-textbook primary sources have been assigned each week and can be found at the bottom of each module. Be sure that when you give a short and cited quotation to back a claim, you cite what you've borrowed or used by giving the name, work, and page number (or chapter/section, or web address) of your source in a parenthetical citation. This rule is iron. Quotations must have citations, and citations must link to clearly noted quotations. The two go hand in hand.
- "In the period from 1803 to 1861, two great forces in U.S. History converged — Westward Expansion and the Cotton Kingdom of the South — and both inevitably led to the Civil War as a spark inevitably leads to flames." Do you agree with this statement?
Fashion a thesis in which you take a position on this claim, then back all you write with the assigned material in our course. Include at least the significant use of two non-textbook primary sources that were assigned in our modules under "Primary Sources." These can be found at the bottom of the modules, under "Primary Sources." A thorough knowledge of the dominant themes in our course is expected.
Finally, for the sake of fairness, be sure to answer the chief criticisms or counterclaims that can be made against your thesis. - Assess this statement in light of our assigned readings: “The U.S. Civil War was fought not so much because the two sections of the nation — the North and South — had incompatible visions of what sort of Republic the U.S. should be, but because slavery was a moral stain on the nation.” Do you agree? Fashion a thesis in which you take a position on this claim, then back all you write with the assigned material in our course. Include at least the significant use of two non-textbook primary sources that were assigned in our modules under "Primary Sources." These can be found at the bottom of the modules, under "Primary Sources."
A thorough knowledge of the dominant themes in our course is expected.
Finally, for the sake of fairness, be sure to answer the chief criticisms or counterclaims that can be made against your thesis. - In the period from 1815 to 1876, the reform impulse in the U.S. illustrated some of the dominant themes in our course on U.S. History. In what way?
Fashion a thesis in which you take a position on this claim, then back all you write with the assigned material in our course. Include at least the significant use of two non-textbook primary sources that were assigned in our modules under "Primary Sources." These can be found at the bottom of the modules, under "Primary Sources."
A thorough knowledge of the dominant themes in our course and their connection to reform is expected.