Critique history project

Project: The student will be responsible for choosing an event in American History and create an argument on its significance using historical evidence of at least one primary and one secondary source. The student will also analyze and interpret the primary and secondary sources by explaining how the material impacted the chosen event. (Learning Objectives 2 and 3) 

The everyday history project is an opportunity for you to explore a topic, group, event, or time period that interests you the most. It can be something we talked about in class, something from your readings, or a topic you knew about previously (so long as it is historically-related). Below are the instructions for our project. If you have any questions, please let me know. Please follow these steps to complete the project. 

1. Choose a topic to conduct your research on - keep in mind that it needs to be American History focused and must be within the time frame (1450 - 1877) of this course. 

2. Watch the videos in this YouTube playlist on the types of sources, how to conduct historical research, and how to analyze documents. These videos should guide you through the process of locating academically credible documents and sources. 

3. Conduct the research - you locate at least one primary and one secondary source directly related to your topic. You must ensure that your sources meet the criteria for primary\secondary sources and that they pass the C.R.A.A.P. test (see YouTube playlist). 

4. Analyze your chosen documents using the skills highlighted in the Historical Thinking, Sourcing, and Historical Context videos from the playlist. 

5. Write up your project according to the following criteria: 

• • Write a 500 -1000 word synthesis of your topic and sources.
  • Your analysis should begin with a brief overview or summarization of your chosen topic.
  • Next, you will provide a description and analysis of each of your sources.
  • Lastly, you'll need to corroborate all of your chosen sources and discuss how they relate or add information\perspective to your topic.

You will be submitting your project through SafeAssign. As usual, I expect formal, academic writing free from grammatical and spelling errors. You will also need to formally cite the sources you use at the end of your project through a Bibliography\Works Cited. 

History 1301 Project Outline

Use this guide to help you plan your history project. Below is a description of each of the parts required in the project instructions. If you have any questions, please email me.

1. Introduction to your topic - This section should include a few sentences to let the reader know what you’ll be discussing.(i.e. In this source analysis paper, I will be exploring _____.) It’s also helpful in your introduction to give a “road map” of the things that will be addressed.

1. Background Information - This section should feature basic information about your topic from the textbook. You should be able to answer the questions who, what, when, where, and why (i.e. why important, why it happened). It should be at least a paragraph.

1. Source Discussion - You are required to find 2 sources for your chosen topic - 1 primary and 1 secondary. These should be academically credible sites (i.e. pass the CRAAP Test). For each source, you should write at least a paragraph with the following information:

   1. Introduce your source to the reader

   2. Tell the reader what it says (i.e. analyze the source)

   3. Explain why the source is important to your topic (i.e. does it provide new information - that agrees or disagrees with your other sources? Provide additional context information? A different viewpoint? A personal story?)

1. Concluding Paragraph - in your conclusion, you’ll sum up what you’ve said in this source analysis paper. Additionally, you can highlight important discoveries you made when comparing different sources (i.e. were there discrepancies, did everything agree). It’s good to reiterate why your sources would be important to use when studying your topic. Overall, your conclusion should be at least a paragraph.

Bibliography - This is the section where you cite your sources using the Turabian\Chicago style format. Your bibliography should be at the end of your paper on its own page. This link features a sample bibliography. This Turabian Citation Guide and the Citation Machine tool may be helpful as well.