Second Primary Source Analysis Paper (35 points possible)
Second Primary Source Analysis Paper (35 points possible)
Essay Paper #2: Craft a 5 paragraphs essay (Between 700 and 1050 words) on your Give Me Liberty textbook sources. (No research needed…it can all come from the book and the primary source excerpts)
Prompt: Discuss the impact of the institution of slavery has had on the United States.
You may include such topics as the division between the North and South, the lives of slaves, sense of identity, slaves’ desire for freedom, slave family life, folklore, and religious life, slavery and the law, labor organization, relationship between masters and slaves, paternalism, forms of slave resistance, Slave rebellions, etc.
You cannot write every single topic. Instead, find a coherent thesis for your paper with at least three sub-topics for your argument
The possible textbook pages include Chapter 4, pages 105-116, and Chapter 11, pages 311-336, The Peculiar Institution.
You MUST integrate primary sources in the Voices of Freedom pages (these sources are in the tinted pages of the textbook under the “Voices of freedom” heading). Please use at least 3 quotes, though it is fine to paraphrase if you need already have quoted material about the topic.
Primary sources come from the period of said event, and (for this class) are likely people who are long dead. Secondary sources are created later by someone who did not experience the event first-hand. The Declaration of Impendence, written by Thomas Jefferson, would be a primary source, anything written by Eric Foner (the textbook author) is a secondary source.
If you are still not sure what a primary source (vs. a secondary source), here is a great Library of Congress link. * Using Primary Sources. “Primary sources are the raw materials of history — original documents and objects which were created at the time under study. They are different from secondary sources, accounts or interpretations of events created by someone without firsthand experience.”[1] Again-use the tinted “voices of freedom” pages in the textbook.
You may use a source from Chapter 12, Voices of Freedom tinted pages 360-1
Angela Grimke, “Letter in the Liberator” (1837)
and Catharine Beecher, “An Essay on Slavery and Abolition” (1837).
There are also other sources from Chapter 11, Voices of Freedom tinted pages 422 – 3
Letter by Joseph Taper to Joseph Long (1840)
and “Slavery and the Bible” (1850)
Use this format for your papers:
- You should have at least a five-paragraph essay.
- Around 2 pages (700 to 1050 words).
- 12 font, (Times New Roman, Arial are usually best)
- Inch-wide margins
- double-spaced
Do use punctuation marks.
Do not use more than three lines together. It is not helpful to have an entire paragraph of primary sources—I need you to paraphrase and analyze much of your own work, and give the most important bits of the quotes. For the sources, use crucial parts of quotes and replace stuff that is padding and not needed for your particular point with “…”. More than three lines is not analysis, it is just typing.
For example: “George Washington, who had lost all but one tooth because all the sugar he ate, suffered a disastrous defeat at Fort Necessity” can change to “George Washington, who had lost all but one tooth because all the sugar he ate, …suffered a disastrous defeat at Fort Necessity.
Other major tips!
You should have at least five-paragraphs. (You can do more paragraphs if the breaks make sense for your argument, but don’t get minimalist and only do 3 or 4).
You need a thesis. (Not sure how to do a good thesis? Here are some great online sites!
- How Do I Write a Thesis Statement?
- and/or Refining Thesis Statements
You need a good title that reflects your thesis. For instance, rather than using a title like “Paper #1,” use something more specific like Sharknado Atlantic Seaboard Policy as the Catalyst for War. [Okay, don’t use that]
You need at least three body paragraphs, each with a mini-thesis which contains specific details to make your argument on why the war happened. Use the textbook, crash course videos, the tinted pages with primary source excerpts.
You need a good conclusion. It would be good to impress me on the last thing while I am about to use my grading hand!
Once you are done with the paper, fine-tune it, make sure the thesis matches up to what you eventually wrote.
Put it to bed, and take a fresh read of it the next day.
Consider the wise words of Ernest Hemingway: “The first draft of anything is sh*t.”
Updated May 1, 2020
[1] www.loc.gov/teachers/usingprimarysources/, accessed December 3, 2015
