Assignment
Write an essay about "the growth of racism and slavery in the United States during the 17th century".
Social Justice Analytical Research Essay Guidelines
Assignment Background
Throughout history, movements for social justice have riveted communities. Ordinary citizens participated in, fought for, rebelled against, and stood witness as battles for political power, religious and cultural inclusion raged throughout the nation. Schoolhouses, courtrooms, pulpits, presses, pop culture and political arenas served as battlegrounds for racial, ethnic, environmental, religious, gender and economic equality. Communities followed as the accusations and arguments played out, fully aware that these challenges carried profound consequences not just for the individual actors, but also for local communities, the nation and, in some instances, the world.
Assignment Description
For this analytical research essay assignment, you will select and research a social justice issue relevant to the chronology/themes of the course and then explore the cultural, political, religious, economic and material values that normalized power and privilege in a particular time/place.
Through careful research/examination, you will uncover evolutions in community values/norms, notions of authority, justice/injustice and equality/inequality and write a 5-7 page analytical essay based on your research. Your essay must include a minimum of 4 primary sources and a minimum of 4 scholarly secondary sources. All students are required to submit a preliminary research proposal, an annotated bibliography, and a completed 5-7 page essay.
Assignment Instructions
Requirements:
• Complete Research Proposal Form (submit on Canvas)
• Annotated Bibliography (Submit on Canvas)
• 5-7 page research paper (not including Title Page, Images and/or Works Cited page)
• 12 pt. font, Times New Roman
• Double-spaces
• One-inch margins
• Parenthetical Quotations with Works Cited Page or Footnotes.
• Use the citation style (Chicago, MLA, APA) relevant to your major.
• Minimum of four primary and four scholarly resources must be used and cited to inform your analysis. Encyclopedia sources, popular magazines/periodicals, Wikipedia and similar sources do not count as scholarly sources).
• Final essays must be submitted electronically to Canvas.
• Students must keep a paper and electronic copy of their essay for their own records until the final grade for the course had been submitted.
Step 1: Research Proposal:
Before you begin research and writing your essay, you must complete the Research Proposal Form on Canvas. Do not move beyond the preliminary research stage until your research proposal is approved.
Step 2: Research: Once your topic has been approved, continue researching your topic.
This is a research essay so all essays must incorporate both primary material (minimum of 4) and scholarly secondary sources (minimum of 4). There are numerous types of primary materials that you may use such as court transcripts, diaries, journals, art, propaganda, literature, eye-witness accounts, newspaper articles, public debate about the issue, arrest records and cultural references from the time. Many archival materials have been digitally preserved and are readily available online. You must also include a minimum of four (4) scholarly secondary materials such as peer- reviewed scholarly articles published in academic journals and/or monographs (books). Your secondary sources must be current, written by experts in the topic you are researching, and published by an academic press or its equivalent. Remember, you cannot use sources such as HISTORY.COM, Cengage, Britannica, youtube, KhanAcademy.com, PBS, Wikipedia, etc. . . . If you have any questions regarding sources or need help finding materials, please let me know and I will be happy to assist you. Also, please remember that CSM has an excellent Library faculty who will prove to be very helpful if you go to the reference desk and ask for assistance. The CSM library also provides students access to excellent online academic journals/databases where you can find full-text articles.
In addition to primary and scholarly secondary materials, you may also choose to cite secondary materials such as documentaries and popular film to explore how your topic is portrayed/understood in a more contemporary context. However, you can only use these sources in reference to their influence in shaping historical narrative and influencing popular opinion regarding your topic. These sources do not replace the required primary & scholarly secondary sources.
Step 3: Annotated Bibliography:
Once your proposal is approved. You should begin your research. As you research, make sure to take notes on the material. You will need these notes for your annotated bibliography. Please read the following guidelines on how to do an annotated bibliography.
Annotated Bibliography Guidelines
"An annotated bibliography includes a summary and/or evaluation of each of the sources you are using. For this assignment, your annotations should include the following summary, assessment, reflection.
• Summarize: Summarize the source. What are the main arguments? What is the point of this book or article? What topics are covered? If someone asked what this article/book is about, what would you say?
For more help, see our handout on paraphrasing sources.
• Assess: After summarizing a source, evaluate it. Is it a useful source? How does it compare with other sources in your bibliography? Is the information reliable? Is this source biased or objective? What is the goal of this source?
For more help, see our handouts on evaluating resources.
• Reflect: Once you've summarized and assessed a source, you need to ask how it fits into your research. Was this source helpful to you? How does it help you shape your argument? How can you use this source in your research project? Has it changed how you think about your topic?
Why should I write an annotated bibliography?
To learn about your topic: Writing an annotated bibliography is excellent preparation for a research project. Just collecting sources for a bibliography is useful, but when you have to write annotations for each source, you're forced to read each source more carefully. You begin to read more critically instead of just collecting information. At the professional level, annotated bibliographies allow you to see what has been done in the literature and where your own research or scholarship can fit. To help you formulate a thesis: Every good research paper is an argument. The purpose of research is to state and support a thesis. So a very important part of research is developing a thesis that is debatable, interesting, and current. Writing an annotated bibliography can help you gain a good perspective on what is being said about your topic. By reading and responding to a variety of sources on a topic, you'll start to see what the issues are, what people are arguing about, and you'll then be able to develop your own point of view.
To help other researchers: Extensive and scholarly annotated bibliographies are sometimes published. They provide a comprehensive overview of everything important that has been and is being said about that topic. You may not ever get your annotated bibliography published, but as a researcher, you might want to look for one that has been published about your topic."
Step 4: Analyze your material.
Here are some examples of the types of questions that you might explore:
• What were the historical circumstances surrounding the case/movement/issue/event?
• What were the wider social, political, religious, economic, and social issues of the time-- i.e. what factors caused this issue/case/movement to come to fruition?
• What were the issues at stake?
• What was the controversy?
• Who was agitating for change and why? Who opposed change and why?
• Why was the case/issue important?
• Why was the public interested in the case?
• What was the outcome of the case/issue? What factors drove the outcome of the case?
• How did people react to the outcome of the case/movement/issue and why?
• What was the impact of this issue at the time; how did the decision of this case/issue impact other issues/movements; what were the long-term social, political, religious, economic, and social implications of this social justice movement?
• What where the legacies of this episode of history and why should we care about it today?
Step 5: Format Your Essay.
I. Title Page: Original, creative and descriptive title, name, date, course
II. Introduction that includes a clear thesis.
III. Body of the Essay: presents your information and develops your analysis and argument. It does not matter how many paragraphs your essay has, just make sure to use proper paragraph formation. A paragraph consists of a block of material about a particular subject of about a specific point and contributes to the development of the argument of the paper. Typically, a paragraph is 5--8 sentences.
• It is important that each paragraph builds on the previous paragraph in a logical manner that supports your argument. Outlining your essay before you begin writing often helps the overall organization of your work. Each paragraph should begin with a topic sentence that indicates what subject the rest of the paragraph will discuss, what issue it will explore, or what point it will make. By reading just the topic sentences of the paper, your reader should be able to get a summary of the subjects you are addressing and the position your are defending.
• The remaining sentences in each paragraph provide more detail or evidence about the main topic. Typically, paragraphs in formal, analytical essays, are 5--8 sentences.
• Each paragraph within a section should also be clearly related to the one before and the one after, creating an even, logical flow. If the link is not readily apparent, you should include a transitional sentence that makes the connection to your next point.
• Since the essay is only 5--7 pages, Do Not use subheadings/subsections.
• Each essay will vary by topic but most essays will include the following: Contextualize your topic identifying the relevant issues surrounding the social justice issue you are studying, analysis of arguments, analysis of outcomes; analysis of public opinion.
Analysis of the most important factors (social, political, cultural, economic, religious, racial) that determined the outcome of your topic.
Legacies of the issue then and now.
IV. If you do not use footnotes, please include a citation page (bibliography) so your parenthetical citations will be easily identified: Be sure to cite title, author, publication, date and URL if available. You may use the citation style that is used in your major or that you are most familiar with. All citations must include author, title, publisher and date. If you are using a full-text article from an academic database, you must include this information as well as the link. Do not simply copy and past a lengthy http address-without the relevant bibliographic information, this is useless to your reader.
V. Conclusion: pull together the main points, reasserts the thesis, and may relate the topic to broader historical or contemporary issues. DO NOT BEGIN YOUR CONCLUDING PARAGRAPH with "In conclusion. . . ." Since it is the last paragraph of a short essay, it is unnecessary to state the obvious. While "In conclusion," is not grammatically incorrect, it is not a particularly elegant or original way to end your essay.
VI. 12 pt. font; Times New Roman; one-inch margins, minimum of 5-7 pages in length. You will not be penalized for going over the page length.