Composition II

Professor Karen Woods Weierman

THE HISTORICAL RESEARCH PAPER

Inquiry contract due: M 2/23/04 (see Assignments for details)

Working bibliography/progress report due: F 3/12/04 (see Assignments for details)

Draft due: F 4/2/04

Final version due: F 4/23/04

TOPIC

• For your paper, you will research the postwar historical event of your choice from the years 1950-1985 (subject to my approval).
• Be sure to choose a focused event with specific dates you can use to begin your research. For example, “The Civil Rights Movement” is too broad a topic, while the more specific “March on Washington” might work well.
• Please avoid “conspiracy” topics like the Kennedy or King assassinations and topics relating to NASA and space.
• In your research, you will explore the portrayal of your public event in the popular media at the time it happened and the portrayal of the event from a current, scholarly perspective. For example, what did newspapers and magazines say about the “March on Washington” in August 1963? What are historians and other academics saying about the march in recent scholarship?

HISTORIOGRAPHY

• Historiography is a key element of the assignment. You will find that historical interpretation changes over time. As William McNeill notes, “Historians are always at work reinterpreting the past, asking new questions, searching new sources and finding new meanings in old documents in order to bring the perspective of new knowledge and experience to bear on the task of understanding the past. This means, of course, that what we know and believe about history is always changing” (105).

• In the type of research paper you may have done in the past, you gathered the available information into a linear narrative of “the facts.” Here your task is more sophisticated: rather than writing about “what happened” you will focus on how the event has been represented. Your paper thus will be a “history of interpretation” over time and across genres. This may be a difficult concept to grasp at first; it will become clearer as you do your research.

LIBRARY RESEARCH

• Research is the foundation of this project. Without adequate research, you won’t have anything to say. It is essential that you begin the process early and keep up with the class.
• Library research and print sources are essential. The Internet is a great place to learn some basic information about your topic, but, contrary to popular belief, everything is not on the web.
• With the help of Reference Librarian Pam McKay, you will learn the difference between popular and scholarly sources and learn how to find them in the library.
• In addition, you will need to visit other libraries for your research (here’s where the ARC card will be useful), so please plan accordingly. You are required to access the “America: History and Life” database, which is not available on our campus. The database can be found at Assumption, Clark, Holy Cross, and Framingham State, as well as other campuses (check library home pages).
• You are required to find a minimum of 10 PRINT SOURCES (5 popular and 5 scholarly). Your popular sources should include both newspaper and magazine articles. Please note that 10 is not a magic number: your research is complete when you have all the information you need.

SPUTNIK CASE STUDY

• Confused? Be not afraid: We will be using Sputnik as a case study for class, modeling the intellectual work expected of you in your paper.
• We will first read articles from the New York Times from October 1957. After learning how America initially reacted to the Soviet launch, we will read 1990s academic sources to see how today’s scholars interpret the same event.

THE FINAL PRODUCT

• Your final product will be approximately 8-10 pages, with documented sources in MLA format.
• Your task is to analyze the portrayal of your event in the popular media (at the time the event happened) and in recent scholarly journals/books (1990 or later). An “A” paper will go beyond the “compare-and-contrast” task and suggest reasons for the change over time.
• You will need to use your evidence skillfully and develop a strong thesis. We will discuss planning and drafting strategies in detail when the time comes.

GRADING CRITERIA

• Research: Have you found relevant popular and scholarly sources and used your evidence to support your argument? Do you document your sources correctly in MLA format?
• Thesis/Analysis: Is your argument clear, balanced, and persuasive? Is your analysis thoughtful and complex?

· Audience Awareness: Does your paper have the tone and format of an academic essay?

· Organization: Is the organizational logic clear and explicit?

· Grammar and Style: Is your prose free of errors?

WHAT YOU WILL LEARN

After completing the paper, you will have gained the following skills:

• locating scholarly and popular sources through library research
• reading critically and evaluating sources
• understanding historiography
• formulating an analytical argument
• integrating sources and documenting them in MLA format
• constructing an academic text
• revising research papers

Works Cited

McNeill, William H. “Why Study History? Three Historians Respond.” Historical Literacy: The Case for History in American Education. Eds. Paul Gagnon and The Bradley Commission on History in the Schools. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1989. 103-118.