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History 2010

Guidelines for Reading and Writing Exercises

The syllabus for this course requires that you submit two essays as responses to the “reading and writing” questions, one such essay to be written for each of the two units into which the course is divided. Each essay must consist of at least 600 words and is to be based on 250-300 pages of appropriate reading. Each essay is due several days before the examination for the unit with which it is associated (consult the course syllabus for the exact date). Late reports will be marked down 10 points for each day that they are overdue NOTE: this is each day, not each class meeting.

Well before the due date, choose your topic from those which are listed below. Then determine what reading you will do to gain the background you need to write an essay on that topic. Perhaps the simplest way to start is to examine the suggestions for reading that are at the end of each chapter in the textbook. Many more sources can be found in the Harvard Guide to American History, the Library of Congress’ Guide to the Study of the United States of America, and the numerous volumes in the Goldentree Bibliographies in American History series, all of which may be found in the Reference Room of the Library. If you cannot locate suitable titles on your own, arrange for a conference with your instructor.

You may read all 250-300 pages from a single book, or you may read portions of more than one book for a total of 250-300 pages. Choose your sources, and the pages within those sources, so that they really contribute toward an understanding of your topic. Most of the sources should be available at the Libraries of The University of Memphis or at the Memphis Public Library and Information Center. (Some students buy paperbound copies of books for their personal libraries.)

Do your reading carefully, taking notes as you read so that you can later refer to your notes in the writing of the essay. Write your essay in draft form. Revise it carefully. Then rewrite it in polished form.

You must submit your essay in two forms. You must submit a paper copy directly to the instructor and a copy in electronic form (either Microsoft Word, Corel WordPerfect, Rich Text Format, or Portable Document Format) to turnitin.com, instructions for which are issued separately.

As a heading to the paper copy of your essay, attach a photocopy or photocopies of the title page(s) of the book(s) on which you are reporting. Each photocopy must include the:

• author’s name
• name of the book
• place of publication
• publisher’s name
• date of publication

If any of the information does not appear on the photocopy, add it by hand. Please add by hand the exact pages which you read in each book — you must show in this way that you have read at least the required number of pages. This photocopy is not required in the electronic submission to turnitin.com.

The essay must be your own work, in your own words. Plagiarism will not be tolerated. If you have any doubt as to what constitutes plagiarism, read the documents under the heading of Academic integrity and the problem of plagiarism at the Department of History’s Web site on Writing and Literature Resources. The essay must reflect the content of the book or books which you have chosen. Do not use textbooks, encyclopedias, or Internet materials. Copying or paraphrasing something from a textbook, an encyclopedia, or an Internet document, and claiming that it is a summary of what you have read is one of the forms of plagiarism.

In addition to content, the essay will be graded on such mechanical matters as organization, word choice, spelling, punctuation, and other grammatical points. You may find guidance on these points in numerous manuals or handbooks; those used in English composition courses are standard.

READING AND WRITING TOPICS FOR THE FIRST UNIT:

• Explorations of the New World
• The Indians of pre-Columbian America
• The transfer of European institutions to the New World
• Joint-stock (corporate) colonial attempts
• Proprietary colonial attempts
• Colonial Virginia
• The Pennsylvania experiment
• The ecology of colonial America
• Puritanism in colonial America
• Colonial agriculture
• The Great Awakening
• Colonial education
• The arts in colonial America
• Family life in colonial America
• The status of women in colonial America
• Colonial economic activity
• The regulation of the colonial economy by Great Britain
• The origins and development of slavery in colonial America
• The non-slave working class in colonial America
• Local politics in colonial America
• Imperial control of colonial politics
• The New England town
• Colonial urban development
• The issue of taxation and representation
• French and English relations with the Indians
• The Declaration of Independence
• The War for American Independence
• The Loyalists
• Changes in state government during the Revolutionary Era
• The U. S. under the Articles of Confederation
• The development of the Constitution
• Was America intended to be a democracy?
• George Washington as a political leader
• Alexander Hamilton’s financial programs
• The development of political parties in the early republic
• Foreign policy difficulties under Washington and Adams
• The Alien and Sedition Acts
• Thomas Jefferson as a political leader
• Jefferson’s foreign policies
• The Louisiana Purchase
• Aaron Burr
• The issue of neutral rights
• Origins, conduct, and settlement of the War of 1812
• The Federalist opposition to the War of 1812
• The Supreme Court under John Marshall as Chief Justice
• The Monroe Doctrine
• The Transportation Revolution: canals and other internal improvements
• The early westward movement (east of the Mississippi)
• The Missouri Compromise
• Henry Clay: The Great Compromiser

READING AND WRITING TOPICS FOR THE SECOND UNIT:

• Beginnings of the factory system in America
• Workers and labor organizations in the Jacksonian period
• The development of political democracy in the Jacksonian period
• The election of 1824
• Andrew Jackson as a political leader
• The principles of Jacksonian democracy
• The war on the Second Bank of the United States
• John C. Calhoun: Spokesman for states rights
• Andrew Jackson’s Indian policies
• The Nullification Crisis of the 1820s and 1830s
• The organization of the Whig opposition to Andrew Jackson
• Revivalism and frontier camp meetings
• Mormonism
• Transcendentalism
• The reaction against Catholicism in mid-19th century America
• The impulse to reform
• The women’s rights movement in mid-19th century America
• The crusade against alcohol
• The plantation system in the Old South
• The institution of slavery in the Old South
• The defenses of slavery
• The crusade against slavery
• Abolitionist leaders and their tactics
• The trans-Mississippi westward movement
• The idea of Manifest Destiny
• Texas: The Lone Star Republic
• The Oregon controversy
• The war with Mexico
• Gold in California
• The Compromise of 1850
• The development of an American literature in the 19th century
• Early immigration to the U. S.
• The development of the railroad in America
• Stephen Douglas as a political leader
• The idea of popular sovereignty
• “Bleeding Kansas”
• The rise of the Republican Party
• The secessionist movement
• The common soldier in the Civil War
• Lincoln’s search for a general
• The Confederacy
• Abraham Lincoln as a political leader
• The Emancipation Proclamation
• The Civil War in the eastern theatre
• The Civil War in the western theatre
• The status of the freedmen during the Civil War and Reconstruction
• The struggle between Congress and the President to control Reconstruction
• The southern states during Reconstruction
• Politics under Ulysses S. Grant’s administrations