You get the idea. The tricky bit is that this isn’t just a matter of opinion: you need to be able to back it up. WHY is this a problem? What could the author have done to make it better?

1. Abraham Lincoln
2. Industrial Revolution
3. Napoleon Bonaparte
4. Isaac Newton
5. Declaration of Independence
6. Charles Darwin

As with the pop quizzes, I scored each answer on a 4-point scale, then added up the results. The high score in the class was 42 out of a possible 48 (before extra credit) again, which I used as the 100% mark (which again raised everyone’s grades a lot). The median score was between B and B-. Here’s how the grade scale worked out:

If you compare it to the last quiz, you can see some movement from B to A and some movement from D to C. But not much.

Context: What is the background of the author? Is their personal background relevant to the subject of the book? What is the historical context, the time period discussed by the book? What other books discuss the same kinds of things, and how does this book compare? Note that your textbook is an invaluable resource for comparisons and context.

Obviously, there are several different issues going on here, but they basically fall into two categories: Historical context and Historiographical context.

Historical context is about how the material in your book fits with the rest of what’s going on in the world at the time: if you’re writing about Japanese 19th century industrialization, for example (nobody is, unfortunately), you’d want to note that Japan was a late industrializer compared to other major industrial nations, that it was the age of unequal treaties, and that industrialization happened at the same time as the rise of nationalism, parliamentarianism, and imperialism.

Historiographical context, on the other hand, is about how the book fits with the rest of the books written on the same topic: what are the normal interpretations of this event and how does this book change that; who is this book arguing with, and why?

In both cases, your textbook is a good starting place, because it does look at the broader context, and because it represents a kind of “current consensus” on most issues. Sometimes the book itself will describe the context for you; sometimes you have to work at it a bit.

* Yes, the context assignment was supposed to be due Friday the 6th, but I forgot to mention it in class, so I’m pushing it back to Monday the 9th.

African Association
Carl Linnaeus
Encyclopedia
enlightened despots
Enlightenment
Great Trigonometrical Survey
Isaac Newton
James Cook
John Locke
Joseph Banks
laissez faire
Lewis and Clark Expedition
Philosophes
problem of longitude
René Descartes
Sir Francis Bacon Chapter 22

caudillos
Congress of Angostura
Congress of Vienna
Constitution of the United States
Declaration of Independence
George Washington
Jacobins
Joseph Brant
Louis XVI
Miguel de Hidalgo y Costilla
Napoleon Bonaparte
National Assembly
Simón Bolìvar
Third Estate
Toussaint L’Ouverture
Tupac Amaru II Chapter 23

Alexander Herzen
Charles Darwin
Crimean War
Emancipation Edict
Frankfurt Assembly
Giuseppe Garibaldi
Industrial Revolution
John Stuart Mill
Karl Marx
Louis Blanc
Louis Napoleon
Muhammad Ali
Otto Von Bismarck
The Reform Bill of 1832
Tanzimat reforms
Tsar Alexander II Chapter 24

Bal Gangadhar Tilak
Boxer Rebellion
Commodore Matthew Perry
Empress Ci Xi
Fukuzawa Yûkichi
Gopal K. Gokhale
Indian National Congress
Indian Revolt of 1857
Meiji Restoration
Partition of Bengal
Rammohun Roy
Russo-Japanese War
Self-Strengthening Movement
Sino-Japanese War
Taiping Rebellion
Treaty of Nanjing Chapter 25

Abraham Lincoln
Andrew Jackson
Benito Juàrez
Confederations of Canada
Gilded Age
Indian Removal Act
Métis Rebellion
Pauline Johnson-Tekahionwake
Porfirio Diáz
Reconstruction
responsible government
Sir John A. MacDonald
Sitting Bull
War of the Pacific
Yucatán Rebellion Chapter 26

Asante Kingdom
Berlin Conference
Cecil Rhodes
Chulalongkorn
David Livingstone
Federation of Indochina
King Khama III
King Leopold II of Belgium
The Mahdi, Muhammad Ahmad
Menelik II
New Imperialism
Samori Toure
Shaka
Suez Canal
Union of South Africa
Xhosa Cattle Killing ]]> http://dresnerworld.edublogs.org/2009/10/30/study-terms-for-chapters-21-through-26/feed/ 0 http://dresnerworld.edublogs.org/2009/10/21/a-few-announcements/ http://dresnerworld.edublogs.org/2009/10/21/a-few-announcements/#comments Wed, 21 Oct 2009 18:49:04 +0000 jdresner http://dresnerworld.edublogs.org/?p=269 Reminder: No class for either section on Friday the 23rd, due to the Presidential inauguration. Students are encouraged to attend — and see your instructors in academic regalia! — at the front of Russ Hall (or in Weede, if the weather is poor) at 2.

While I didn’t require resubmission of thesis statements that missed the mark this time, I’m adding an element to the next book review assignment, the discussion of the argument and evidence of the book: you must include a clearly marked, one sentence statement indicating what you think the thesis of the work is. This is quite important for the argument and evidence discussion: if you don’t know what the author is trying to prove, you can’t evaluate the effectiveness of the argument they make or the quality of the evidence they present.

As you try to summarize and discuss your chosen books, be careful of how you use the book and any related sources you may find. Obviously, using the actual words of a source — textbook, internet or otherwise — without quotation marks or other acknowledgement is clearly and blatantly plagiarism. Weak paraphrasing can constitute plagiarism:  if you don’t thoroughly alter the language of your source, it is a form of intellectual theft. Even something fully paraphrased in your own words can be considered plagiarism if you don’t acknowledge your source(s) — this is what footnotes, endnotes and parenthetical citations with works cited pages are for. Plagiarism is academic dishonesty, theft of intellectual property, and a violation of University policy, and will not be tolerated in this course.

Finally, a little 19th century union history — the struggle between wage-earning workers and capitalist owners — in early baseball.

In order to make it easier, I’ve moved the Thesis statement due date back to Monday the 19th, giving you most of an extra week. The Thesis statement should be just that, by the way: a sentence or short paragraph clearly stating what the author’s purpose is in writing the book, what they hope to prove by the evidence and argument they provide. Sometimes that thesis will be explicitly laid out by the author in a form you can quote; sometimes (especially with autobiographical writings or seemingly straightforward surveys of major events) it is more work for you to figure it out.

Finally, a note on form: I don’t insist that you all use the Chicago Manual of Style footnote method for history papers, but if you quote something, then I expect to see a citation including a page number. It can be in parentheses, footnote or endnote, but a quotation without a specific source, including a page number, is a grave error.

As with the pop quizzes, I scored each answer on a 4-point scale, then added up the results. The high score in the class was 42 out of a possible 48 (before extra credit), which I used as the 100% mark (which raised everyone’s grades a lot). The median score was a B or B-. Here’s how the grade scale worked out:

This looks pretty good, but remember two things. The extra credits were a very helpful: most people got both right, and each grade scale was only three points or a bit more. The top score is very likely to go up in later tests, which means that everyone has to improve just to stay even.

Finally, I was, as I noted, very disappointed by the number of answers which parroted back the textbook’s sidebar definitions. Here are a few examples of how those definitions compare to answers which actually got good scores (3.5 or 4 out of 4) below the fold. My favorite example is the last one: notice how the textbook sidebar definition almost entirely fails to mention what makes Cornwallis important in this chapter, but the student definition ignores all the irrelevant stuff and goes right to significance? Note that the student definitions aren’t perfect but they very clearly cover the context, often mention and define related terms, and are especially good on significance, why the term/person/etc. mattered:

• Monday, September 28 – El Norte: After the Guatemalan army destroys their village of San Pedro, two teenage Quiche Mayan Indian siblings journey north through Mexico to the United States to start a new life.
• Tuesday, September 29 – Piñero: Tells the story of the explosive life of a Latino icon, the poet-playwright-actor Miguel Piñero.
• Wednesday, September 30 – Mambo Kings: In the early 1950s, two Cuban brothers must flee Havana after getting into a violent dispute with the mobster owners of a club where they performed. Eventually ending up in New York, they work at menial jobs while attempting to revive their musical careers.
• Thursday, October 1 – Mi Familia: Traces over three generations an immigrant family’s trials, tribulations, tragedies, and triumphs.