Last Short Essay Report

The median score this time was a mid-C, a definite improvement from last time. The modal (most common) score was also a C; over 1/4th of the papers earned that grade.

My chief complaint is still that people are not doing enough: not thinking through their answers, not spending any time providing or explaining evidence beyond the bare minimum (if that).

For reference, below the line I’ll provide one more sample. As always, it’s not perfect, but it’s a great example of how far you can go with good attention to social and cultural context:

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Long Essay Assignment: History of a Place

The detailed assignment for the Long Essay is now available. It is a deceptively simple-looking assignment, but what I’m really asking you to do is think carefully about how the region you pick has been affected by, and played a role in, world history over the last five hundred years. But many people, over the years, have underestimated what I was looking for, and just given me an encyclopedia-style chronological, and boring, century-by-century, dynasty-by-dynasty description. That’s not the point. It’s an interesting project, and I often learn a great deal from reading student essays about places I’ve not studied in depth.

Extra Credit: Ms. Cahill for Congress

All faculty, staff and students are invited to attend the Profiles of Women in Government lecture series on Monday, November 10, at noon in the CRIMSON & GOLD room of the Overman Student Center.  Tierney Cahill, inspirational teacher of civic duty, will be the speaker.  Following the program, she will be signing copies of her personal memoir, “Ms. Cahill for Congress.”  Books will be available for purchase.

Cahill, mother of three and 6th grade teacher from Reno, Nevada, proved to her students that any American can run for office when she put in her bid for the District 2 Congressional seat in her state.  She won the Democratic ticket, taking on a Republican incumbent.  Although she lost the race, she taught her students a big lesson in civic duty and government.  Her story is the subject of an upcoming film, “Class Act,” starring Halle Berry.

Essay Revision Assignment due Nov. 10th

You have the opportunity, if you chose to take it, to revise one of the essays you’ve written and had graded this semester. The requirements are simple:

  • You must hand in the original essay, with my grading sheet attached, along with the revised essay.
  • It is due Monday, November 10th. (I will return the latest essays Wednesday, the 5th, so you’ll have some time, if you chose that one).
  • The revised essay grade will replace the original essay grade. The lowest essay grade will still be dropped at the end of the semester.
  • The revised essay will be graded as a stand-alone essay, not in relation to the original essay.

Here are some suggestions:

  • Revision is not copyediting: fixing grammar and punctuation won’t change your grade, unless they were horrendous and I noted it as a factor in the grade.
  • Revision should be substantial, representing a new understanding of the question and material: thus, the name, “re-vision.” Just because I’m not grading the degree of revision doesn’t mean that I’m not looking at the degree of revision: if the essay is only slightly revised, the grade will only move slightly, if at all.
  • Focus on my comments regarding the thesis and argument first, then add evidence as necessary to support that argument.

If you’re having trouble figuring out what my comments mean, ask me. If  you need a reminder about the standards by which I grade, you can find them here. If you need to look over the assignment parameters again, you can find them here and here.

Study Terms for Chapters 25 and 26

Chapter 25
Belgian Congo
breech loaders
business imperialism
Charles Darwin
civilizing mission
Comte de Gobineau
Ethiopia
indirect rule
John A. Macdonald
Khedive Ismail
machine guns
Maori wars
Monroe Doctrine
Most Favored Nation
Opium Wars
racism
rifled guns
Scramble for Africa
Social Darwinism
South Africa
Trail of Tears
Chapter 26
Alexis de Tocqueville
Alfred Dreyfus
anti-semitism
Chulalongkorn
constitutionalism
democracy
Ethiopia
Jeremy Bentham
Johann Most
John Stuart Mill
José Rizal
Karl Marx
Kulturkampf
Liberia
militarization
public sphere
Secularism
social welfare
US Civil War
utilitarianism
Westernization

Test #4 Report

The most popular answer, by a wide margin, on the extra credit was the French Revolution. Nobody picked the English Revolution. The best answer, I think, was the Seven Years’ War, but only one person pointed out that both the French and American Revolutions came out of it. Anyway, anyone who made an attempt got credit.

The top terms, with more than 2/3rds of you taking a stab at them, were: French Revolution, American Revolution, Seven Years’ War and, oddly, Romanticism. The least popular terms included overseas Chinese, Qianlong, Robert Clive and Edmund Burke, but the real loser was Leibniz — only two people even tried.

The high score (before extra credit) this time was 27.5, but I rounded down to 27, so the grade scale remains unchanged from last time. So does the distribution, more or less. The median was again on the B/B- borderline.

Grade Minimum Distribution
A+ 27
A 25.3 22%
A- 24.3
B+ 22.3
B 19.6 36%
B- 17.6
C+ 15.6
C 12.9 30%
C- 10.9
D+ 8.9
D 6.2 12%
D- 4.2
F 0

Study Terms for Chapters 23 and 24

Since both of these chapters deal with industrialization and its effects, I’m going to do the next test the same way I did the first one: as a single list from which you’ll pick eight terms.

Chapter 23
Andrew Carnegie
Ashio copper mine
canned foods
cholera
fossil fuels
guano
Homestead Act
margarine
Mehmet Ali
militarization
phosphates
railroads
refrigeration
Samuel Smiles
self-strengthening
specialization
steamships
telegraph
total war
Chapter 24
abolition
Arts and Crafts
class struggle
compulsory education
coolies
economies of scale
factories
Haiti
Japonisme
Karl Marx
migration
new rich
Oshio Heihachiro
palm-oil
paternalism
philanthropy
proletariat
slavery
socialists
urban planning
urbanization

Test 4 format

I’ll be using the same format on Test #4 on Monday, but with one minor modification. Since there were a lot fewer terms in the Chapter 21 list, you will be required to do at least two terms from Chapter 21 and three terms from Chapter 22; the remaining three terms can come from either list.