Amerindian Domination - Grade

Phew!  I managed to pull off a good grade on this paper.  I got a late start on this essay and ended up having to squeeze proofreading and final revisions into one day.  That week was definitely long and stressful; I had way too much going on.  I wasn't happy with it when I turned it in, but I got a nice surprise when the grades were posted.

 

Grade:  A-

 

AE

Amerindian Domination - Essay

Well, here's paper 3 for Historical Interpretation.  It's about Native Americans, their social demise since European arrival and why it happened.  I think most people would agree that Indians had some say in the matter regarding their marginalization, in other words they could have made some different decisions along the way that may have altered certain outcomes.  Most people would also agree, however, that in many ways Indians were dominated by European expansion.

This essay talks about what should take precedence when teaching or writing about Native American history.  Should we emphasize the choices Indians did, or may have had, in determining their fate, or should we focus on the dominating aspects of their social plight?

This was a tough essay for me since I don't have a whole lot of knowledge about Native American history yet.  However, I think I was able to come up with a reasonable stance based on just a few essays that we were assigned in class.  It will be interesting to see how my perspective changes as I move forward towards my degree...

AE

Read "Amerindian Domination" Here.

Paper 3 Under Way

It's been too long since I've blogged, but it's been a busy few weeks. I have to try and get onto a schedule to write, even if it's just a few lines like this one. The standard work week at my office is four, 10 hour days with Fridays off. I've been working every Friday for a long time, but today I'm at home writing my third paper for Historical Interpretation. It's about how historians should write about Native American history and whether they should emphasize agency or domination. Basically it deals with whether an emphasis should be placed on the fact that Native Americans were dominated by Europeans and their culture, or whether the emphasis should be placed on the choices, or lack thereof, that Indians had in the matter. Should be an interesting one... I'm already struggling a bit. Why can't we have a topic on WWII??? Ha!

AE

Slave Trade: An Economic Cause - Grade

Round 2 with my Historical Interpretation professor was a success, although I actually struggled with this paper.  It had to be 7-9 pages in length, but there was so much information to pick from that I had a hard time making decisions about what was most relevant.  Here's what my prof had to say:

"This is a very polished, well considered essay.  You show a firm grasp of several of the essays we've read for this unit, and you draw on them well to support your viewpoint.  You don't have a really explicit thesis statement, which you should have, yet fairly early on I see what point of view you are taking.  This is a very well written paper that considers alternative points of view fairly. You lean heavily on the preexisting presence of a slave trade in Africa, which at first blush might not seem to advance (or retard) your argument, but you make sense of it (even though, as I've indicated, I don't think all forms of slavery were the same).  Overall this is a very good job and suggests you can write excellent papers for this class."

Grade:  A-

Phew!  This was the day-brightener that I needed!  I wish I could bottle up the feeling you get when you receive good praise from a professor for an essay, it would make staying motivated while writing them a lot easier.  Maybe this blog will be a valuable tool while writing papers after all!

One of his bits of constructive criticism is aimed at a seemingly missing thesis statement.  I have to disagree with him on that point; I believe the last sentence in my opening paragraph sums up my argument pretty clearly.  Everyone looks at a paper differently though, so I'll try to improve on that in my next paper.

AE

Slave Trade: An Economic Cause - Essay

Finally!  Here is my latest essay.  Here are the details:

Was the cause of the Atlantic slave trade based on cultural beliefs or economic gain?  We were given this question and a book, The Atlantic Slave Trade, edited by David Northrup.  We were told to answer that question in the form of a 7-9 page essay. Obviously this essay is only based on a very small sample of an abundance of work on the topic, so consider this my initial interpretation to a very large, and complicated matter.

Click here to read Slave Trade: An Economic Cause

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