Unit 2 Comparison – the Instructions

What Is a Comparison and What Citation Is Required?

What Do You Prepare and Submit to Turnitin in Blackboard?

Where Can You See the Rubric for Grading Your Comparison?

What Are Your Possible Topics to Compare? (This is repeated in the Content Link.)

Where Can You Find the Exact Pages to Read and Help With the Content and Terms?

Where Can You Find the File You Download, the Instructions for Using Turnitin in Blackboard, and the Turnitin Assignment Itself?

 

 

Caution: The Comparison Topics for Unit 2 Comparison each have their own pages and background materials

What Is a Comparison and What Citation Is Required?

Sometimes it is clearest start with what a comparison is not. A comparison in this class is:

·         Not a paraphrase of each sentence of a page of the required readings and not even a summary of that page

·         Not a formal English paper with specific requirements for number of quotations and your personal interpretation of those quotations

·         Not a comparison of the sets of pages of the required readings

 

This is a history class and the goal to help you learn history. One of the hardest things for students to understand about history is that it what was true at the beginning of a time period can be amazingly different at the end of it—sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse. History changes! If it didn’t, humans could never have a consequence on the present and future. What makes history change is something worth noticing if you want to survive your present and, perhaps what is more important, if you want to try to maintain what is good in your present.

 

What is a comparison in this class? It is:

1.     Focusing on one of the listed possible Comparison Topics so you can observe how history changed over the time period for a specific group of people

2.     Using the exact pages of the required readings—and only those pages—because those pages have facts about that specific group of people

3.     Reading those exact pages FOR evidence (As the Good Habits for Evidence link show, that means such things as no assumptions, no misreading, no embellishing, no cherry-picking of atypical facts.)

4.     Examining the evidence so you figure out how history changed

5.     Deciding from that evidence what two or three things you would teach others if you were trying to help them understand how history changed for this group in this time

6.     Writing WITH evidence one (1) page and using endnotes and citing following the simple version of the Chicago Manual of Style, the standard used for the discipline of history
That means you cite using an endnote for a specific page and only from the required readings if you use in your paper:

·         A quotation

·         A fact - You may not make statements of fact without a citation to a specific page from the required pages. (Don’t assume your version of common knowledge matches the textbook.)

 

The Good Habits for Evidence link tells you how you reduce the number of those endnotes (Habit 3) while still clearly showing your evidence. In the resource What’s a Comparison and What Citation Is Required? below this link, you can also see:

·         Information if you want to learn a bit more about Chicago Manual of Style or if you want tips on how to use endnotes in Microsoft Word

·         Examples of Comparisons earning a C, B, and an A (student papers used in the Good Habits for Evidence link)

·         A small-print version of the A-level Comparison with explanations pointing to the parts of a Comparison and to its citations

·         A large-print version of the A-level Comparison so you can read it easily and see its use of the simple version of the Chicago Manual of Style

What Do You Prepare and Submit to Turnitin in Blackboard?

You must use the file provided in this folder as a template for what must be in your file from the heading area to the font.

 

You do not include the 5 Ws chart in this file. I do recommend, however, that you do the 5 Ws (Who, What, When, Where, Why, and sometimes How) chart comparing in short phrases (with the page numbers) the two things in the topic that you have chosen. Where can you see an example? In Good Habits for Evidence or in this direct link to the method provided there and to its 5Ws chart. From these charts you can determine what would be several possible comparisons. You choose the issues you want to examine. If you need help, ask.

 

You use the file provided in this folder. You prepare a 1 page comparison of the two things in the topic that you have chosen. You follow all of the 5 Good Habits for Evidence in your paper, including citation.

 

Reminder: The required citation method is the Chicago Manual of Style, the standard used for disciplines such as history. For how to cite using the Chicago Manual of Style, use:

·         A brief version of the Chicago Manual of Style provided in this folder

·         A simpler version to write citations provided in this course (It also shows an example from the A paper provided with the Good Habits for Evidence.)

For both of the above, see the Tips about Chicago Manual of Style, about How to Use Endnotes in Word, and About the Simple Method You May Use in THIS Course

 

If your endnotes (and nothing else) extend to a 2nd page, that is OK.

Where Can You See the Rubric for Grading Your Comparison?

You can find the rubric and how it is used for grading in the Good Habits for Evidence or in this direct link to the explanation of the rubric.

What Are Your Possible Topics to Compare? (This is repeated in the Content Link.)

Requirements for each of the things—all provided in this module--that you may compare:

·         You must use the exact pages in the textbook that are listed on the Contents webpage.

·         You must use the issues on voting and representation for all topics because voting and representation are essential for the republic and republicanism that the framers intended.
The use of the small-r (such as small r-republicanism) means this is not a political party, but a form of government examined during the Enlightenment.

·         You must read the sections from the Constitution as well as the information that the textbook says on the Constitution. You have an online Constitution in this module. You can search on it, including see all of the clauses in the document on such issues as slavery.

·         You must read the definitions of republic and democracy and notice what Mr. Madison wrote in Federalist Paper #10.

·         You must examine on those pages the things in the topics, not anything on the page.

 

In each these 4 choices, make sure you meet the listed requirements above:

 

1.      The issues of the opposing groups in Shays’s Rebellion compared with what the authors of the Constitution worked out as way to preserve the new nation as a republic.
What do they show you about what the authors of the Constitution were trying to do?

Tip: This is difficult because deals with the framers’ view of currency, debt, class, and representation in a republic –and these may be new areas to you or you may have assumptions.

 

2.     Shays’s Rebellion before the Constitution is developed compared with the Whiskey Rebellion after that Constitution is ratified.
What do both show about how the national government handles rebellion in a republic?

Tip: This is difficult because deals with the framers’ view of class and representation in a republic –and these may be new areas to you or you may have assumptions.

 

3.     The deal-making about how to count slaves for representation and for taxes at the Constitutional Convention compared with Northerners’ viewing the 3/5s compromise as giving “extra representation unfairly” when Missouri asks for statehood.
What does this show you about the representation?

Tip: This is difficult because deals with the framers’ view of slavery and representation in the Senate, the House, and in the election of the President –and these may be new areas to you or you may have assumptions.

 

4.     The nationalistic excitement of acquiring new land with the Louisiana Purchased compared with the sectionalist views by both Northerners and Southerners over the expansion of slavery into traditionally non-slavery and Northern lands.
What does this show you about the pressures on the republic?

Tip: This is difficult because deals with what happens with gaining territory results in nationalism and dealing with attempted expansion of slavery into traditionally non-slavery areas results in divisions. The geography of non-slavery may be something you don’t know  or you may have assumptions.

 

 

Where Can You Find the Exact Pages to Read and Help With the Content and Terms?

You will find these things immediately below this link:

·         The first thing to use—the Content link in this folder

·         If you need more on terms, the definitions provided

·         An online and Sorted Constitution

 

Where Can You Find the File You Download, the Instructions for Using Turnitin in Blackboard, and the Turnitin Assignment Itself?

You will find these things in this folder:

 

 

 

 

Copyright C. J. Bibus, Ed.D. 2003-2014

 

WCJC Department:

History – Dr. Bibus

Contact Information:

281.239.1577 or bibusc@wcjc.edu

Last Updated:

2014

WCJC Home:

http://www.wcjc.edu/