How to Do the 3 Posts in Discussion Topic 1-2: Introduction to Primaries, Evidence, and Concepts for History

What Is the Rubric Used to Measure the 5 Good Habits for Evidence. 1

Reminder of the Extra Credit—40 Points--If You Follow All 5 Good Habits for Evidence with this First Assignment. 1

What Do You Do for This Topic? – The 3 Posts That Are Worth a Total of 80 Points. 1

Requirements for Teaching the Best Truth You Can Understand and Using Sources That Help You Catch On. 1

Requirements for Length and Language in Your Original Posting (the Posting discussed in # 1). 1

Requirements for Citation for Your Original Posting (the Posting discussed in # 1). 1

If You Want to Know Why We Use These Shortened Citations. 1

Brain Trick for Quoting and Avoiding Quotation Humiliation. 1

 

What Is the Rubric Used to Measure Your Content and Your Following the 5 Good Habits for Evidence

Click here for more on the rubric and how to use it as a grader or as someone graded. You can also look at the link immediately under Evidence Quiz 1 in Evidence Requirements.

What Is the Rubric Used to Measure Your Review of the Papers of 2 Other Students and Your Following the 5 Good Habits for Evidence

Click here for the rubric used to measure the 2 reviews.

You review 2 (and only 2) papers posted by other students on:

·         Content (historical content as measured by what is supported by a specific page in our textbook or in resources provided by the instructor)

·         Evidence (use of evidence as measured by the 5 Good Habits for Evidence)

Caution: This rubric also says that you need to participate from the beginning. If your 1st post is in the last two days, your points will be lower.

Reminder of the Extra Credit—40 Points--If You Follow All 5 Good Habits for Evidence with this First Assignment

If you follow all of the 5 Good Habits for Evidence with this 1st assignment, you get 40 extra credit points. Why this extra credit? The sooner you figure out that a history class is about verifiable evidence from a reliable source (and not your—or my—opinions), the sooner you will be successful.

What Do You Do for This Topic? – The 3 Posts That Are Worth a Total of 80 Points

You post 3 times:

1.       You post a thread and the subject line shows what you write about:
Subject line: Your Name – How I Would Teach the Requerimiento of 1510 to a Freshman College History Class
NEW Alternative for Writing. For this alternative, use this Subject line: Your Name – Answering 3 Key Questions
Those 3 questions are 1) What are the two choices the Spanish say the Native Americans have? 2) Why do they believe they have a right to state these choices? 3) In the years covered in Chapter 1, what were the actual results of Spanish rule?
Requirements: There are specific requirements in the following headings. These requirements apply to the original and the new Subject.

Point value:
@ 20 points for content and @ 20 points for following all 5 Good Habits for Evidence.
Who Grades These Points? I will email my graded rubric to you for your original post and then I will enter that grade at My Grades after you reply to my graded rubric. I will enter the reviews in an overall Blackboard Discussion rubric on your 2 replies.

2.       You read the others’ posts and chose the 1st post you want to review for content and for following all 5 Good Habits for Evidence. 
The subject line shows what your job is and how you are to treat each other in this public place of discussion:
Subject line: Your Name – My Feedback to Help Your Content and Evidence

Requirements:  Click Reply with a quote. Insert your feedback at the spot where you want to give feedback. Use a blank line and then an opening square bracket [ and then your feedback and then a closing square bracket ] and then another blank line.

Example: If your colleague in the class cited page 30 for a statement, but you found that on 29, you could write just below the citation for page 30
[Page should be 29.]

Tip: Do it thoroughly but choose quickly because the maximum number of countable replies to one person’s post is 3.

Point value:
@ 10 points for your knowledge of content and @ 10 points for your observing whether the other person correctly followed all 5 Good Habits for Evidence.
Who Grades These Points? I will enter the grade for your reply on an overall Blackboard Discussion rubric that includes your grade for your original post plus grades for this reply.

 

3.       You read the others’ posts and chose the 1st post you want to review for content and for following all 5 Good Habits for Evidence.
See #2 for the same subject line, requirements, and points and grading.


Tip: I highly recommend that you print it and compare it side by side with the printed pages cited from the Requerimiento and—if used—from the textbook and from the teacher’s or your colleagues’ collected definitions.

Requirements for Teaching the Best Truth You Can Understand and Using Sources That Help You Catch On

Background: Before the Requerimiento of 1510, there was the Treaty of Tordesillas (AKA Line of Demarcation). To avoid conflicts between two Catholic kingdoms, the pope had—to simplify—divided the world between Spain and Portugal. The line cut through Brazil. Spain received the west (except for Brazil); Portugal, the east.

Read the Requerimiento of 1510 first just to notice the time period. Use Discussion Topic 1-1 to increase your concept-vocabulary and then read it again.

Tip: Read this primary aloud as though you were the Spanish leader facing the Native Americans. Then think about how it would feel to hear this document read to you. Don’t get suckered. What are their assumptions about why they have a right to do this? How does all this actually turn out?

Use a) the primary itself, b) the Chapter 1 of the Essentials text that covers what actually turns out, and c) dictionaries that help you avoid fantasies and assumptions about words.

One other thing might help you realize about 1510: notice the past covered in this quick reference I provide in the resources for Chapter 1: Why you need to recognize prior eras. You cannot understand the primary for Chapter 1—nor the period at all—unless you realize how different these people are from today. For example, they are fine (no guilt at all) about enslaving people. If you were a slave, you would get no pay but instead work for enough to survive another day and to avoid the owner’s violence against you.

Requirements for Reading, Length, and Language in Your Original Posting (the Posting discussed in # 1)

Reading

In the primaries for Chapter 1, the Requerimiento of 1510

In the textbook, 27-30

Length

330 words maximum – Less is better.

Format

Don’t try to do format within the Discussion Tool. The only format that works is a blank line between paragraphs.

Punctuation

Make sure it is accurate, especially if you are quoting something. Keep it simple by using this Brain Trick (goes to the bottom of this webpage).

General clarity

Read and plan carefully, being sure to record the exact page numbers as you work. Type in a word processor and run spell and grammar checking. Print it and proof it. (To proof = to compare side by side paper and source to be sure page numbers and facts and names and quotations and everything is correct.)

 

Requirements for Citation for Your Original Posting (the Posting discussed in # 1)

Do not use lengthy citation statements within parentheses () as is done with MLA. You are trying to teach history accurately to someone like yourself. You are not collecting research and quoting from it. You all have the same sources and so you do not want to get a lot of words get between you and your fellow students. Do these things for this writing assignment:

What You Want to Cite

Example of How You Would Cite

If the fact is from The Requerimiento of 1510

If your fact is from page 1 of the Requerimiento, then immediately after your fact you’d write: (Requerimiento, p. 1)

If the fact is from the textbook, the Essentials edition

If your fact is from page 30 of the textbook, then immediately after your fact you’d write: (Essentials, p. 30)

If the fact is from the your colleagues’ postings from Merriam-Webster’s Online Dictionary

If your fact is about the meaning of slavery stated in Merriam-Webster, then immediately after the word slavery you’d write: (Merriam-Webster)

If the fact is from the your instructor’s dictionary collection with the primary

If your fact is about the meaning of slavery stated in your instructor’s collection, then immediately after the word slavery you’d write: (Instructor collection)

 

If You Want to Know Why We Use These Shortened Citations

The reasons are:

1.       All of your written assignments are brief. If you used traditional MLA citation which is written inline (within your lines of text), you would use up your word count much faster.

2.       History’s standard, the Chicago Manual of Style, provides rigorous citation, but not inline. Instead, it uses endnotes[i] or footnotes[1] to provide citation.

In other words, citation is there but it is not in the way of communication of the history. The citation is not written within your lines of text because of how historians write about history.

·         They are helping people understand the past.

·         That is your job as well. Why? When you try to help someone understand history, you start to understand it yourself. If you want to understand something, try to teach it. (If you want to know more, click here for why trying to teach someone like yourself is the goal of writing.)

3.       In this class, you may place your citation in either endnotes or inline, but we make that citation as unobtrusive as possible.

 

Brain Trick for Quoting and Avoiding Quotation Humiliation

Click here for additional tips.

The rules for showing what you have taken out (…) of the author’s words or put in ([ ]) are complex and for most of us they are not worth learning.

 

This brain trick lets you be accurate but avoid learning those rules:

  1. Choose 3 to 6 words to quote and change nothing (not an ing or an ed, not a comma, nothing) between the first and the last word.

  2. Put abefore the first word and a after the last word.

  3. Place those words with the “ ”within your sentence.

 

  1. If something sounds awkward about your sentences, then change your own words—the only words you have a right to change.

 

  1. Look at all of the words in the source. Be sure the meaning of the source remains in your quotation.

 

 

 

Copyright C. J. Bibus, Ed.D. 2003-2016

 

WCJC Department:

History – Dr. Bibus

Contact Information:

281.239.1577 or bibusc@wcjc.edu

Last Updated:

2016

WCJC Home:

http://www.wcjc.edu/

 

 



[1] This is an example of a footnote. It appears at the bottom of the page.



[i] This is an example of an endnote. It appears after the last word in the document.