This assignment calls for you to compare and contrast two historical documents and place them in their historical context. The documents you are to write about, Narrative of Lavinia Bell and Letter to an English Abolitionist, are included in this module. This is not a research assignment. The only materials you will need are this packet, your textbook, and your class notes.
Begin by carefully reading the two documents. Think about what the two authors have written. Decide what ideas the authors share and what ideas they differ upon. Evaluate the authors’ motives and goals. Then decide how these documents relate to a specific historical era. Finally, go back and re-read the documents, making note of specific examples that support your decisions.
In writing your paper, which will explain the decisions you have reached, be sure to identify the authors and the subject(s) they are writing about. However, please be brief in discussing these elements of the documents. Your identification and critical evaluation of the authors’ arguments and viewpoints is the key to this assignment. It is particularly important to address the authors’ motives and methods. In other words, what do the authors hope to accomplish and how do they attempt to accomplish that goal?
In order to analyze the documents the following questions may be helpful: In what ways are the documents similar? How are they different? Why are they similar or different? What are the authors’ backgrounds? How do differences in their backgrounds relate to differences in their ways of thinking? What are their motives? Why do they think the issue they are writing about is important? What major point(s) are they trying to convey? Who is their intended audience? How do they try to appeal to their audience?
It is very important that you place the documents in their historical context. One of the purposes of this assignment is for students to demonstrate their knowledge of the era in which these documents were written. Therefore, it is crucial that you describe what was going on at the time these authors wrote. Your discussion of the documents’ historical context must reference material presented in class lectures and Chapter 10 of Out of Many. While Chapter 10 was not a chapter you were quizzed on, you must read it as part of this assignment. Chapters 13 and 15 in Out of Many will also provide useful information.
You may find it helpful to imagine that you are not writing this paper for a history instructor to read. Instead, imagine that you are writing for a fellow student; someone who is intelligent but has little background in US history. Explain to that imaginary reader what was going on at that time, then describe what makes these documents a product of that time.
The above should be done in four to six typed or word-processed, double-spaced pages. Use standard fonts and margins.
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