From the Syllabus

Part 2:  Historical Context.  For this part of your project, you will research your topic using reputable library sources and/or interviews to gain a deeper knowledge and understanding of the moment of crisis.  (4 pages)

More Details

Now that you’ve chosen your topic and considered your connection to it, it is time to research!  At this time, I encourage you to pursue any forms of research that are available to you:

• Library Resources.  How do books or articles describe or explain the event?  What is essential to know or understand about it?  What is debated about it (if anything)?  You also can consider how it was understood at the time vs. how people have come to understand it after the fact.
• Interviews.  If you have family members or friends who were involved or experienced the event, don’t waste this opportunity to get some first-hand reports.  What did they experience?  How did they think or feel about it?  What do they know that more official records don’t document?

As you write your paper, your primary job is to share information about your event.  (You will make arguments in later parts of this assignment.)  However, probably near the end of your piece, I do want you to reflect about what you’ve learned.  Some possible questions to consider include:

• What have you learned about that seems particularly important to include in your own graphic narrative?
• What about your situation is particularly complicated?  Are there any aspects of the event that you will have to make interpretive decisions about?  (This will come into play with debated material in particular.)  How are you leaning on those issues?
• Are there any areas in which resources emphasize different aspects of the crisis (or in which your interviews, for example, emphasize something different than your reading)?  What do you feel like you would like to emphasize in your own retelling?

Think about the reflective aspect of your paper as keeping me updated as to how your research has shaped your sense of how your own writing will develop. 

Guidelines

You will write approximately four pages describing your historical crisis and reflecting on what you learned.  As you research, I want you to read enough to truly understand your historical moment and to notice patterns, divergences, differences of opinion, etc.  Therefore, I want you to consult at least 10 sources (and interviews also count as sources) that you will cite on a bibliography.  Please cite at least 4-5 of them within your paper. 

This paper should be structured like an academic essay, with an introduction, body paragraphs, and conclusion.  While it will not have a traditional thesis statement because it’s not making an argument, please include a purpose statement, which addresses the purpose, scope, and direction of the paper.

Joanne Janssen, Baker University