1) Objective: You will create an applied-learning project in the form of your choice that reflects your creative interests as well as the historians expectations in primary and secondary source research. The subject matter can be one of your choice, but it must fall within this courses subject and geographic scope: American history to 1865. In its final form, this project should be of such a high quality that it could be consumed by general and/or academic audiences.
2) Options: While the format is up to you and your creative interests, you must clear the project with me before beginning. You are welcome to write a traditional history research essay if you like. But your applied-learning projects can go beyond that form. Here is a list of suggested options: podcast, documentary, lesson plan, slide presentation with voice-over, play, musical piece, game (board, RPG, video game), website, digital archive, academic poster, historical fiction, or legislative proposal. Feel free to suggest other options as well.
3) Research Requirements: Your research must be based on original research conducted with primary sources. Your selection of sources should reflect your creativity and willingness to investigate different kinds of historical materials. This means going beyond Google and locating research repositories around the world. For starters, refer to the Internet Modern History Sourcebook which is posted on Canvas. Regardless, the number of sources and size of the project should be cleared with me before beginning. As a baseline, I expect you to have at least three substantive primary sources and five substantive secondary sources to ground your project.
4) Project Requirements:
a) Argumentative Foundation: All projects must take an informed argumentative stance that reflects critical interpretations of the available evidence and scholarship.
b) Historiography: Your project must be well grounded in the scholarly work already done in your selected or related field, and audiences should know where your research fits in the body of already published work.
c) Body of Evidence: This is your best chance to convince your audience that your argument is sound. Be sure to consider some of the following questions: Is it organized logically? Am I analyzing the evidence (explaining why it happened or why it is significant)? Am I analyzing it appropriately? Am I making sense of my evidence in a way that is sensitive to the subjects already-existing literature? Is my evidence useful or relevant (or am I including it simply because I did the research)? Are there any exceptions to my presented arguments or evidence?
d) Conclusion: This is your final effort to sell your argument.
5) Managing Sources:
a) Citation: You may use the citation style of your majors discipline: MLA, APA, or Turabian/Chicago.b) Bibliography: You must attach a complete and correctly styled bibliography or works cited list to your paper, indicating every source you used in preparing your project.
c) Quotations: Only use quotes to illustrate your points; dont use them to make your points for you. Be sure to analyze all of your quotes in a way that explains to the audience why they are significant enough to be added to your project for color. Also, be judicious with your use of lengthy/block quotes. If it feels like you are simply filling space, then you likely are. Remember, I am more interested in your intellectual constructions.
d) Visual Aids: If it is appropriate for your project to construct/include tables, graphs, images, timelines, or other illustrations, then do so. Quantitative studies usually demand representative tables. Pictures and portraits can effectively humanize and personalize studies. Just keep in mind that sizable visual aids will not go toward your page count for written assignments
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