Assignment 1: Dealing with Diversity in America from Reconstruction through the 1920s
Due Week 3 and worth 120 points. The formal deadline is on Monday morning at 9am Eastern Time; this is the next day after Week 3 ends. Watch announcements, emails, and postings for exact dates and any holiday notes that sometimes arise.
BACKGROUND FOR THE PAPER: This is a 5-paragraph paper based on research in designated sources. It is a position paper in which you support a thesis statement by reason and historical examples. After the Civil War, the United States had to recover from war, handle western expansion, and grapple with very new economic forms. However, its greatest issues would revolve around the legacies of slavery and increasing diversity in the decades after the Civil War. In the South, former slaves now had freedom and new opportunities but, despite the Reconstruction period, faced old prejudices and rapidly forming new barriers. Immigrants from Europe and Asia came in large numbers but then faced political and social restrictions. Women continued to seek rights. Yet, on the whole, America became increasingly diverse by the 1920s. Consider developments, policies, and laws in that period from 1865 to the 1920s. Examine the two statements below and drawing from provided sources, present a paper with specific examples and arguments to demonstrate the validity of your position. [Don’t use this background paragraph in your paper.]
Topic and Thesis Statement—choose one of the following as your Thesis Statement:
After giving general consideration to your assigned readings so far and any research (using sources listed on this sheet), select one of the positions above as your position—your thesis. (Sometimes after doing more thorough research, you might choose the reverse position. This happens with critical thinking and inquiry. Your final paper might end up taking a different position than you originally envisioned.) Organize your paper as follows with the four parts below (see TEMPLATE also), handling these issues:
After the fourth part concluding the paper, be sure you have the numbered list of sources at the end. And be sure each source listed is also used and cited clearly in the body of the paper. The FORMAT SAMPLE paper illustrates this.
Length: The paper should be 500-to-750 words in length. 500 is a minimum. 750 is a guideline as a maximum. This word-count does not include any title page or sources list.
Research and References: You must use a MINIMUM of three sources; the Schultz textbook must be one of them. Your other two sources MUST be drawn from the list provided below on this instruction sheet. This is guided research, not googling.
Source list for Assignment 1: Some sources listed below are “primary” sources from the time period being studied. Some sources below can be accessed via direct link. For others, they are accessible through the permalink to the source in our online library: Sources below having libdatab.strayer.edu as part of the URL have a permalink to that source in our university’s online library. Learn to use those.