HIS 20: Final Paper Assignment/ Rubric

What:  Students in HIS 20 will write an original research paper on the history of dissent in the United States. Dissent occupies a complex place in the American identity. On one hand, the United States as a country was founded by dissenters. Independence from England was born of dissent against the British Crown. In light of this, some Americans hold dissent to be the highest form of patriotism. It is not, however, always so simple. Many African slaves sided with the British in opposition to white colonial dissent. More recently, Colin Kaepernick’s protest against police brutality, for example, has been openly ridiculed by former President Trump for being anti-American. In this paper, you will interrogate a prominent dissent movement from the time frame covered in class this semester, put it into conversation with other American dissent movements, and ultimately provide a personal analysis of it.

Your paper itself, as with the short papers, will follow a prescribed structure (see “organization” section below for specifics). You will be selecting one from the following list of possible topics as your major subject of investigation.You may notice that I have avoided more well-known acts of dissent, such as the Boston Tea Party. Ideally, you will be researching a topic you know little about. I have also tried to select topics featuring marginalized groups—such as racial minorities, women, and the financially under-privileged. Possible Topic Choices:

• The Trial of Anne Hutchinson (1637)
• Bacon’s Rebellion (1676)
• Stono Rebellion (1739)
• Pontiac’s Rebellion (1763)
• Shay’s Rebellion (1786-1787)
• The Whiskey Rebellion (1794)
• Nat Turner’s Rebellion (1831)
• American Anti-Slavery Society (1833-1870)
• Second Seminole War (1835-1842, note: you may combine this with the First Seminole War or do it alone. You may not, however, only do the First Seminole War)
• Seneca Falls Convention (1848)
• Oneida Community (1848)
• John Brown’s Raid (1859)

When: All papers must be submitted to Canvas by 11:59 pm on Friday, April 22. Although late papers will be accepted without penalty, NO PAPERS WILL BE ACCEPTED AFTER WEDNESDAY Apr 27. Exceptions will be made in case of emergency and with approval of professor. Students should expect to provide documentation from appropriate university administration, such as student health services, student counseling services, or student disability services.

How: Following are the necessary steps for the assignment

            Formatting of Citations:

• What to cite: You should cite any information—whether quoted or paraphrased—that you obtained from an outside source. Failure to give credit for any information from outside sources will be considered plagiarism. Be sure to carefully read the “academic integrity” section of this assignment for more information on plagiarism.
• Citation style: Papers should be cited according to the Chicago Manual of Style “footnotes and bibliography” format. If you are not familiar with Chicago, and many of you likely are not, I am providing a link to a quick guide here. The quick guide contains examples of how to format both footnotes and bibliographic entries (the process is different):  https://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/tools_citationguide/citation-guide-1.html.

That should explain most of your sources. You may prefer the explanation available at the OWL:

Source Requirements/Research Tips: Unlike the short papers, there are requirements for both the number and type of sources for this paper. These are minimum requirements, and a good paper will likely consult more than the minimum. I strongly recommend making an appointment to meet with a research librarian for help with these.Our librarian for humanities at PSUH is Heidi Abbey Moyer. She is happy to assist you and is remarkably skilled at helping students find sources for their research. You can email her at [email protected] with questions or to arrange a meeting with her. You may also want to begin your research at the following link: https://libraries.psu.edu/. Many books, articles, and newspapers are available online through PSU and at that link.

The following are required or advised for this paper:

• You must
  • Use at least eight total sources
  • use at least four scholarly secondarysources. These may be either from scholarly journals or books.
    • For journals, I strongly recommend the database JSTOR, which you can access from PSU libraries by following this link: https://libraries.psu.edu/databases#J (scroll down to JSTOR)
    • If you choose to use scholarly books, they are typically published by a university publishing house (ex- Harvard University Press, Oxford University Press, etc…) and must contain either footnotes, end notes, and/or a bibliography.
  • use two primary sources. This should ideally be speeches given by movement activists, interviews with them, or information posted on organizational websites.
  • The remainder may be popular, primary, or scholarly secondary
• You MAY NOT use class notes nor our class text as the basis for foot-noted material. However, I recommend using either, as well as Wikipedia, to give yourself a basic familiarity with your topic.
• Advice on Popular sources
  • Beyond requirements, you will want to use newspaper articles for coverage of dissent movements. You are strongly encouraged, though not required, to use print media rather than video.
  • You may use websites that are not considered scholarly, but you are responsible for their quality and integrity. I suggest screening them ahead of time with a writing tutor, research librarian, or me if you are in doubt.
  • Practice lateral reading, click restraint, keep guard up for astro turfing (it is easy to make a website look credible)

Organization of Paper

• Part I- Introduction: Your introduction should be two paragraphs. Its overall goal is to introduce the reader to your chosen topic, gain their interest, and indicate the analytical nature of the paper. Closely follow the format below.
  • Part 1 Paragraph 1: The first paragraph will serve as a hook designed to grab the attention of the reader. Your paragraph will narrate an anecdote that engages the interest of the reader in the subject without describing the main subject in any detail. Narrate an event related to your topic and that teases at the larger significance of the movement you are discussing. Was there an attention-grabbing event that might introduce the reader to the dissent in a way that provokes their interest? If your choice pertains to a single event, perhaps there is something in the lead up you could discuss, or another related event? Is there a story from the American past that indicates why your dissent movement was needed? Perhaps there is a popular song or film related to the movement? For older choices, have their been recent conflicts over the movement goals that might interest the reader in learning about the past? Any of these would work. The idea is to engage the reader in the subject of the paper without discussing it too specifically.
  • Part 1 Paragraph 2: This paragraph will do two things.
    • First, step back from the anecdote and provide a description of the movement. Insert your specific topic into the larger story. Provide the basics, such as the who, what, when, where, and why of the movement. Do not get too specific here. The point is not analysis; rather, it is to give the reader the info they need to better understand that rest of the paper. You will be giving a more thorough description in “Section 2” of the body of the paper. Just give basic introductory information here. Sample– if your topic is the Selma march, you would want a paragraph placing King and SCLC into the larger story of voting rights in Selma. Start with a topic sentence like “It was into this crisis over voting rights that Martin Luther King and the SouthernChristian Leadership Conference (SCLC) first came to Selma in 1964.”
    • Conclude with a thesis. Typically, a thesis is argumentative. Given the investigative (rather than argumentative) nature of this assignment, your thesis will be partially but not primarily argumentative. Instead, briefly discuss the overarching purpose of the paper. Example related to Selma topic “This paper will interrogate the involvement of SCLC in the fight for voting rights in Selma, Alabama in 1964 and 65. In the process, it will investigate the history of both the Black Freedom Struggles and SCLC, analyze the goals and tactics of both SCLC and its opponents, and ultimately argue that the dissent of King and SCLC in Selma was beneficial for the United States of America.” NOTE- thesis may be more than one sentence.
• Part 2- Body: The body of your paper will be broken into three parts. All three parts will utilize the skills from the historical skills thinking chart we have used this semester. Body sections 1 and 2 will be about historical context. Body section 3 will be a sort of close reading of the events, but you will be using a different set of questions.
  • Body Section 1- Long-term Historical Context of Dissent. Dissent movements are often misunderstood by those not involved with them. It is your job to push the reader beyond initial impressions. You do not need to convince the reader to take a particular side, rather to give them better information with which to do so. You will transition away from your introduction with an immediate paragraph/group of paragraphs placing the movement in a larger historical context (see questions below). Your job here is to place your dissent movement in the context of their larger story. Remember, you are providing your reader with facts. You should not, at this point, be argumentative or analytical, rather descriptive. In the process, you may want to consider the following questions:
    • Long-term history questions:
      • What group is fighting for change, and what is their goal? Start with a topic that identifies the event/organization. Bear in mind that groups can be formally organized (Black Lives Matter), loosely organized (ANTIFA), or simply share common identifying features and therefore common needs (American women). If your chosen topic is deliberately organized (has a name), use this part to focus not on the specific organization, but the history of dissent by people like them and who share common identifying features.
        • Example topic sentence: “When King and SCLC came to Selma in 1964 to fight for voting rights for Black Alabamians, they were joining with people, both in Selma and elsewhere, who had been long-engaged in the struggle for Black equality in the American south.”
• All of these events/organizations are but chapters in longer stories of dissent in order to advance rights. What is the larger story? For example, if you chose the National Student Walkout, there are probably two stories you should tell: the history of student activism and the history of Americans calling for regulations of weapons. You decide how far back to go. Remember as you decide how much to discuss, the main goal here is to help us better understand the contemporary (modern day) movement.
• What are some constitutional issues that were important for both the goals and raison d’etre of the movement/event/organization? This is the de jure part of the story.
  • For example, if you are doing Black Lives Matter, you may want to mention that prior to the Fourteenth Amendment, constitutionally speaking, Black lives only mattered in terms of being property for their owners. You may want to mention how this reflected in the Dred Scott decision, how this changed with this Fourteenth Amendment, and how that has become the basis for all Black Freedom Struggles.
• How did this movement struggle against de facto tyranny? Remember, for example, that while first wave feminism was primarily concerned with changing legal codes, second wave feminism recognized that tyranny often comes from more than just laws and formal authority. For this part, think about the difference between power and authority
• What are some other important episodes of dissent in this story? What issues from those movements might help us understand your choice? For example, with BLM, you would want to mention the issues dividing King and Carmichael, as well as DuBois and Washington.
• Body Section 2- Short-Term History of Dissent Movement. Craft a clear topic sentence that indicates you are now discussing the background of your specific dissent movement/event. Be mindful that you are elaborating on the descriptive information you provided in the intro (paragraph 2). Try not to be redundant. At this point, your writing should still primarily be descriptive.
• Short-term history questions: This is the part where you fit the story of your particular dissent movement into the larger story. You are basically expanding on the brief description you provided in your introduction. Write this as a narrative. Tell the story of the emergence of the movement. How and why did it begin? How and why did it grow? Was it highly organized? Was it long-lasting? Also consider the following:
  • What was the short-term context for the emergence of your group/movement? If, for example, you are writing about the January 6 attack on the Capitol, you would want to discuss the election and the claims of fraud made by President Trump and his supporters. Be careful to remain factual here. You will be able to provide your own thoughts on this later. If you are doing BLM, you will want to discuss the series of much-publicized shootings of Black men by police and security forces, beginning with the 2013 shooting of Trayvon Martin.
  • Relatedly, was there a specific, more immediate catalyst? If you are covering BLM, you will want to talk about the death of George Floyd and the Twitter hashtag #BlackLivesMatter.
  • How did the message spread? Consider social media and popular culture (music, television and film).
  • Did the message spread organically, or did a specific organization work to spread the message? BLM, for example, used Twitter to significant effect.
  • Is there a specific event that is the focus of your dissent? Some movements are primarily concerned with a particular event, such as the Women’s March and the January 6 attack. Some are more about the formations of an organization and its work over a period of months and years. This is true of Antifa. Black Lives Matter is a bit of each of these.
  • If so, what about the event will help us better understand and analyze the movement? Again, be factual and descriptive rather than argumentative and analytical.
  • In addition to the tactics used to raise awareness, what tactics were actually used to dissent?
  • Was the dissent concerned with laws and authority (de jure), public opinion (de facto), or both? For example, Colin Kaepernick’s protests against police brutality were concerned with both. He wants the police to be more regulated, but by protesting something that most Americans accept, the national anthem, he was also commenting on the tyranny of majority opinion.
• Body Section 3- Interrogation of Dissent Movement. In this section, you are to do a close reading of the movement. Unlike the short papers, this is not a close reading of a specific document. As such, the questions you will ask are similar in nature but also appropriately different. Rely on this list below instead of the chart. This is the first section in which your writing should be analytical. Be sure to defend your claims with specific examples from your sources. By no means is the list of questions here exhaustive. Finally, though the questions are listed, be sure to craft your prose so that it flows like a narrative. It should not feel choppy; rather, it should read and progress like a book or article. Develop it your discussion. Group answers to similar questions together in paragraphs and introduce paragraphs with strong topic sentences.
  • Is this movement radical, in that it seeks to completely overthrow the American social and political order, or reform-minded, in that it merely seeks to correct it? Dr. King, for example, was a reformer, whereas the Black Panthers and Weather Underground were political radicals.
  • Are the activists interested in changing hearts and minds (persuasion), controlling the conversation (shock), seizing power, or a combination of all of these?
  • What was the relationship between ideas and actions?
  • Did the movement originate from the political left (liberal/progressive) or political right (conservative)?
  • What formed the foundations of the movement? Did the activists share common moral values (religious, philosophical), common race and ethnic ties, were the concerns constitutional, were they practical?
  • Did the activists effectively plead their case to the general public? If so, how? Did they appeal to pathos or logos?
  • Did the movement rely more on intellectuallycrafted strategy or emotion?
  • Did they share any of the above with their foes, and did they appeal to them in order to effect change? (for example, did they appeal to the Constitution)
  • Were there internal divisions within the movement, and did the activists effectively build a coalition (SCLC and SNCC at Selma in 1965), or did the divisions tear it apart (the Women’s March)?
  • Did the goals and tactics of the movement help or hurt their cause in the long run?
• Body Section 4- Interrogation of Opposition to the Dissent Movement. Dissenters often cast their cause much like a bad movie, with right/wrong and protagonist/antagonist being reduced to simple binaries. As we have discussed this semester, reality is always more complex and nuanced. The job of a good historian, however, is to see the past on its own terms and from the perspective of historical actors. We may agree or disagree with changes that are made, but in order to analyze change, we need to understand the motivations of those who cause or resist it. Use the following questions as a guide to push your reader beyond any impulsive assumptions they may make about the authority/power that is being challenged. You do not need to agree with them, rather recognize that all sides in such struggles often cast themselves as historical protagonists. Recommended Questions:
  • What are some reasons for public opposition to this dissent movement?
  • Was opposition to dissent unified? What are some important divisions (think 1619 Project)?
  • Were any major news media organizations critical of the dissent? How did they cast it? Did these criticisms rely on pathos or logos? Were they factual or manipulative?
  • What noteworthy tactics did opponents of this dissent take to weaken its momentum? For example, were there any counterdemonstrations?
  • Borrowing from slide 5, how might the narrative(s) of the target of dissent as well as public opposition to the dissent differ from the dissenters?
  • Dissenters often cast their opponents with unflattering labels associated with resisting change. Though these may be accurate, they may also be manipulative generalizations. How did dissenters cast their opponents in this case, and were such labels accurate?
• Body Section 5- Personal analysis of this dissent. Here is where you are making an argument. Assess your dissent movement as being primarily beneficial or detrimental to the United States. Activists in every case would argue beneficial, even if they are seeking to tear the country down. Opponents in every case would argue detrimental. What do you think, and why? Although you may qualify your argument, you should ultimately pick one of these two options.  Also, be sure to use copious examples to defend your answer. In the process, consider:
  • What do you mean by beneficial or detrimental?
  • What do you think about the overall goal (s) of the movement?
  • What do you think about the tactics of the movement (perhaps it goes too far, perhaps it did not go far enough).
  • Have similar movements in the past succeeded or failed, and why does that matter for this question? (by similar, I mean both in terms of goals and tactics)
• Part 3 Conclusion: For information on writing a conclusion to an academic paper, consult the following link is to the conclusions page at the OWL (Purdue University):

Format: Consistent with the field of history and class expectations, papers should be formatted according to the Chicago Manual of Style. Papers should include footnotes (rather than in-text citations) and a well-structured and accurately formatted bibliography; no credit will be given without these. Papers should beat least six full pages, double-spaced, in 12-point Times New Roman font, and have 1-inch margins. Students may choose between a title page and heading.Although you may write more than the minimum, if you do so, be sure to practice economy of expression. Number pages of text only. The following link is to Penn State Libraries, where you will find both a Chicago-style quick guide as well as the entire manual: https://guides.libraries.psu.edu/CitationStyles.Papers should be submitted directly to Canvas.

Academic Integrity: Penn State defines plagiarism as “the act of representing someone else’s words or ideas as your own. Whether deliberate or unintentional, it is a serious breach of academic integrity that carries serious consequences.” The penalties are severeand may result in being denied credit for the paper and course, along with further administrative penalties.The following link is to the PSU Learning Center’s guides on what plagiarism is and how to avoid it. If you are in doubt, make an appointment with a writing tutor (it’s free) and have them screen your paper. https://psu.app.box.com/v/WritingResources/folder/50488411104

Questions/ Assistance: The following are suggestions for outside help on this paper:

• PSU Harrisburg’s Russell Horne Learning Center: https://harrisburg.psu.edu/learning-center
  • Heidi Abbey Moyer in the library for help finding sources https://libraries.psu.edu/directory/hna2
  • See me during office hours (email me to schedule a virtual meeting)