Essay Questions

by

Humanities

TIP 1: Read each question carefully and outline your essays before you begin to write. Proofread your exam multiple times and make sure you fully answer each part of the prompt. TIP 2: For this exam you may use your readings, reading notes, and lecture notes. You may not use ANY sources from outside this course in preparing your essays—no websites, dictionaries, outside books or examples, or summaries or reviews of course readings. TIP 3: When incorporating lecture material you do not need to cite my lectures directly—they are now part of our shared body of knowledge. Do not write “As Professor Lane said”—just present the material in your own words. TIP 4: Whenever possible refer to specific course readings and concepts (include author & page number in parentheses when using quoted material). The more your essay demonstrates your familiarity with course readings and themes, the higher your grade will be. TIP 5: These essays should represent your own individual knowledge and efforts. You may discuss your ideas with classmates (and with the professor) and proofread one another’s papers but the ideas presented in your paper should be entirely your own.

Style, Format, & Citations:

• Papers should be typed and double-spaced. Use 11-12 pt. font and 1” margins all around. Your essays should thoroughly respond to the prompts and use tone and language appropriate to scholarly work. • Please start each essay on a new page and provide a title for every essay (not just “Essay #2”).

• On the first page of your exam (and only on the first page) at the top, single-spaced, include your name, the course number (AMST 301), my name, and the date.

• Include page numbers. Seriously, it drives me crazy when you don’t.

• First person voice (“I”) is perfectly fine for this paper.

• Italicize all book titles and use the book’s full title the first time you introduce it. Refer to authors by last name only after the first time you mention them. Remember—nonfiction books are not novels!

• When citing books, use parenthetical citations like this—note how I punctuate these: o Direct quotes: “The dog was hungry” (Smith 23). o Indirect quotes: Smith discusses the dog’s search for food (Smith 23).

• You DO NOT need a Works Cited page or Bibliography for these essays.

• PROOFREAD CAREFULLY for standard use of grammar, spelling, and punctuation.

2

SHORT ESSAYS (100 pts each): Please answer two of the following three short essay questions (do not answer all three—I’ll only grade two). Your responses for each short essay should be approximately 2 pages long (double spaced). If your essay is only one page long, it’s probably not thorough enough. If you’re starting p. 4 or 5, you’ve likely wandered off track; go back and re-focus on your strongest points.

1. Describe at least two of the reasons Hamilton Holt offers for why the stories of “undistinguished Americans” are important. Use direct quotations where relevant (from Holt and/or Sollors). In your essay, please use specific examples from at least three different lifelets in The Life Stories of Undistinguished Americans as Told by Themselves to support Holt’s points.

2. How were the lives of the immigrants featured in Holt’s book shaped by the time period in which they lived? (Remember, not all of the lifelets were about immigrants; be sure the people you discuss in this essay were immigrants, not native-born Americans.) You may approach this topic from a number of perspectives. Some possible topics to address include: immigration laws and patterns; major changes around work and leisure; or cultural beliefs about gender, race, ethnicity, and religion. You may choose to focus closely on one of these, to address multiple of them, or to focus on different aspects of the time period altogether. In the course of your discussion be sure to include specific examples from at least three different lifelets. Remember to clearly state what time period you’re discussing.

3. Mark Twain has observed that “history does not repeat itself, but it rhymes,” meaning that events or beliefs from one time period often turn up again in a slightly different form in another time period. So far in this course we can see numerous examples of Twain’s statement, instances in which similar themes or patterns reappear in multiple historical periods or contexts. In your essay, explain Twain’s quotation in your own words, then describe at least two different instances of such “rhymes” between the Progressive Era and the WWII Era. (For each of the two instances you discuss, you will explain an event/situation/belief/etc. from the Progressive Era, then identify a parallel for it in the WWII era.) Be specific about the time periods you’re discussing and use details and quotations from readings, videos, and/or lectures to support your points. You must cite both Holt and Inada in this essay.

(see next page for Long Essay prompt)

3

LONG ESSAY (200 points): Everyone must answer this question. Your responses should be approximately 3-4 pages long (double spaced). The highest scores will be given to essays that demonstrate an accurate understanding of internment and include specific references to Inada’s book. Please analyze one of the photographs below within the context of the World War II era. Choose the photograph you believe best represents the story of the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. (See the slide show in the internment section of our website for larger versions of the photos.) In your essay: 1) Offer a brief overview of internment, using citations from Inada’s book (with page numbers) whenever possible. Assume your reader is unfamiliar with internment and the circumstances that led up to it, so you have to give them the background they’ll need to understand the rest of your essay; and 2) Describe the photo you selected and explain how this picture represents what you see as the most important part of the story of internment and/or Japanese responses thereto. Use quotations or examples from Only What We Could Carry to support your argument. (There is no “wrong” photo for this assignment—all four work well for the essay. The key is to explain why you chose a certain photo and provide the information readers need in order to understand your argument about that image.)