Short Essays Grading Rubric

For grading your short essays, we use a rubric to break down the various sections and their overall weight. The rubric includes details as to what is required for each aspect of the essay and how it is weighted in the overall grade.

This is the rubric we use:

SHORT ESSAY- HIST 190

This assignment has two central goals:

  • To utilize the historical skills that we are learning in class to analyze documents assigned from Kevin Reilly’s Worlds of History, Volume I to 1550.
  • To teach students how to best use comments given by an instructor regarding their work and implement these suggestions to improve essay writing skills

Format

Please choose ONE of the questions below and write an essay in response to it.

Requirements:

  • Use AT LEAST TWO primary sources from the Worlds of History textbook as evidence. Certain questions require more than two sources so make sure to read them carefully. Primary sources from Worlds of History are the ONLY sources that you are allowed to use in your essay.
  • You can use any primary sources from Worlds of History but make sure to pay close attention to the requirements indicated in the question. 
  • 1000-1250 words in length, excluding footnotes.
  • UNDERLINE YOUR THESIS STATEMENT in your submitted essay.
  • Footnotes formatted according to the Chicago Manual of Style. For assistance in completing your footnotes, please consult this guide: Chicago Style Citations for 190
  • TWO versions will be submitted. Version #1 is due on October 25th. Version #2 is due on November 27th. We will not mark Version #2 if you have not submitted Version #1.
  • You cannot change topics from Version #1 to Version #2.
  • These essays are to be an analytical discussion of the materials covered in each chapter, not simply a presentation of your own thoughts. Use these sources as evidence to back up your arguments
  • Late papers will not be accepted. If you need an extension, remember the “life happens” clause. You do need to contact Dr. Wessell Lightfoot for any extension.

Essay Questions

Question #1: 

In our discussion of First Empires, we considered four different characteristics in thinking about ancient India, ancient China, and ancient Rome: much larger territories, armies with a variety of weapons and manpower, centrally controlled administration, and cultural management by the state. Using one primary source from China, one from India, and one from Rome, discuss ONE of the characteristics of empire and think comparatively about how that characteristic plays out in EACH of these empires. How can these primary sources help us understand this characteristic in more depth?

NOTE You must use primary sources, therefore the following documents are NOT acceptable for this assignment: Chapter 3, Document 1; Chapter 4, Document 5; Chapter 5, Document 1.

 Question #2: 

Were gender roles for men and women similar or different in first civilizations and first empires? If they were different, why do you think this was so? Your essay should reference one primary source from first civilizations (Mesopotamia or ancient Egypt) and one from first empires (ancient India, ancient China, or ancient Rome). 

 Question #3:  

Why are religious texts useful in studying the past? What kinds of historical insight can we gain from using them? Are there any problems in using such texts as historical sources? If so, what are these issues? Your essay can use any of the sources from Chapters 6 and 7. 

Question #4:  

Historical sources tend to come from one of two perspectives: internal or external. Internal perspectives refer to primary sources that reflect the viewpoint of someone who is from the group or culture being discussed. In contract, external perspectives represent the viewpoint from someone who is from outside the group or culture being explored. Choose one of the following pairs of primary sources and consider what perspective each source gives us of the group or events being discussed and how we can use such opposing sources to help us understand those groups or events. 

Choice 1: Ibn Fadlan “The Viking Rus” (Chapter 11, Document 2) and Saxo Grammaticus “Erik the Evergood’s Pilgrimage in 1103” (Chapter 11, Document 3)

Choice 2: Yvo of Narbona “The Mongols” (Chapter 11, Document 4) and “The Secret History of the Mongols” (Chapter 11, Document 5)

Choice 3: Fulcher of Chartres “The First Crusade: Pope Urban’s Speech at Clermont” (Chapter 10, Document 3)  and “The Chronicle of Solomon bar Simson” (Chapter 10, Document4)

Question #5: 

Thinking comparatively across different groups of people is an important tool for historians. These comparisons can be made between groups of different cultures but also between people of different genders. If we focus on a specific topic, like love, sex, and marriage, and consider how men and women viewed this topic in both similar and different ways, we can get a broader sense of how a society as a whole thought about that subject. 

Choose two primary sources from Chapter Nine that discuss love, sex, and marriage; One should be from the perspective of a man (Document 2, 3, 5, or 7) and the other should be from the perspective of a woman (Document 6 or 8). What are the similarities and differences regarding their discussion of love, sex, and marriage? How might we account for those similarities and differences?

Question #6: 

One of the core themes of this course is the development and expansion of patriarchy from 10 000 BCE to 1550 CE throughout the world. In your essay, choose two primary sources in Worlds of History from any chapter and discuss how they are representative of patriarchy in their particular society. Make sure to define patriarchy first and then discuss how these two sources reflect patriarchal ideas for their own time period and place. Don’t forget to discuss them together.

 Question #7:

One of the key methodological frameworks that historians use for understanding the past is the idea of cause and effect. But as Kevin Reilly notes in your textbook “finding causes and explaining effects is fraught with difficulties.” On the one hand, it is difficult to determine a specific effect that happened as a result of something in the past. On the other hand, looking back to understand the specific cause is also challenging. Together, we have to be careful not to force a specific cause and effect together to fit OUR already established idea in the present of what happened in the past. 

For this essay, you will focus on the concept of “cause and effect” of the Black Death from the perspective of societies where it took place. This type of analysis requires you to think about their world view and how they perceived the origins of the Black Death and its effects on the places where they lived. How do they try and explain the origins of the Black Death (in other words, what caused it)? How do they think it affected their society? How can THEIR ideas of the causes and effects of the Black Death help us understand their own society and how they viewed the world around them?

Footnotes

Students are asked to use formal footnotes for this assignment based on the Chicago manual of style (see below). Brackets with the author’s name and the page number are not acceptable for this assignment.

 When to footnote:

Footnotes allow the reader to check sources and verify information. If you are quoting someone or summarizing other people’s ideas, you also need to cite them in order to avoid plagiarism. Remember that you do not need to footnote common knowledge.

Use footnotes:

  • to identify and document quotations
  • to acknowledge and give exact references to the words and ideas of others, even if you paraphrase or summarize them in your own words
  • to provide additional relevant information or comments that do not fit into the text

Format

Source by one author in a book edited by another author:

Thucydides, “The Funeral Oration of Pericles” in Worlds of History: Vol. I to 1500 (3rd edition), ed. Kevin Reilly, (Boston: Bedford-St. Martin’s, 2007): 90.

 S.A.M. Adshead, “China and Rome Compared” in Worlds of History: Vol. I to 1500 (3rd edition), ed. Kevin Reilly, (Boston: Bedford-St. Martin’s, 2007): 113.

 Footnotes for subsequent references:

Use the author’s last name, abbreviated version of the text, and page number.

First footnote

Vatsyana, “On the Conduct of Wives, Husbands, and Women of the Harem, c. 280-550 C.E.” in Worlds of History: Vol. I to 1550 (5th edition), ed. Kevin Reilly (Boston: Bedford-St. Martin’s, 2013): 178.

Subsequent footnote:

Vatsyana, “On the Conduct of Wives”, 179.