The "So What?" Factor: Creating your historical argument

After spending so many weeks becoming an "expert" on your topic, it's time to start analyzing your research.  Time to figure out what it all means. Time to be a historian. 


Historians do more than just tell what happened in the past. They analyze and interpret information from their sources to draw conclusions about their topic's impact on history. To do this, you will need to take a step back and think..."So What?" In other words, you need to think about why your topic is important. Why should people care? What impact or legacy did your topic leave behind? How would the world be different without their leadership? 


The answers to these questions is your historical argument or thesis statement!!!  You will "prove" your argument by supporting it through the evidence you have found in your sources. By Monday, your assignment is to have a rough draft of your thesis statement entered into Noodle Tools. 





Next week, it is important to look at your sources.  What evidence do you already have to support your thesis? What evidence is missing or weak?  Finding evidence to support your thesis will be your road map for the rest of your research.

Other things you need to consider as you analyze your research...

1.  Historical Context (time and place)

• How did the setting affect your topic? 
• What was going on that created the need for a leader? 
• How did the setting set the leader apart from those who came before or after?
• What challenges did the context present for the leader?
• What evidence do I have to show this? What do I still need to find?

2.    2.  Alternative Perspectives

•       Is there a counter-claim to your argument?
•       What's the other side of the story?
•       Did everyone think he/she was a good leader? Who Why?
•       What evidence do I have to show this? 
•        What do I still need to find?

Assignment: For your blog post today, write a self-reflection of where you are with your research.  Do most of your sources provide evidence for leadership, legacy, or context?  What area of your thesis do you need more evidence to support? Do you have sources that show an alternative perspective? What's your plan for finding this evidence?  Where are you going to look? What are you looking for? 

YouTube Clips

Thesis Statements for Beginners

Thesis Statement Webinar from Ohio History Day

What's your point?

Beyond a Biography---how to analyze and evaluate your topic

In your research thus far, I have asked you to become an expert on your topic.  To try to learn everything you can about about the leader(s) you are researching.  

My goal is for you to start taking your project one step further...going "Beyond a Biography."  Although its interesting to know where a person's from and when they were born, it's more important for this project for you to focus not so much on the leader, but the times in their life where they showed leadership and the difference it made in history.  How is our world different today because of their leadership? In other words, his/her legacy.  This is historical thinking!

This week your assignment was to create a multi-tiered timeline showing the main events related to your topic as well as major events happening in the country, world, or region during the same time span.  My hope was that you would start to see the connections between your "leader(s)" and the world in which he/she/they lived.  What I want you to really think about is:  Do leaders shape history or does history shape leaders?  My answer to that question is...a little bit of both.  Leaders change the world in which they live, but they are fundamentally shaped by the world in which they live.  How does the world and time period in which you live affect you? I want you to start thinking beyond the who? what? where? and when? and start thinking more about how? and why? 

My inspiration for this post came from this great website I found through NHD.  There may be some valuable information on here for your topic.  Either way, check it out!  
100 Leaders

For your Blog post today:
1. Write about how the leader you are researching was influenced by the time period and world in which he/she/they lived. This information should come from the work you have done on your historical context worksheet and your timeline in addition to sources you have read. 
2. What was the most interesting thing you learned this week?

See you on Monday! Be good! 

To quote or not to quote?...that is the question

I continue to see some of you struggle with knowing when to paraphrase information in a source and when to quote the information directly. I thought I would include the guidelines we discussed below. 

Quoting means to copy exactly what is written including exact punctuation marks and spelling--essentially copying and pasting from a text. Use it only when you have good reason.

When to use it? 

• when there is something inspiring and meaningful
• with statistics and information that are not considered common knowledge 
• when something is said by an important expert or authority you want to recognize
• to include especially moving or historically significant language
• to present a particularly well-stated passage whose meaning would be lost or changed if paraphrased or summarized

Paraphasing and Summarizing means to put information in your own words. When you paraphrase you are keeping the length about the same. When you summarize you make the information significantly shorter than the original. Most of your information from this project should be paraphrased or summarized!

When to use it?

• When what you want from the source is the idea expressed, and not the specific language used to express it
• If you can express in fewer words what the key point of a source is

      6 Steps to Effective Paraphrasing

1. Reread the original passage until you understand its full meaning.
2. Set the original aside, and write your paraphrase on your note card.
3. Check your paraphrase with the original to make sure that your version accurately expresses all the essential information in a new form.
4. Use quotation marks to identify any unique term or phraseology you have borrowed exactly from the source.
5. Record the source (including the page) on your note card so that you can credit it easily if you decide to incorporate the material into your paper.

Example

Adapted from University of Wisconsin-Madison, A Guide to Historical Research through the National History Day Program, and 

the OWL at Purdue University

Quoting vs. Paraphrasing

Whether you're quoting, paraphrasing, or summarizing your sources, all ideas that are not your own must be cited in order to avoid plagiarism!

A bit about blogging...

Adapted from Read.Write.Think             

Blog is short for "web log" which means everything you write, post, or publish becomes part of the world wide web. 

For this reason, it is extremely important to consider the following safety/security tips.  

1. Never offer any personal information including your full name, contact information, home address, phone numbers, school's name, email address, last names of friends or relatives, instant messaging names, age, or birth date.
2. Never post pictures of yourself or anyone else, and be sure any images you provide do not reveal any of the previously mentioned information. Always remember to look at the background of a picture too.
3. Assume what you publish on the web is permanent. Anyone on the Internet can easily print out a blog or save it to a computer. 

Common Features of Blogs

Blogs can use any layout and can cover many different topics, but they all have basic characteristics in common. 

• The writing style in your blog reflects the "voice" of the blogger.  Feel free to develop your own style of writing as you blog, but be sure to use appropriate language. 
• Blog entries usually have a title that describes or relates to the content of the entry. Titles are usually set off in a layout with a bold font. 
• Blog entries are posted in reverse-chronological order. The order is similar to a backwards diary, running from the most recent at the top of a page to the least recent at the bottom. 
• Blog entries usually include the date and specific time that they were posted (a timestamp). 
• The blogger’s name is usually listed with the time stamp. By default, blogs usually end “Posted by [blogger’s name].” 
• Readers and the blogger can usually comment on (or reply to) a blog entry. 
• The comments can turn into a dialogue, with the readers and blogger talking together. 

How will blogging be useful for this class??

At least once a week, you'll post a blog entry that reflects on the work that you have done during the week. This entry is your weekly opportunity to step back, think, and write about how your research/project is progressing and what you are learning. Your entry is not just a place to summarize what you have done. It is a place for you to think about what you have done.  Blogs will provide the opportunity for you to help guide your classmates' thinking by sharing sites and strategies you've found to be successful.  You can ask questions in your blog that you hope maybe your classmates or I can answer in their comments. 

In addition to writing your entries, each week you should read and respond to at least four blog entries posted by someone else in class. You can work as a cheerleader and a problem-solver. Ask questions. Make suggestions. Share related stories about your own project. Be friendly and supportive.

After you post comments on classmates' blogs, your next job is to go back and read the comments people posted on YOUR blog. The best comments can lead to a dialogue. Reply to any questions that you are asked, and respond to the ideas that others have shared. 

Class rules for commenting on Blog Posts

• Remember that everything you do online  has to follow the acceptable use policy. 
• Stay on topic. Remember that your blog comments should be about writing advice and encouraging classmates. 
• Respect one another. If you disagree with something a  classmate is trying, offer some concrete suggestions. Don’t attack the other person! Remember to be polite and courteous. 
• Watch your language. Don’t say anything online that you couldn’t say in the classroom!
• Do not type in all caps. It’s hard to read, and it’s considered screaming and rude. 
• Check out examples of appropriate blog commenting
• Ultimately, before commenting on someone else's blog, ask yourself:  is it relevant? is it useful? is it appropriate? 

How will your blog be evaluated?

Your blog post will be part of my weekly evaluation of your progress.  

Evaluations will be scored as follows:

Advanced (100%)-Made good use of time, stayed on task, learned something new, accomplished goals or more, helped a classmate in need
Proficient (85%)-made good use of time, stayed on task 75% of the time, came close to accomplishing goals
Minimal (70%)- took several prompts to get started/stay on task, did not accomplish goals

Thinking like a historian!

              Over the last three weeks, we have put our "Historian Hats" to good use as we've developed our Historical Thinking skills.  We have practiced "sourcing" by examining Albert Einstein's 1939 letter to President Franklin Roosevelt.  We considered Who wrote the document? What is the author's perspective? Where was it written? Why was it written? and Is it reliable? We also learned that "contextualization" ( time and place) helped us better understand a source as we questioned when and were the document was created and brainstormed how the events before and during 1939 affected the content of the Einstein's letter. We did "close reading" of the letter by identifying Einstein's claims as well as the evidence and powerful language he used to convince President Roosevelt that further action was needed when it came to developing the atomic bomb. 

Other activities that have helped to build our historian thinking skills included  "corroborating" the first and final draft of Roosevelt's "Day Which Will Live in Infamy" Speech following the attacks on Pearl Harbor.   We also "corroborated" different sources related to Japanese Internment and General Douglas MacArthur in order to answer questions like... Why were Japanese Americans interned during World War II? and What kind of Leader was General MacArthur? 

I hope that these activities have planted some important questions in your head that you will consider as you come across sources on your own throughout your research.