History 342

Devine/Dufresne

Fall 2014

Paper Assignment #1 Option C

This essay is due Saturday, October 18. You may email your essay to me as an email attachment. If you have already done an essay and would like to improve your grade, I suggest you consider doing this assignment. If you did not do the Option A or Option B essays, you must complete this assignment.

If you are submitting this essay as a draft and intend to work with a writing tutor on a revision of your essay, please indicate in the subject line of your email that the document you are submitting is a draft. Your final version will be due ONE WEEK after your appointment with the writing tutor. To make an appointment, call the History Department at 818.677.3566.

All students are welcome to make an appointment with me to go over a draft before submitting a revision and the same deadline will apply.

How Long?

• Papers MUST 900 words.

Format?

• Typed, double-spaced, 12-point font with one-inch margins all around.

• Please remember to number your pages.

• Give your essay a title that indicates what the paper is about. (Something more revealing than “Essay #1” or “The Cultural Revolution”) Clever titles will be duly noted.

• Base your essay entirely on the assigned course reading. You should not draw on any outside sources.

How to cite?

If you are quoting directly from a source, cite the author and page number in parentheses within the body of the text, i.e. (Heng, 47). All direct quotes MUST be in quotation marks and must be cited. Paraphrases of ideas drawn from the readings MUST also be cited.

How will I be graded?

You will be graded on:

1)  focus (does the paper make a clear argument that answers the question posed in the prompt?)

2)  evidence (do you back up your argument with specific information from the reading and class discussion?)

3)  coherence (is your argument consistent? do all of your sentences and paragraphs make sense? do your paragraphs flow in a logical order?)

4)  scope (does your paper deal with the question in appropriate depth and breadth? or is your argument superficial and backed up only with the most obvious evidence that we went over in class?)

If you have any questions or are in any way unsure about what you are being asked to do, be sure to speak with me via email or in person. 

THE ASSIGNMENT

Answer ONE of the following questions:

1. How did the Communist Party affect the daily lives of both the average Chinese peasant and urban dweller?

2. Critics of Communism have often argued that the first thing the Party does is to discourage anyone from having an independent or private thought. In essence, the people must simply obey the Party, which does all their thinking for them. To what extent does Liang Heng’s memoir support this point of view?

3. The Chinese Communist Party often forced its members to write “self-criticisms.” Arguably, however, the Communist Party itself might have benefited from reflecting on its own mistakes. Write an essay in which you present Chairman Mao with a “criticism” of his policies during the Cultural Revolution. Be sure to explain why the policies, regardless of their intent, ended up making life worse for most Chinese citizens.

4. In Mao’s China during the 1960s, what kinds of character traits and behavior did Chinese Communist Party officials praise and value and what kinds of character traits and behavior did they denounce and punish?