History 342

Devine/Dufresne

Fall 2014

Paper Assignment #1 Option B

This essay is due Friday, October 10. You may email your essay to me as an email attachment. If you choose not to do this assignment, you may complete Option C.

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 “Vietnam”) 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. (Hayslip, 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. Drawing on what you have read in Hayslip’s memoir, explain why the Vietcong was more effective than the both Republicans and the Americans in winning the “hearts and minds” of the Vietnamese peasants.

2. If one defines “victory” as expelling the Americans and unifying the entire nation of Vietnam, the Vietnamese people won the war. One commentator, however, has argued that despite being “victors” in this narrow sense, the Vietnamese people ended up losing far more than they won as a result of the war with the Americans. Having read Hayslip’s memoir, to what extent do you agree with this assessment?

3. The Vietcong and the northern leaders changed over time, and, according to Hayslip, not always for the better. How did they change and why did they change?

4. How does the fact that Hayslip is a woman in a traditional society make the war even more difficult for her to endure?

5. Le Ly’s father tells her that “war” – and not the Vietcong, the Republicans, or the Americans -- is the enemy. What does he mean by this? Having read Hayslip’s memoir, to what extent do you agree with him?