History 371

Devine

Fall 2010

 

Essay Assignment #1 (Option A)

 

INSTRUCTIONS

 

Your first essay is due September 12 by 11:59 pm.  If you do not wish to do this paper, you can wait for the next essay assignment (Option B).  If I do not receive your paper by 11:59 pm on September 12th, I will assume you are doing Option B.  You may email your essay to me as an attachment, turn it in to the History Department office (Sierra Tower 610) during business hours, or hand it to me in person. I am willing to read and go over drafts with you.

 

I prefer you email the paper to me since this is the best way to ensure that your paper does not get lost.  When emailing, send a copy to yourself on the “cc” line. If you receive the email, it’s likely I did as well. I will send you a confirmation email when I receive your paper, however, it is YOUR RESPONSIBILITY (and not the email server’s) that I get it. (“But I sent it to you – didn’t you get it?” will not be a legitimate excuse for a late paper.)  Please “cc” Shirley as well.

 

How Long? 

Papers MUST be 1500 words. If you use MS Word 2003, you can check number of words by pulling down the FILE menu, selecting PROPERTIES, and then clicking on the STATISTICS tab.

 

Format?

• Typed, double-spaced, 12-point font with one-inch margins all around.  Margins can be set by using the FILE menu in MS Word and choosing “Page set up.”

 

• Please number your pages (use the INSERT menu on MS Word and choose “Page numbers…”)

 

• Give your essay a title that reflects what the paper is about. (Something more revealing than “Essay #1” or “Fools Crow Paper”) Clever titles will be duly noted.

 

How to cite?

 

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

 

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 or the teaching assistant via email or in person.

 

 

Answer ONE of the following four questions:

 

  1. “Native Americans played an active role in their own history using strategies of appropriation, accommodation, and assimilation.  They had an understanding of their situation and tried to adapt to changing situations; they were ‘preparing to be colonized.’” 

 

     To what extent does James Welch’s Fools Crow support this statement?  In making your case pro or con, draw on specific examples from the book to show that your argument is true.

 

 

  1. Often Native Americans are presented as stereotypes or as one-dimensional characters – “uncivilized savages” or, alternatively, “noble savages.”  James Welch’s Fools Crow sets out to transcend such stereotypical or overly simplistic portrayals.  To what extent does the novel succeed in doing so and how does the author manage to present a more complex portrait of individual Native Americans and the Native Americans’ role in the broader narrative of American history?

 

  1. How did the male and female Lone Eaters achieve a high status within the tribe?  Did the women have less status than the men in Indian society? Were men dominant and women subordinate in this culture?  Or were the gender relations more complicated than this?  To what extent did Indian gender roles differ from those of the whites?  In answering these questions, be sure to cite specific examples from the novel that show what you’re saying is true.

 

 

  1. How did the Lone Eaters’ habits, attitudes, and, more broadly, their entire culture begin to change once they came into more frequent contact with the Napikwans?  In what ways did interaction with whites change the lives and habits of the Lone Eaters? How did acquiring knowledge about the whites’ culture affect the Lone Eaters’ attitudes about their own culture?  Cite specific examples from the novel that illustrate the changes in culture and changes in attitude among the Lone Eaters.