History 371HON
Fall 2014
Devine/Thompson
Paper Assignment #1 Option B
This essay is due Monday, October 6. You may email your
essay to me as an email attachment. If you did not submit an Option A paper, 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 1500
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 “Children of the City”)
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. (Nasaw, 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:
Question
#1
In 1915, one “child saving” reformer
declared,
“These children out on the city
streets are having their childhood stolen from them. They are exploited by greedy adults, denied a
proper education, and become victims to the darker forces that are all around
them. They are exposed to all the wrong values, corrupted by their adventures
on the streets, and left ill-prepared to become honest, hard-working citizens
when they grow up. It is outrageous and a failure of our society that we allow
them to live such lives.”
Upon hearing this, “Smitty,” a twelve-year-old newsie
responded, “Ahh, she’s nuts. None a’ that stuff is true at all.”
Who do you think is closer to
the truth, the reformer or “Smitty?”
In answering, establish in the first
paragraph (or even better, the first sentence) who you think is closer to the
truth – the reformer or “Smitty.” To make things
easier on yourself, use the reformer’s quote as a guide to organize your paper.
Address each point she makes and evaluate to what extent the evidence in Nasaw’s book confirms or refutes that point. Cite specific
evidence from Children of the City to
support your evaluation.
Question
#2
Social scientists have long argued
that the environment in which
young people grow up and the experiences
they have as children dramatically affect the kind of adults they become. Their
work ethic, their values, their assumptions about how the world works, their
character strengths and flaws, their attitudes about earning and spending
money, their openness to new experiences, even the way they interact with the
people around them -- all, to some extent, are attributable to environment and
experience.
How did the environment in which the
“children of the city” grew up and the experiences they had as children shape
them? Overall, would you say their environment and experiences had a positive
or a negative impact on these turn of the century kids?
Support your answer by drawing on a
wide variety of specific evidence from Nasaw’s, Children of the City.
Question
#3
Create a character and tell his or
her story of growing up in the city around the turn of the 20th
century (i.e. 1895-1905). This may take the form of an “autobiography,” a short
story, a letter, or a series of diary entries. Try to be as detailed and
authentic as possible, drawing from specific information Nasaw’s
Children of the City.
Among the various things you might
include in your story: your character’s age and ethnic background, what things
your character does, what games s/he plays, where s/he lives, what it is like
to live there, how s/he makes money, some of his/her “tricks of the trade” at
work, what s/he likes to spend money on, the requirements of his/her job,
his/her likes and dislikes, the different things s/he sees during the course of
a day, what s/he thinks of his/her parents, what s/he thinks of other adults
(policemen, reformers, teachers), his/her favorite places, why s/he likes or
dislikes living in a city.
You will also want to describe the
surroundings in which s/he lives: what does his/her neighborhood
look/smell/sound like? How is it different that neighborhoods s/he works in?
What things might your character see and do during the course of a normal day?
This is your chance to be creative
while still demonstrating you have carefully read the book. The most important
thing (and the way to get a good grade) is to make clear to the reader that you
are familiar with the material in David Nasaw’s book
and are able to put that material together into a coherent story. Be sure your
paper is historically accurate – that is, don’t have your character watching TV
or listening to the radio when the setting is the year 1910. The best papers
will literally transport the reader back in time so they can experience what
life was like for a young “child of the city.”