History 476

Devine

Fall 2013

Essay #1 (Option C)

This essay is due Saturday, November 2nd by 11:59 pm. You may email your essay to me as an attachment (the preferred method), turn it in to the History Department office (Sierra Tower 610), or hand it to me in person. When you email your essay, send a “CC” copy to yourself so you will have proof of the time you sent the email if, for some reason, I do not receive it.

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 on the paper or in your email that the document you are submitting is a draft. Note that to take advantage of the opportunity to revise your draft, you must submit a complete draft. (If your draft is not complete, I will simply grade what you have handed in.) Your final version will be due ONE WEEK after your appointment with the writing tutor. To make an appointment, visit the writing center web site at http://www.csun.edu/social-behavioral-sciences/history/make-appointment

DIRECTIONS

HOW LONG SHOULD THE PAPER BE?

Papers MUST be 1500 words and no more than 1900 words.

HOW SHOULD I FORMAT THE PAPER?

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

• Please number your pages.

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

• Base your essay entirely on the assigned course reading. You do not have to (nor should you) draw on any outside sources.

HOW DO I 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. (Pielke, 67). All direct quotes MUST be in quotation marks and must be cited. Paraphrases of ideas drawn from the book MUST also be cited.

HOW WILL I BE GRADED?

You will be graded on:

1)    focus (do you have a thesis statement and does it answer the question asked?)

2)    evidence (do you back up your argument with specific information from the reading and is the supporting information especially effective in making your case)

3)    coherence (is your argument consistent and understandable throughout the piece?)

4)    scope (does your paper deal with the question in appropriate depth and breadth?)

THE ASSIGNMENT

Answer ONE of the following questions:

1. What aspects of mainstream American society did the Beats and their admirers find so alienating? Once they were able to emerge from the “folds of heterogeneity,” how did they express their alienation?

2. Why was rock’n’roll music such a challenge – perhaps even a revolutionary challenge – to long held mainstream American values?

In answering you should examine at least three the following issues:

n racial hierarchy/white supremacy

n racial “mixing”

n the protestant work ethic

n sexual expression

n respect for authority

3. Some critics have dismissed Elvis Presley as nothing more than “the white boy who stole the blues.” Why, according to Robert Pielke and Michael Bertrand, is this characterization fundamentally wrong? Beyond that, why does it miss Elvis’s larger significance as a “revolutionary” figure?