History 574

Devine

Spring 2008

FINAL EXAM

If a “Rip Van Winkle” character who had fallen asleep in 1945 woke up again in 2000, what would strike him as different about the United States and what might he find much the same? If he asked you to explain what factors brought about the major changes and what accounts for the continuities, what would you tell him?

In answering, draw on a wide variety of course readings. When paraphrasing or quoting from specific readings, you can cite them within the text – i.e. (Haynes, 47).

Your essay must be at least 8 full pages and no longer than 10 full pages. I must receive your essay by 11:59 pm Thursday, May 15^th.

Please give your essay an appropriate title, number your pages, use one inch margins, and attach a bibliography page that gives the full cite of each source you used in the essay.

The strategy here is to develop a thesis and mine the readings for evidence to support it. There are any number of ways to go with this question and a variety of emphases you might choose. Regardless of how you proceed, be sure to show what you say is true by introducing specific evidence that demonstrates the validity of your thesis rather than “telling” me things are true but not demonstrating why they are.

Ultimately, your challenge is to write a sharply focused argument that demonstrates your mastery of the material covered in the course. A stand out essay will support its thesis by citing particularly apt examples from a variety of the readings. You want to avoid composing an essay full of sweeping generalizations that you could have written without having taken this course. That said, you will also need to be concise – don’t dedicate a third of the paper to recounting all the details of one author’s argument while neglecting to mention half of the other readings.