Essay Assignment One

Due Date: See Syllabus
Three Copy Peer Review: See Syllabus

Assignment Length: 4-5 pages
Double-spaced, 12 point Font

Assignment Goal

The goal of this assignment is to successfully argue whether or not you believe the "cultures of slavery" found in either or both of the Anglo-English and Latin American societies resembles, in any form, the factory capitalism that emerged parallel to it and that continued after the Emancipation and Civil War in the United States.

Your argument may turn on whether certain similarities exist, or it may turn upon the differences between the two methods of economy. Perhaps factory capitalism resembles some aspects of South-western slavery, but not North-western. Perhaps you will instead chose to write about the key differences between the two. 

Note: Your main texts will be Frank Tannenbaum's Slave and Citizen, Rebecca Harding Davis' Life in the Iron Mills, and four films (see syllabus).

When considering the perspectives of these texts, you will have the option of agreeing with certain arguments they make, disagreeing with those arguments, or agreeing/disagreeing with them depending on some significant qualification that you want to make. By qualification, I mean a type of argument that accepts some, but not all, of another argument (in this case, his argument(s)).

Assignment Description

In order to construct this essay, you will need to use excellent summaries, supporting evidence, organized paragraphs, quotation and citation, and critical thinking. We will introduce and review these techniques over the next month.

We will also read Tannenbaum's text and Harding's novel over the next month. These will be your main sources, but I will also expect you to incorporate at least one other academic source into your discussion. We will review what I mean by academic sources, and we will review where to find them.

It will be important that you discover Tannenbaum's main points, and also important that you're able to distinguish your own perspective from his. You will be able to distinguish your own perspective by examining the claims he makes (claims=supporting arguments to his major argument), the evidence he uses, and by discovering his biases and perhaps prejudices. Your first blog will ask you to document your key findings. 

It's important to remember that this assignment isn't asking you to form an argument that totally answers the question about any similarities or differences between these experiences of these 19th century economnic forms in the United States. You're "in conversation" with Tannenbaum and Davis, and your argument and point of view about slavery and factory life will form in conversation to theirs. Having said this, you're welcome to introduce other sources that help you form your own argument and support it. It's also possible that your own perspective may very much agree with one of their claims, or even their major claims. This is fine, but your thesis will then discuss why you agree with them, and you will qualify that argument through a discussion of the text.

For help with writing college essays, see this text:

Gerald Graff and Cathy Birkenstein, They Say / I Say (PDF)
            http://isites.harvard.edu/fs/docs/icb.topic507971.files/They%20Say%20I%20Say.pdf

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