Your assignment is to write a short (two-page) essay analyzing CAN document 5.3, “Jesuit Jean de Freebee Discusses Life Among the Huron” [one of the assigned readings for Week 4]. Your essay should explore what the Freebee document can teach historians about French interactions with Native Peoples in North America. Instructions • This assignment gives you an opportunity to practice analyzing a single primary source document in-depth, a skill you will hone throughout the semester. • The first and most important step in completing this assignment is for you to take time to read the Freebee document carefully. • Pay attention to the contextual information provided in the editor’s introduction to the document. What sort of information do you get about the document? What information do you have about the author? The facts of publication? When was the document created, and why? How might this information affect your interpretation of its contents? • Be sure to look up any words that you are not familiar with (use the Oxford English Dictionary, which you can access through the “Databases” tab on the UH CL Library website). • Review your notes on the document, as well as any notes from our in-class discussion. • Once you have carefully read the document, take time to analyze it and develop an argument about it—look for underlying themes and consider the document’s significance. In particular, consider what the document reveals about the wider historical context (it’s this insight that will be the core of your argument). • Your essay needs a beginning, middle, and end (i.e., an introduction, supporting paragraphs, and a brief conclusion). Organize your essay around an argument, and state that argument clearly in a single sentence in the introduction. Support your argument with concrete and specific evidence from the document. • Please note that your essay needs to do more than summarize the document’s content. Instead, you need to critically analyze it. Don’t tell me what the document says, tell me what it means. • You may use our other course readings or lectures to provide historical context, but your primary focus should be on analyzing the Brebeuf document. Do not consult any other outside sources. I am interested only in your analysis of the document. • Formatting • 2 double-spaced pages long (2 full pages; no more, no less) • 12-point Times New Roman font for main text; 10-point Times New Roman font for footnotes • 1-inch margins on all sides • Single-spaced, right-justified heading that follows this format: • Number your pages and staple them together • Cite the source of all of the information you present using footnotes. You need citations when you include a direct quotation as well as when you are paraphrasing or summarizing information and ideas that are not your own. Each citation needs the author’s last name, an abbreviated title, and the relevant page number. Use the following examples as a guide: • Sample citation for a sentence that draws on information from page 84 of the Brebeuf document. • Sample citation for a sentence that draws on information from page 84 of the document and from pages 100-101 of the Taylor book. • I will evaluate your essay based on: • The quality and plausibility of your argument—i.e., whether it is thoughtful and based on a careful reading of the document. • How effectively you support that argument with concrete examples from the document, including a few carefully selected, short quotations (do not use long block quotations; it is better to paraphrase). • The quality of your writing—your prose should be clear and precise, free of grammatical and spelling errors, and you must follow the assignment instructions.
