Description

FINAL PAPER

DUE: April 29 by 11:59 pm

This semester you are required to write a paper that considers the history of American citizenship & immigration.

Your paper should address the following questions:

• Historically, how has the United States defined and establish citizenship? How has this changed over time? Have there been restrictions placed on who can become a citizen in the United States? If so, explain the restrictions–who did they applied to?
• Define “race” and “ethnicity.” How have immigrants’ race and/or ethnicity impacted their immigration experience to the US? What are the US’ philosophies of race and ethnicity and how have they changed over time?
• How did the US treat America’s first non-citizens, Africans? Historically, how has the US handled African American citizenship? Has this changed over time?
• How did the US handle citizenship for other immigrant groups that we discussed in this course?

You must use these questions and create a thesis statement that introduces your paper and your point of view. Don’t think of this assignment as address 4 separate prompts—you should find a way to make this a cohesive paper.

You must address Forced African immigration as well as 2 other groups of your choosing that we discuss this semester in class. This assignment will be turned in, in 4 different steps.

Step IV: Final Paper (220)

This assignment requires students to turn in the final draft of their paper. This rough draft must include: A strong thesis statement, an introductory paragraph, body paragraphs, and a strong conclusion paragraph.

You should present and answer “big questions” about race and ethnicity in American history in a refined and professional manner using specific information from class as evidence for your arguments and observations. You should also show that you have taken feedback from the previous writing assignments and that you made revisions when necessary. This is your final draft so we are looking for something close to perfection. This is your time to shine!

RUBRIC

Guidelines & Point Distribution (220 points)

• Paper has a strong thesis statement
• Paper has a strong introductory paragraph that introduces material effectively
• Paper has well written and thoughtful body paragraphs
• Paper has a strong and thoughtful conclusion
• Student has taken edits seriously from previous assignments and made revisions to reflect those edits
• Grammar is correct and tone is professional. The draft is free from major grammatical errors and the tone is formal in nature
• Paper presents clear ideas and supports them with evidence

DON’T LOSE POINTS:

1,600 words are required for this assignment

Students may go up to 150 words over or 100 words under with no penalty. Students who go 151+ words over or 101+ words under will lose 15 points

– 50 If you don’t address Forced African Immigration

– 30 if you only discuss 1 additional immigrant group

– 60 if you fail to discuss 2 additional immigrant group

Students MUST INCLUDE A WORD COUNT on their paper. If no word count is included students will lose 25 points

More information on Mechanics[1]:

Introduction/Context:

Your introduction provides context to your readers to prepare them for your paper’s argument or purpose. An introduction should begin with discussion of your specific topic (not a broad background overview) and provide just enough context (definitions of key terms, for example) to prepare your readers for your thesis or purpose statement.

Sample Introduction/Context: If the topic of your paper is the link between educational attainment and health, your introduction might do the following: (a) establish the population you are discussing, (b) define key terms such as healthy and well-educated, or (c) justify the discussion of this topic by pointing out a connection to a current problem that your paper will help address.

Thesis Statement:

A thesis or purpose statement should come at the end of your introduction and state clearly and concisely what the purpose or central argument of your paper is. The introduction prepares your reader for this statement, and the rest of the paper follows in support of it.

Sample Thesis Statement: Because of their income deficit (Smith, 2010) and general susceptibility to depression (Jones, 2011), students who drop out of high school before graduation maintain a higher risk for physical and mental health problems later in life.

Background

After the initial introduction, background on your topic often follows. This paragraph or section might include a literature review surveying the current state of knowledge on your topic or simply a historical overview of relevant information. The purpose of this section is to justify your own project or paper by pointing out a gap in the current research which your work will address.

Sample Background: A background section on a paper on education and health might include an overview of recent research in this area, such as research on depression or on decreasing high school graduation rates.

Major & Minor Points

Major points are the building blocks of your paper. Major points build on each other, moving the paper forward and toward its conclusion. Each major point should be a clear claim that relates to the central argument of your paper.

Sample Major Point: Employment and physical health may be a good first major point for this sample paper. Here, a student might discuss how dropping out of high school often leads to fewer employment opportunities, and those employment opportunities that are available tend to be correlated with poor work environments and low pay.

Minor points are subtopics within your major points. Minor points develop the nuances of your major points but may not be significant enough to warrant extended attention on their own. These may come in the form of statistics, examples from your sources, or supporting ideas.

Sample Minor Point: A sample minor point of the previous major point (employment and physical health) might address worker injury or the frequent lack of health insurance benefits offered by low-paying employers.

The rest of the body of your paper will be made up of more major and minor points. Each major point should advance the paper’s central argument, often building on the previous points, until you have provided enough evidence and analysis to justify your paper’s conclusion.

More Major and Minor Points: In this paper, more major points might include mental health of high school dropouts, healthcare access for dropouts, and correlation between mental and physical health. Minor topics could include specific work environments, job satisfaction in various fields, and correlation between depression and chronic illness.

Conclusion

Your conclusion both restates your paper’s major claim and ties that claim into a larger discussion. Rather than simply reiterating each major and minor point, quickly revisit your thesis statement and focus on ending the paper by tying your thesis into current research in your field, next steps for other researchers, your broader studies, or other future implications.

Sample Conclusion: For this paper, a conclusion might restate the central argument (the link between lack of education and health issues) and go on to connect that discussion to a larger discussion of the U.S. healthcare or education systems.

WRITING ABOUT HISTORY

You should not approach this assignment as if you are creating a wikipedia page. Your Zine project must be an exercise in writing about history. What does this mean? It means that you should not simply recap your notes in a wiki-style straight forward presentation of facts. Writing about history is actually arguing a point of view or perspective. For this reason you need to push beyond simply recapping facts and tell us WHY these facts matter, WHAT these facts tell us about about American history and American pesent. Your Zine needs a point of view beyond, “this happened.” Your zine should also tell us why it is important that people know these facts. What are some potential pitfalls to not knowing these facts? Please pay attention to this part of the project. It is impossible to get an A on this assignment if you don’t adequately provide a perspective of the history you are presenting.

[1] Information from https://academicguides.waldenu.edu/writingcenter/writingprocess/outlining (Links to an external  site.)