Martha’s Class Blog

Assignment Sheet 14/7-4/14 Due Tuesday: Religion and FreedomRead pp. 9-19  “Apostles of Liberty” in A Place at the Table Due Wednesday: The Road to Revolution Read pp.  84-93 “Victory’s New Problems” to“Success Weakens Colonial Unity” 

1. Outline the major events, complaints and ideas that led to the American Revolution.  Your notes must clearly give a definition for each major act and event: What is it?  Why is it important?
2. List what you think are three important causes of the revolution.  An event is not the same as a cause (for example, do not make an argument like “The election of Abraham Lincoln caused the Civil War”). Causes are exposed by events, but are less tangible, more personal and tend to last longer (e.g., “A growing disagreement over the virtue of labor caused the Civil War”).

 Due Thursday: The Rights of ManRead pp. 93-99 “Taking Charge…” through “Declaring Loyalties”Thomas Paine, “Thoughts on the present state of American affairs” (Section III of Common Sense, 1776) Available online at http://www.bartleby.com/133.3.htmlThe Declaration of Independence (1776)                Available online at http://www.bartleby.com/43/14.html 

1. Hector St. John de Crevevoeur, in his Letters from an American Farmer (1782) asked “What is this American – this new man?” Using the language of Common Sense and The Declaration, construct a found poem entitled “This New Man”.  The poem must have at least 150 words, all of which must come from these two documents.  You may use words more than once and you may change the conjugation of verbs, but you may not add any language of your own.
2. Skim the packet of readings you will be using for your upcoming paper. 

 Due Friday: Your First Paper Using the packet of documents you received in class, outline a 2-4 page paper.  Outlines should include your main argument (your thesis), several points that connect to that argument, and evidence (events or quotations) that support your points.  You may format it however you like as long as those three things are clearly presented.  You are to create an argument about the definition(s) of freedom in the era of the American Revolution.  This was a time when freedom was on everyone’s lips, but was everyone in agreement about what freedom was?  Your paper will propose an answer to the question.   Follow these steps before writing: 

1. After looking through all the documents in the packet, pick one from chapter 5 (“The American Revolution”) and one from Chapeter 6 (“The Revolution Within”) to analyze in your paper

1. Analyze the two documents you chose asking each of these questions: Where does he or she think freedom comes from?  Who makes people free?  What makes people free?  Who do they think is enjoying freedom in society at that time?  To what things is freedom connected?  On what does freedom depend?

1. Compare the answers you came up with to these questions for each document.  Note the agreements and disagreements about how each author talks about freedom.  How do you explain the disagreemtns?  Are the disagreements slight or radical?  How would the writers react to each others ideas of freedom?

1. Is the definition of freedom used to argue for the right of the colonies to be free from British rule essentially the same definition of freedom used to fight these “revolutions within” colonial society? 

 Pull together the ideas you came up with analyzing the documents to argue an answer to this question. Bring an outline into class on 4/11.  We’ll work on it together.  Final drafts will be due 4/14.   Due Monday: Paper Part TwoWrite the 2-4 page paper detailed above