I have attached my First paper to use as well.
Make sure you discuss the key points of each approach, what it focused on, what it hoped it would explain in terms of History, and how it challenged previous approaches (which means you should look at these approaches in a chronological way). The approaches to discuss are: Empiricism, Materialism (Marxist, class-based, and Economic History), the Social Science approaches (History with Laws), the New Social and New Cultural Histories, Gender, and the “posts” (Postmodern, Poststructural, and Postcolonial). For more details, look under Content, Week 8, Final Assessment Paper.
Question: What are main points of the following historical approaches and how were these approaches often a reaction to (often challenging) previous historical approaches? Make sure you discuss the key points of each approach, what it focused on, what it hoped it would explain in terms of History, and how it challenged previous approaches (which means you should look at these approaches in a chronological way). The approaches to discuss are: Empiricism, Materialism (Marxist, class-based, and Economic History), the Social Science approach (History with Laws), the Social History and Cultural History approaches, Gender approach, and the “posts” (Postmodern, Poststructural, and Postcolonial) approaches.
Format: Your paper should be double spaced with 1″ margins all around. Font size should be 10 or 12 with an easily readable font such as Times New Roman, Garamond, Arial, Calibri, or Avenir. Papers should be submitted in .doc or .docx format.
Thesis: You should have a thesis sentence in the first paragraph that tells the reader what you will argue. A thesis is a statement that provides an overarching answer to the question and introduces your main points of argument. Your thesis should explain the point of these approaches and how they developed in relation to each other in a big picture way. You should start your discussion of each approach or related group of approaches with a sub-thesis that states what the approach(s) are about in a big way. If you do not have a strong thesis statement and sub-theses, then you do not have a strong paper. Generally, no paper without a clear and effective thesis earns an A in this class. Remember that in History we start off by telling our readers our argument and then present our facts to prove that argument.
Citations and Sources: For this paper you should use short parenthetical citations with the author(s) last name and page number. Just use the author(s) last names. For multi-author sources, use both last names. Use only the course materials. Do not use outside sources as this paper is designed to measure your understanding of the course materials. You must cite any idea you found in one of the course readings. Because of that, your paper will need several citations, probably at least one or two per supporting point paragraph.
Helpful Notes: The final exam paper is designed to demonstrate your understanding of the historical approaches (the discussion 2s) we have discussed in Weeks 2 to 7 as well as the general need for historical approaches that we discussed in Week 1. So the discussions are the best places to review before writing your paper (along with the applicable readings). Look at what you wrote in the Discussion 2s of each week as that is what the content of your paper should be about. This paper is not about what is History, we covered that in our midterm paper, instead this assessment is about the approaches that historians have developed to help us approach and better understand the past.
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