Schedule of Assignments

Writing assignment 1:  due January 25, 2001.  
    Peruse the referenced website, read the observations of Saint Maurice, Primi Visconti  and the Princess Palatine, and then imagine yourself to be living at the court of Louis XIV at Versailles.  Write a letter home to a family member or friend that explains your experiences at the court and your perceptions of the king.  Try to include as many concrete details about court life as you can (these details should have some basis in factual reality), but also feel free to express your emotions.  

Writing assignment 2: due February 8, 2001.  
    In the past several years there has been a national debate over whether the Congress of the United States should formally apologize for slavery.  Read the following articles, which represent both pro and con arguments concerning the apology (Vincent Carroll, Howard Gleckman, Clarence Page, Leonard Pitts) and then write an essay that takes one side or the other.  Your essay should address the larger question of the importance of history in our lives.  Obviously, if history is unimportant to the day to day activities of the typical person, then apologies for past transgressions of whatever kind make little sense.  But if history is an important determinant of the present, then recognizing the "wrongs" of the past can be an important element in establishing a more just and equitable society.  You could believe the latter and still think an apology pointless (actions after all are much more important than words), but your opinion about the importance of history should be apparent from your essay.   You might want to think about the importance of history and of an apology in light of Thomas Jefferson's counsel that "History by apprising the people of the past will enable them to judge of the future."   

Writing assignment 3: due March 1, 2001.    This is a collective assignment in which a group of students will write a two-page position paper on the desirability of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen from the perspective of one of the three so-called "estates" at the time of the French Revolution.  Discussion section instructors will assign students to one of four groups representing the 1st Estate (clergy), the 2nd Estate (nobility), the 3rd Estate (bourgeoisie) and the 3rd Estate (peasantry).  In order to get a better sense of what kinds of reforms the various groups were interested in, you may want to read the following "cahiers" which to a limited degree reveal the outlook of each group (1st Estate, 2nd Estate, 3rd Estate).  Each group of students will submit one two-page, typed essay for a collective grade.  How you divide up the work necessary to complete the assignment or meet to discuss what you want to write is the responsibility of the group.  The way in which groups are organized is the responsibility of the discussion section instructor.  

Writing assignment 4: due April 5, 2001.  If the main themes of the Enlightenment were secularism, rationalism, and progress, read the following excerpt from the Communist Manifesto and explain how the ideas of Marx and Engels were outgrowths of the Enlightenment.   Make sure that your essay has an identifiable introduction, thesis, and conclusion.  Take a draft of your essay to the Writing Center and you will receive a higher grade for doing so!

Writing assignment 5: due April 19, 2001.  Review the diagram on page 752 of the textbook regarding modern ideologies.  In a two-page typed essay, explain how any two of the ideologies listed are related to liberalism.

Writing assignment 6: due May 3, 2001.   One of the main debates among scholars concerning the Holocaust is whether or not Hitler and the Nazis intended to commit genocide against the Jews from the beginning of their political power (the Intentionalist view) or whether the Holocaust resulted more from the unplanned consequences of Nazi rule and the of the war itself (the Functionalist view).  Read the minutes from the Wannsee Conference, which many scholars consider the blueprint for the Holocaust, and write an essay that cites specific evidence to support either argument.