SURVEY OF UNITED STATES HISTORY

Order Description Historians work with two types of sources: primary and secondary. Primary sources are letters, diaries, films, photographs, newspaper articles, and any other artifacts that were produced by people living through the events of a historical period. Historians study and draw on these sources in order to recreate the past for the current generation. These recreations are called secondary sources. Secondary sources are books, articles, and websites that historians and other authors write about the past—A People and a Nation is an example of a secondary source. In this assessment, you will work with one of the following four time periods in United States history: • English Colonization and the Road to Revolution • The Early Republic and the American Civil War • Reconstruction and the Age of American Imperialism • The Making of Modern America A. Write an essay (suggested length of 2–3 pages) on one of the historical periods from the list provided in the introduction, using the corresponding primary sources. In your essay, do the following: 1. Analyze the point of view of primary source A by doing the following: a. Describe the major characteristics of primary source A (e.g., the author’s background, the main ideas presented, the reasons it was created). b. Explain how primary source A reflects the major events of the chosen historical period (e.g., social movements, developing ideologies, international conflicts). 2. Analyze the point of view of primary source B by doing the following: a. Describe the major characteristics of primary source B (e.g., the author’s background, the main ideas presented, the reasons it was created). b. Explain how primary source B reflects the major events of the chosen historical period (e.g., social movements, developing ideologies, international conflicts). 3. Discuss how the two primary sources relate to each other within their historical context. B. Provide acknowledgement of source information, using in-text citations and references, for quoted, paraphrased, or summarized content. 1. Include the following information when providing source references: • author • date • title • location of information (e.g., publisher, journal, or website URL)