This course guide will provide you with resources that will help you with your family history research project.   Your assignment is:

Final Paper Assignment: 30%

All students must write a seven-page, double-spaced research paper on the topic “The History of My Family.”  One of the course objectives is to teach students how to use primary and secondary sources for historical research.  In this project, students will learn how to identify, locate, and use primary and secondary sources that will help them write a research paper regarding the topic. The main focus of the project is to find out what sources are available and how to use them.  In this paper, students should demonstrate what kinds of primary and secondary sources are available regarding the topic, what possible life stories regarding the history of their families they can reconstruct by using the available sources, and in what ways these topics can contribute to our understanding of the related historical periods.
In this paper, students should not only discuss the topics of their choice, but also should do so in the context of a meaningful historical background analysis of the time periods they chose to write about and connect to the discussion of social justice/injustice.  Chicago Manual of Style is required for footnotes and bibliography.  The manual is available at: http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/tools_citationguide.html

We have a library class scheduled on Tuesday, 2/2/2021.  A library Archivist will teach us how and where to locate data for the background research required for the project.  We should also think “out of the box,” exploring unconventional sources and ways of gathering historical sources.  Students must turn in an outline and annotated bibliography for the research project on 3/30/2021.  The outline must include: topic, research question(s), theme, and annotated bibliography.  Students must use at least four scholarly sources from the Library for the project.  Please do not use Wikipedia as a source.  Online sources must be from the library databases and properly cited.  The finished research paper is due on 5/7/2021.  Each student is required to produce a 2-3 minute power-point presentation of his/her paper on 5/4/2021. If you have questions regarding the project, feel free to see me.