you will be analyzing three letters sent to President Franklin Roosevelt during the height of the Great Depression. They are a minuscule sample of the roughly fifteen million sent to the President and his First Lady, Eleanor Roosevelt.
Your essay must do the following:
1. Place the document within its larger historical context using the textbook and lecture notes as your guide. Identify and examine the specific themes and issues from the covered material that are represented in the document. Your connections need to be clear and detailed.
2. Identify the major purposes and intended audiences of the document. You need to be very specific.
3. Using the document as your evidence, make at least two historical conclusions about everyday Americans during the New Deal years of the Depression. Your conclusions must be clearly stated and explained in your essay.
Your essay must be a minimum of two complete double-spaced pages with 12-point, Times New Roman font. It should be written in a comprehensive format with an introduction, thesis statement, specific examples (this does not mean large quotes from the text), citations, and a conclusion. *It should not include any outside sources other than lecture notes and textbook without prior approval.
IMPORTANT INFORMATION
The idea here is to engage with the primary source provided, and to keep it at the center of your analysis. Students sometimes want to write a grand narrative about the events and people involved. That is not a good strategy. You should show your reader specifically how the document connects to the relevant history covered in the material.
I recognize this is most likely a brand-new type of writing for you, and I take into consideration when I grade your work. I will give you lots of feedback, and if something is unclear, please don’t hesitate to ask me. I want you to be successful.
This document is a primary source. Treat it the same way you would any contemporary source you come across. We do not take news stories, personal accounts, or political speeches at face value. This document needs the same kind of investigation and evaluation.
The best essays are ones with a strong thesis statement that includes historical conclusions and uses clear evidence and historical context from the document and covered material to prove them.