The First Gas Attack

You will have seen in previous assignments how important historical primary sources are to understanding the past. So far I have given you historical primary sources with specific questions to answer.

This time I would like you to write an essay in which you will analyze a primary source in the context of the historical information in the textbook

What you have to do is read the primary source excerpt from Anthony R. Hossack and write an historically informed essay about what aspects of WWI the document sheds light on.- What can the historian learn from this document?

– What is a historically informed essay? When you analyze the document, you need to do so after reading the textbook so that you know exactly what he is talking about, can explain this to the reader, and the conclusions you draw about the document are informed ones.

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Guide to structuring this essay:

a paragraph introduction,

Introduce document and explain its historical context (who wrote it, when, where, and why), and what aspects or parts of history it tells us about, and provide your reader with your thesis statement (the main point you are going to make in your essay)

a brief background paragraph

in which you summarize the content of the document,

3 – 4 body paragraphs of analysis

in which you explain and support your argument about what we can learn from the document. Support should come in the form of short explained quotes from the document, and in the form of supporting evidence from the textbook chapter.

a concluding paragraph.-

In which you sum up the argument you made, re-stating your thesis (in different words)

You can write more if you wish, but you do not have to- so long as all the information-argument, evidence, contextualization- is in there.

. You should also look over the guide to writing essays.

A note about citation

– You are expected to include quotes from the primary source, but since there is only one primary source assigned for this essay, you do not need to cite it in the text of your essay. It should be clear from your writing that the quote is from the Hossack memoir. You should provide a citation for the memoir in a works cited at the bottom of your essay.

– You are expected to include specialist historical information from the textbook (in your own words). You should include the page number only in parenthesis in your essay.

You should provide a full citation for the textbook in your works cited at the end of your essay.

If the turnitin site is not not working, I have created an alternate assignment box just below this one on the modules page.