Trail of Tears
PROMPT
Introduction: In this section of your essay, you will introduce your readers to the historical event you selected. Specifically, you should:
A. Provide a brief overview of your historical event.
B. Based on your research question, develop a main statement that states your claim about the historical event you selected.
II. Body: You will use this section of your essay to provide further detail about your historical event while supporting the claim you made in your main statement. Make sure to cite your sources. Specifically, you should:
A. Describe the causes of the historical event.
B. Illustrate the course of your historical event.
C. Describe the immediate and long-term consequences of the historical event for American society.
D. Discuss the historical evidence that supports your conclusions about the impact of the event on American society. Support your response with specific examples from your sources.
III. Conclusion: In this section of your essay, you will discuss the impact of historical thinking. Specifically, you should:
A. Explain why this historical event is important to you personally.
B. Illustrate how your research of the historical event impacted the way you thought about the event. Support your response with specific examples.
C. Explain how a historian would pursue further study of your main statement.
IV. Provide a reference list that includes all of the primary and secondary sources you used to investigate your historical event and support your main statement.
V. Communicate your message in a way that is tailored to your specific audience. For instance, you could consider your vocabulary, your audience’s potential current knowledge of historical events, or lack thereof, and what is specifically important to the audience.
