Thesis & Paragraph Exercise:
Purpose: Expand on the practice of writing a thesis (one of your most important objectives for the course), and this time, you will write an entire paragraph. In social science or historical writing, if only one-paragraph, the thesis is the first sentence. (In an essay, the thesis statement is ALWAYS located in the last sentence of the first paragraph, also called the introductory paragraph.)
As you may recall from the last assignment, a thesis is a persuasive argument, or analysis, supported by facts (who/what/when/where, as well as the why/how, which are the most important questions). Again, think of historians like detectives! Also important is learning how to read a primary or secondary source, to learn how historians analyze and incorporate sources as historical evidence, analyzing the historical context, as well as content.)
The Assignment: First, choose, read and analyze a primary or secondary source. Then, write your one-paragraph response, and pay particular attention to your thesis. Another way to think about it, is to answer the question: what is historically significant about the primary or secondary source? what does it reveal about the past? i.e. What might this document reveal about its authors? What kinds of values are promoted in this document? or what does it reveal about the people we are studying?
Highlight your good thesis word.
Hint: See RUBRIC to achieve your best score (by clicking on the wheel at the top right). One paragraph essays might have 5 good sentences. For the best scores, be sure and include the thesis (first sentence if writing only one-paragraph) 3 points and a concluding sentence (last sentence if writing only one-paragraph). who/what/when/where/why/how as well as terms from lectures, videos and readings. Study guide terms included. References to readings/text/lectures are helpful. May help to review the modules on the thesis Link,
Thesis video: Link
Video on “How to Read Primary or Secondary Sources,” Link
Purdue Online Writing Center Tips Link
Future Quiz Tip: many of your multiple choice questions will be based on the primary sources below, so read them all carefully with special attention to the question hints as well as study guide terms.
Example:
Question: What is historically significant about the primary or secondary source X?
Example Thesis Response: The sixth century primary source, “Cosmas Indicopleustes on Trade in Southern India,” is historically significant in that it demonstrates the importance of India and Ceylon in the larger Indian Ocean trade and economy that connected three continents: Asia, Africa, and Southwest Asia (the Middle East) in the first millennium. [thesis] Cosmas Indicopleustes, a Christian Egyptian monk writes a travel narrative called The Christian Topography and depicts the great marketplace of Ceylon (modern Sri Lanka), just southeast of India, as the pepper country. [point 1] Both India and Ceylon played a vital role in the Indian Ocean trade, as it was the halfway point between China or East Asia and East Africa and Southwest Asia. [point 2] He describes the island kingdom, as a centrally located market place, with ships from Persia, Ethiopia and China. Many ships coming from either direction, went halfway and traded with other merchants who came from the other direction, so they only needed to go to South Asia. [point 3] Alternatively, the ships that went the full route across the Indian Ocean, could stop for supplies or wait there for winds to change. [point 4] Ideas as well as goods are traded on long-distance trade networks. Because of its strategic importance to trade, there is a Christian presence, both a church and a community of Persian Christians. [point 5] Indicopleustes describes the abundance of luxury goods from all over the Indian Ocean, and one of the most interesting for him, was elephants. He was intrigued that they are caught wild, then tamed and used for war. This document is historically significant in that it demonstrates that in addition to goods, Africans, Arabs and Asians traded ideas and religion along the Indian Ocean network and silk roads that connected three continents. [concluding sentence]
Choose from one of these documents found in modules (remember to write from a historical and objective lens of the student of history):
PS: Zarathustra on Good and Evil, from the Divine Songs of Zarathustra. ?
PS: Aristotle, Politics Fifth century BCE
PS: Matthew Chapter 5-6, 28-35 CE? (New International Version)
PS: Arius. Letter to Alexander, Bishop of Alexandria. (c.320 CE) & The Nicene Creed (c.325 CE)
PS: Marco Polo on Mongol Military Tactics – 1200s.
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