What historical moments, issues, challenges, outcomes, or trends that we have studied this semester(You can use events from the 15th century to the 21st century ) can you turn to in order to gain some useful perspective on the events of the last two years (approximately January 2020 to the present)?

The Backward Glance Leading to Self-Knowledge

In her address to the International Conference on Hunger in 1995 (Source 13.4), Mary Robinson suggests that history can act as a backward glance leading to self-knowledge in the present day. Review this source to understand Robinsons meaning in the context of how looking back at the 19th century helped her to think about the issue of hunger in her own time.

In that spirit, please reflect on and write me a letter (Dear Dr. Warren.) that addresses the following topic:

What historical moments, issues, challenges, outcomes, or trends that we have studied this semester(You can use events from the 15th century to the 21st century ) can you turn to in order to gain some useful perspective on the events of the last two years (approximately January 2020 to the present)?
In what specific way does reflecting on or analyzing these things help you to gain perspective on the present?
In your answer, please be as precise as possible, including references to at least three primary sources we have read, to explain how you understand the issues about which you are writing.
To get you moving in the right direction, it will be useful for you to understand what I mean by the word perspective?

I am thinking of perspective in one of the meanings of the term found in the Cambridge Dictionary of the English Language. Perspective means to think about a situation or problem in a wise and reasonable way.” Therefore to have perspective is to be able to compare something to other things so that it can be accurately and fairly judged.

Your grade will be based on:

–the quality of integration of materials from the course, based on the presence and accuracy of empirical observations about them.

–adherence to the basic frameworks of quality non-fiction, expository writing, like spelling, grammar, syntax, organization, and logic.

The following is a writing checklist to review before uploading your assignment . These are common errors in non-fiction expository writing that I would like you to fix before submitting your work.

Make sure you use possessives correctly (where does that apostrophe go?)
Minimize the passive voice
Use punctuation accurately
Avoid redundancy. Dont repeat the same idea over and over. You dont need to say the same thing repeatedly. (Get it?)
Dont overuse direct quotes from sources. You can summarize other peoples work just make sure you give them credit for their ideas. Thats what citations are for. Put the citation in parentheses at the end of the sentence.
Dont change verb tenses within sentences or paragraphs, unless it is an intentional pivot to make a point. Generally, if youre writing about the past, use the past tense. For the present, use the present tense, etc.
Make sure subjects and verbs agree in number
Think about when to capitalize nouns
Eliminated place holder language (e.g., sentences that start with words like, Clearly or I argue that)
Write in complete sentences. Unless you are deliberately using a sentence fragment for emphasis. Like this!

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