Assignment Question
You are asked to write three gobbets of 500 words each section
1. Joshua 6:22-25, New Revised Standard Version, available at https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Joshua+6&version=NRSVA 22 Joshua said to the two men who had spied out the land, “Go into the prostitute’s house, and bring the woman out of it and all who belong to her, as you swore to her.” 23 So the young men who had been spies went in and brought Rahab out, along with her father, her mother, her brothers, and all who belonged to her – they brought all her kindred out – and set them outside the camp of Israel. 24 They burned down the city, and everything in it; only the silver and gold, and the vessels of bronze and iron, they put into the treasury of the house of the LORD. 25 But Rahab the prostitute, with her family and all who belonged to her, Joshua spared. Her family has lived in Israel ever since. For she hid the messengers whom Joshua sent to spy out Jericho.
2. Ulrich Trumpener, ‘The Road to Ypres: The Beginnings of Gas Warfare in World War I’, The Journal of Modern History, Sep, 1975, Vol. 47, No 3, pp 460-480, p.468. https://www.jstor.org/stable/1876002 [accessed 9 November 2023]. ‘At the Hague Peace Conference of 1899, many nations, including Germany, had formally agreed to a number of rules and limitations in the conduct of war. Among other things, they had pledged not to “employ poison or poisoned weapons,” or “arms, projectiles, or material calculated to cause unnecessary suffering,” or to make “use of projectiles the sole object of which is the diffusion of asphyxiating or deleterious gases.” By interpreting these clauses very literally, General von Falkenhayn and his advisers satisfied themselves that, quite apart from the “provocation” already offered by the French with their cartouches suffocantes, both the T-shells and the chlorine cloud gas were permissible weapons under the Hague Convention.” p468 3. 9. Attorney general Jeremy Wright, ‘The Modern Law of Self-Defence’, Speech at International Institution for Strategic Studies, 11 January, 2017, [accessed 2 November 2023]. ‘At the time of 9/11, social media, Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp and the like, did not exist. Technology was far less mobile. Now it is used to evade law enforcement, to conceal those who would do us harm, and to inspire attacks around the world that previously would have taken months of planning. Those earlier attacks would have had to overcome the logistical hurdles and law enforcement barriers that come from crossing borders. Now, an individual so inclined can watch a video on YouTube, source an instruction manual on homemade explosions on the Dark Web, and act on whatever misconceived ideology that have absorbed, all in a short space of time, without travelling around and without direct communication with an established organisational leadership. The world is changing fast and we must make sure the law is keeping up.’
In general terms, the goal of the exercise is to achieve three things:
1. Identify the source of the text or image beyond the information which has been given to you. Is it characteristic of the work of a particular author or movement? When was it produced and in what circumstances? To what historical events, if any, does it relate?
2. Comment on the content of the source and clarify any points that are unclear. This requires close reading and consideration of the internal evidence, that is to say the evidence provided from within the text or image itself.
3. Assess the significance of the source by relating it to some more general historical context, movement or event. Each gobbet will have at least one specific point that should be addressed or analysed, and usually more. Always consider why a particular passage or image has been chosen.
Focus your commentary on what strikes you as interesting in this gobbet. There are two particular dangers to avoid:
1. Just paraphrasing the text or describing the image.
2. Writing a general essay on the issues alluded to in the passage, rather than focussing on points in the particular source set for analysis. How to approach a text Analysing a text requires an active approach. You have to ask questions. Don’t expect the meaning to emerge simply by virtue of your looking at it. The answers, in short, are unlikely simply to jump out of the page; they need to be teased out by applying a set of procedures which needs to be learned. There are a number of questions to ask of any particular document. Some overlap, others will not be relevant for all documents. Nevertheless, awareness of these different questions is a good foundation for approaching a document and writing a gobbet. They represent a basis for making some initial notes, from which you can start identifying the most significant material and prioritizing that in your subsequent drafts.
• Can you give an accurate date to the source? In historical texts, is the author writing about the contemporary world, or about an earlier period in history, and how does this affect what they say?
• What is the genre of document? Is it an inscriiption, charter, letter, memo, legal text, chap- book, private letter, diary entry, published article, etc.?
• Do we know the identity of the author of the document in question? If relevant, what was their geographical, social or institutional location – in short, what was their background? What were their opinions and to what extent does their identity and personal history shed light upon the nature of the source being considered? Is the text characteristic of the work of a particular author or movement?
• What is the purpose of the document in question? What was the author trying to achieve with it? Is it straightforward to identify the purpose behind the document’s production?
• What can you say about the intended audience for the document? If the intended audience is not specified, what factors in the source point to the identity of that audience? To what extent is the document orientated towards that audience’s viewpoint? Does it aim to reinforce, or to challenge, existing views? It may be that you will need to suggest several possible answers.
• What issues are raised by the document? What, of its content, is of significance? Were these issues ones of great contemporary relevance? Have they remained so, or does a latter-day audience see in the work things never intended by the author? Does that matter? Does it influence our understanding of the document in question?
• What is the context of the document? For the literary context: consider what follows or precedes the selected passage. Discuss how it fits into the work’s overall themes, and its place in the plot and narrative development. How does it relate to previous or subsequent events? If it is a speech, who is the speaker? For all documents, how typical or distinctive is the source? How does it relate to other texts of the period? Viewed in its original context, is it representative, innovative or aberrant? Was the work contributing to an existing debate? Can it be best understood in the light of events which are not explicitly mentioned in the source?
• Look carefully at the language used in the document. If there are words or phrases that are unfamiliar, look them up. Is a particular style, tone or register involved? What rhetorical properties does the text possess, and to what ends are they being deployed by the author?
• Read the work with a view to identifying any contradictions that may be present. It is often very easy to accept something simply because it appears in print and thus carries a certain authority. But read the work with a critical eye. If it is presenting an argument, consider whether the author has confronted the appropriate counter-arguments, and assess the use of evidence. Does it really support the case?
• What technical problems does the source pose for the modern reader?
• What was the impact of the document? Where and amongst whom is it likely to have been circulated? What reactions did it elicit? Was its impact immediate, or did it take longer to be recognised? NO BIBLIOGRAPHY AT THE END JUST LIST SOURCES USED WHERE RELVEVANT.
• A high 1st class gobbet commentary (75+) will precisely identify the source’s genre; critically assess its author’s motives and purpose in creating it; convincingly delineate its intended and actual audience; accurately situate the gobbet in its textual or visual setting and historical context; relate it to other relevant sources; intelligently analyse all the key issues raised by the source and explain their relevance to contemporaries and current historiography; and advance an original interpretation, all in precise and clear writing, with a highly logical structure that makes for an engaging, flowing read.MAKE IT TICK ALL THESE BOXES
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