Engaging Narrative
Writing HW, Part One: Organizing Your Material
A two-page synthesis of your secondary source notes. Go back and read through the notes you’ve taken and decide what events and issues you regard as most important. This is a crucial moment, the first step toward developing the narrative you’ll present in your written report (due shortly after the next class). To organize your secondary source notes, do the following:
- First, go back and read through the notes you’ve taken and make a list of the events and issues you regard as most important.
- Once you’ve got the list together, the next step is to figure out a logical order to present these events and issues so as to form a coherent story about your topic. Move your list items around until you’re happy with the sequence; then number your list of key events and ideas.
- For each item in your list, look for corresponding bullet points in your source notes, and cut and paste these bullet points below your list item.
- Where your sources repeat one another, put references to both sources at the end of a single bullet point.
- Where your sources make similar points but differ in tone or perspective, describe that difference in a separate, subordinate (indented) bullet point.
- If your sources differ substantially in the stories they tell, show that fundamental difference by presenting each source account as a separate bullet point; then follow those bullet points with an indented bullet point describing the contrast between the accounts.
Writing HW, Part Two: Developing A Narrative
By now, you should have a pretty clear sense of the story you’re going to emphasize in your written report. Write a paragraph briefly describing the kind of story you’re telling. A good historian is a good storyteller. So think about what kind of story you’re uncovering here: is it a tragedy? A farce? A comedy of errors? A triumph? A disaster averted? A cautionary tale? A downfall caused by excessive ambition? A hysterical overreaction? Explain briefly.
Turning HW In
Paste HW part Two into the comment field below, and upload HW Part One as a .pdf or Word file.