Spanish-American War: Reflective Historical Essay

The purpose of this assignment is three-fold:

1. Summative – how much did the students learn and can apply from a major section of the unit?

2. Introduction to the style of historical writing of the kind that will be required in high school under the Common Core Standards and college.

3.  Reinforce writing skills learned in Language arts and Reading.

The assignment:

 SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR: REFLECTIVE HISTORICAL ESSAY

OBJECTIVE: To write a concise essay, supported by textual evidence from a variety of sources.

OBJECTIVE: To write from the perspective of a historical character’s worldview and experiences

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate, decide and explain if the Spanish-American War was justified to be fought and/or worth the expense.

 

CRITERIA:

Title Page

Proper Heading

Essay Title

2-3 pages, single spaced typed (title page does not count)

Topic sentence/thesis statement ( your position, what you will prove)

Answers question: “Was the Spanish-American War justified (“Right thing to do”) and worth the expense?”

Is written as if the author was one of the historical characters listed below

Position argued fits the character selected (ex. – Senator Henry Cabot Lodge supports imperialism)

Argument is supported by numerous textual examples (“numerous” = “many”)

Concluding sentence (in historical writing, summarizes major evidence why you are right)

Accurate information ( ex -the Rough Riders did not have droids or mutant wizards)

Free of spelling/punctuation/basic grammatical errors

 

SOURCES: Lecture notes, Movie notes, Handouts, Primary sources, textbook, internet

POINTS: 40

 

DUE DATE: Monday March 12

 

HISTORICAL CHARACTERS:

Select one of the following characters, read their biographies below and write from their perspective.

Senator Henry Cabot Lodge (1850-1924)

Lodge was a US Senator, lawyer and historian from Boston, Massachusetts. A close friend and mentor of Theodore Roosevelt, Lodge was a member of one of the wealthier and most socially prominent families in America . Lodge grew up in Boston’s exclusive Beacon Hill neighborhood, attended Harvard university, where he received a law degree and PhD before entering politics. A powerful senator and forceful personality, Lodge was a strong nationalist, a fervent imperialist and a believer in the superiority of the “Anglo-Saxon race” over other peoples.

 

Colonel Charles Young (1864-1922)

The son of former Slaves, Charles Young was one of the first African-Americans to overcome severe discrimination and graduate from West Point US. Military Academy, to receive a commission in the US Army and the first to reach the high rank of Colonel. Young fought with and commanded units of Buffalo Soldiers in the Indian Wars as a Lieutenant and as a Major in the Spanish-American War, where Young personally led a squadron of 10^th Cavalry Buffalo soldiers at San Juan Hill, fighting alongside Teddy Roosevelt and the Rough Riders. After the war, Young went on to work as an intelligence officer, military attache as a professor of military studies before fighting in the Mexican Expedition of 1916 . When WWI began, Young was considered for a major command in France when racist elements in the US Army forced Young to retire under protest for “medical reasons”, though Young was later reinstated by the Secretary of War and promoted to Colonel.

 

One of Young’s proteges, Sgt. Maj. Ben Davis, later became the first African-American General in US History, Gen. Benjamin O. Davis)

Clara Barton (1821-1912)

A former school teacher from Massachusetts, Clara Barton was the founder of the American branch of The Red Cross. Famous for her humanitarian work nursing soldiers injured during the Civil War, Barton lectured, worked for civil rights, women’s suffrage and social reform before organizing the American Red Cross. As the President of the Red Cross, Barton provided assistance to people suffering the ravages of war, natural disaster and disease across the world. In her seventies, during the Spanish-American War, Barton provided medical help to anyone in Cuba – insurgent, Spaniard or American soldier or Cuban civilian – who was injured or sick.

.Emiliano Aginaldo (1869-1964)

A Filipino general, politician, independence leader, guerrilla commander and President of the Philippines, Emiliano Aguinaldo was at different times a friend, enemy, subject and ally of the United States. And not in that order. 

Unit Vocabulary: Forms of Government & Political Spectrum

We are starting a unit on the forms of government and the philosophies of the modern political spectrum. Below is our unit vocabulary by category:

Forms of Government & Related Terms:

Anarchy, Tyranny, Monarchy, Aristocracy, Oligarchy, Democracy, Republic, Dictatorship, State of Nature, Social Contract, Natural Law, Revolution, Right of Revolution, Sovereign, Popular Sovereignty, State, Nation, Rule-Set

Political Spectrum & Related Terms:

Anarchist, Radical, Liberal, Moderate, Conservative, Reactionary, Authoritarian, Totalitarian, Libertarian, Populist

Philosophers & Thinkers:

Aristotle, Plato, Polybius, Cicero, Machiavelli, Baron de Montesquieu, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, James Madison, Edmund Burke, Socrates, Ibn Khaldun, Confucius

Forms of Government include the Iron Fist of Tyranny!

Students have begun learning about Forms of Government:

Anarchy

Aristocracy

Monarchy

Oligarchy

Democracy

Republic

Tyranny

Creativity, Critical Thinking & Content

I divide each Social Studies unit into content and conceptual mastery, analysis and creative interpretation because public education, has three core objectives:

1. To impart a body of knowledge and academic skills deemed valuable by society.

2. To teach the students to think analytically, critically and independently.

3. To render the students capable of discovering original insights and pursuing the discovery of new knowledge or invention.

The first goal  has been delved into depth by educational researchers and gurus like E.D. Hirsh of “Cultural Literacy” fame, Chester Finn, William Bennett, Diane Ravitch and others, and is reflected in such legislation as NCLB, which has put tremendous pressure on school districts to focus on test scores in a few basic subjects and expanding the amount of content in the curriculum by increasing the time spent on rote memorization exercises and skill-based drills. Breadth but not depth.

The second goal is reflected in what used to be termed ” liberal education” or “Great Books” programs or the upper tiers of Bloom’s Taxonomy.

Schools do this less effectively across the nation but there is still a fair emphasis on eliciting critical thinking in public education, most of all in Honors and AP classes, gifted and talented classes  and special programs like and Paideia and International Baccalaureate. Colleges and universities, of course, are also intended to focus on liberal education but the degree to which this is true in practice has declined since the 1960′s.

The final objective, made possible by the teaching of creative thinking and synthesis to students, public education does not do well at all at present, here or in any industrialized nation, where measurable declines in the creativity and problem-solving abilities of k-12 students appear across the board. Some people even consider creative thinking to be inimical to mastering content or logical analysis; this is untrue. One cannot think creatively or engage in analysis without content knowledge and content is itself meaningless unless the student can effectively put it to use in the real world. Content knowledge, critical thinking and creativity are like the three legs of a stool – our students need them all.

Ken Robinson, noted educational expert, giving a lively talk on creativity and public education

Perception, Cognition & Worldviews Unit Vocabulary

The introductory unit ” Cognition, Perception and Worldviews” focuses on how people’s understanding of the world around them is affected by their culture, ideas and history; and, in turn, how their actions can create systemic changes that shape worldviews. The following are terms, concepts and individuals used for this unit of study ( If you don’t what some of these are, don’t panic – the whole point of education is to learn new things, not rehearse what you already know):

Concepts:

Perception, Perspective, Position, Philosophy, Values, Orientation, Cognition, Metacognition, Meme, Culture, Society, Rule-set, Worldview, Paradigm, Paradigm-Shift, Evolution, Cultural Evolution, Objective, Subjective, Bias, Social Contract, Empiricism, Scientific Method, Natural Law, Revolution, Humanism, Framing, Feedback, O.O.D.A

Worldviews:

Prehistoric, Ancient, Medieval, Renaissance, Reformation, Enlightenment, Scientific Revolution

Thinkers:

Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Francis Bacon, Rene Descartes, Isaac Newton, Montesquieu,

Charles Darwin, Thomas Kuhn, Richard Dawkins, George Lakoff, John Boyd