BLOG ENTRY SEVEN: REDEFINING THE BLACK ROLE: EDUCATION IN FREEDMAN'S VILLAGE, 1863-1888
1. Establishment of the Freedmen's Bureau
a. organization of the Freedmen's Bureau
b. educationl efforts by Freedmen Bureau
2. Historical Background of Arlington, Virginia
a. Arlington's population
b. end of Civil War
c. first free schools
3. Establishment of Freedmen's Village in Arlington
4. First Years of Freedman's Village School
a. school year 1863-1864
b. school year 1864-1865
5. Freedman Village Schools
a. 1865-1876
b. 1877-1888
6. End of Freedman's Village
7. Schools in Arlington After the Fall of Freedman's Village
You can find my critique on Kelly's page.
posted by Rickita @ 4:44 PM
1 Comments:
Critique
Thank you for letting me critique your paper.
Overall, you’ve chosen a fascinating topic that you’ve been able to narrow down to one specific area, a Freedman’s Village in Arlington from 1863-1888. Having the analysis narrowed down in that way reminds me of reading a formal article in a historical journal.
Unfortunately, this critique is a little hard to do since I don’t have the last “juicy” five paragraphs developed. They seemed to be the most interesting part of your essay. I look forward to being able to read them or hear about them (in the oral presentation) once they are completed.
For this assignment we have to make three concrete suggestions so I will just list them numerically.
1. Since the thesis is sort of like the backbone of a paper, I think this should be the first thing that is worked on. For me, it was hard to specifically find one sentence that was your thesis. What I did find, however, was a paragraph that seemed to be the thesis. This is the second paragraph on page 1. I believe that if you somehow connected the main points of the three sentences in that paragraph, you will have formed the thesis for your paper in one sentence. Basically all you have to say in one sentence is how the Freedman’s school in the Arlington community from the period of 1863-1888 represented the positive effect the Freedman’s Bureau had with its education program. That is just an example from me in my own words. You can do it any way you like as long as it remains on topic and makes sense.
2. The next important part of your paper that needs to be worked on is organization and content. In your paper these two aspects are very relevant to one another. To start out with, your first introductory paragraph can be altered so that it flows with the paper better. About the first six sentences could be placed after the thesis to provide a background on what the Freedman’s Bureau actually was and how it is relevant to the subject of education of blacks. After the introduction, I think the important thing to do is ask yourself, “What information is REALLY necessary to include so that people can fully understand my analysis of the Freedman’s school in Arlington”. Having said that, I think there are a couple sections that can entirely go (I know, you’ve worked so hard on them :( ) They are: “Northern Reactions to the South During the Civil War” and the “Historical Background of Arlington”. The sections that just need to be trimmed down are “Organization of the Freedman’s Bureau” (this can be merged with the sentences from the original introduction) and the “Education Efforts for Freedmen” (just a little bit). The section “Establishment of Freedman’s Village in Arlington” is good background information to include, it just needs to be moved around (it was good in how you originally set up the paper, but if you follow my suggestions, it needs to move up a lot in the paper). Also, you might also want to briefly include what freedmen were so that the author knows what segment of the population you are dealing with (you touch on this in “Northern Reactions to the South During the Civil War”). In general, I think one or two pages of background should be enough to understand your argument. Don’t forget to include a conclusion that doesn’t introduce new information that could start a whole new essay.
3. For this last point, I’m just going to combine two observations since they are small. In my opinion, unless it is done right, it is a total taboo to state what your paper is going to do directly with the words like “This paper…” and those like it. Ideally, your thesis should state your argument in such a way that you don’t need to draw attention to your paper as a whole. Also, in writing that statement you said that your paper will “attempt” to address the issue of education. This is a no-no because you want to paper to successfully do that and you must have the confidence that it does (because of your analysis and evidence). When you include words like “I will attempt to show this” then that lets the readers think that you are not certain about your argument, which may leave some doubt in their own minds when they read your paper. I could have just said remove that sentence but I just wanted you to know why I disagree with leaving it in the paper. The other small point is that when doing footnotes, when you have a source that repeats over and over in numerical order then after the first mention you just write “Ibid, page #“. Once another source interrupts that repetition THEN you have to re-cite the source.
Remember this critique is just my opinion. They are recommendations, but not guidelines you have to follow so if you disagree with something I’ve said, use your best judgment. Lastly don’t forget to include your illustrations in an appendix with citations under them. You can copy/look at mine to see what to include.
I can’t wait to see this paper in its final form! :)
Kelly
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