Additional Assignments

1. Using two different types of primary sources (i.e., a document, testimony, letter, photograph, or song) from this unit, prepare a primary source analysis essay. In your essay, analyze your sources (or source excerpt) as deeply and as thoroughly as possible. Do not simply provide a general summary or overview of your sources. Think critically about the content of each source, its historical context, and the cultural values that shape it. Also, consider the strengths and weaknesses of each source. Read between the lines to discover its biases and assumptions.
2. More often than not, historians rely on the past to better understand the present. But scholars’ understanding of the past is sometimes complicated by a lack of primary source evidence to draw from. In this assignment, you are to create your own primary source. Write a letter to a prisoner in the New South. Frame the content of your letter around these two main questions: What will you say about the system of mass incarceration operating in the United States today? What ideas will you share about steps the United States could take to advance prison reform in the future? To inform your letter, refer to the following resources.