Please note: While this will eventually be group work, each historian will work individually on his/her first draft of research. Then, after April Vacation, students will continue to make progress in collaborative research groups.
STEP ONE: Read the updated information from the Blog Post dated Tuesday, April 3, 2012. This updated post contains significant and helpful information, as well as links to pages to develop your background knowledge.
STEP TWO: Decide what your focus for research is going to be. You can choose more than one topic. Here are your options:
- Native American Life Before Europe: A Natural History of East Rock
- New Haven, Revolution and the War for Independence
- Connecticut, Resistance and the War of 1812
- The Mexican American War: Slavery and Anti-slavery (needs better title)
- The Guns of Whitney and the Civil War
- Industrialism in New Haven in the 1880s (needs better title)
STEP THREE: Write a brief explanation for why you chose the topics you did. You can use the links I provided on the April 3, 2012 post to find out more information to help you make up your mind. Please post your explanations as comments on the blog. Reading each other's ideas will help open your mind to other perspectives. It will also help us to form collaborative research groups later in the month.
STEP FOUR: Start reading! Start researching! Your books for AP History class are the best place to start. After you decide which topic you are going to research, use the index of your American Pageant to find out more. You can also use the Table of Contents of the primary source book, Voices of Freedom, in order to find sources to support your research. You have been completing "Research Journals" for homework lately. Now is the time to put these same skills to use completing purposeful research. Take notes as you read, ask questions and be sure to document what you think is the most significant information.
STEP FIVE: Continue researching by using the internet. There are excellent resources available on the Zinn Education Project page. You might have to register and create an account; but it's free, so there's nothing standing in your way. You can also use PBS.org, Digital History, Primary Source, From Revolution to Reconstruction, and American Memory. You will continue to document what you discover and what you want to know more about in the Research Journal style.
PLEASE NOTE: Successful research depends on making choices. You will not be able to read everything, so start with what's familiar: Your books. And then move on to browsing websites and deciding which sites are best for you.
Just typing words into Google is not research. Spending time considering where your information is coming from is research. Evaluate your sources and ask questions about what you read. If you end up on Wikipedia, you can use that information as long as you check the footnotes that the author provided. If they are legitimate, you can use that info. If you can't even find footnotes, than how do you know where that person got their information?
Keep track of where your information is coming from. Cite the page numbers, webpage names and the authors that you encounter. And most important...Have Fun!
WHAT YOU MUST HAND IN:
- Step Three: Explanations for the topics you chose. Please note: Post these explanations as comments on the blog.
- Step Four: Information from class book research
- Step Five: Information from internet research
- Reflection: After you research, review your notes, and discuss them with someone (me, a classmate, a parent, a friend), you will synthesize your ideas and write a one-page reflection. This is informal writing where you describe your thoughts and feelings about your work so far. This will help you identify the strengths and weaknesses in your research process. It will also point you in new directions as you take your research to the next level.
Post them below. A question of one is a question of all. And I will check in periodically to monitor your progress.
I'm not sure if you answered it but is there a section in the New haven public library specfically dedicated to new haven ?
ReplyDeleteMahogany,
DeleteGreat question. I know the library-media staff at the NHFPL would love to help you use New Haven resources. Check out the link below.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteUse this link and search "New Haven History."
ReplyDeletehttp://library.nhfpl.org/search
I chose the topic "Connecticut Rsistane, and the war of 1812". I picked this one because I know a lot about the war of 1812 already because of a previous project we had a while ago when the class had to choose a topic and do a powerpoint on it. I feel like knowing a lot about the war will hlp me and the other members of my group to make a visitrs guide. Also,I didn't know a lot about Connecticut's resistanece in the war and I felt that it would be interesting to learn more about it since I live there. I checked out the link given and I thought the information given was helpful and very informative. It gave me another reason why I should choose that topic.
ReplyDeleteI wanted to focus on Native American life before Europe. I chose this topic because I don't find war and weaponry interesting. This eliminated most of my choices. I chose this over industrialism because I'm tired of that topic. I want to step back from it, even if it means going back to the very beginning.
ReplyDeleteI wanted to focus on (Industrialism in New Haven in the 1880s ) because I don’t know much about New Haven in general also because we are in the 20’s so industrialization to me it all kind of fit together not that they have anything to do with each other, But that’s what it made me think of.
ReplyDeleteI chose the native American focus point because its something we tend to forget. I know a lot of other things about new haven , suchas the different battles that happened, but I don't know a lot about the native Americans on east rock ( I didn't even know they were specific to there). I hope to learn more about my ancestors and east rock itself by doing more research on this topic.
ReplyDeleteI decided to focus on Native American life before Europe. I chose this topic because I don't find the wars to be interesting and I already know alot about Industrialism, so I'm going with something I don't know too much about. Plus, we haven't learned alot about Native Americans so like Desiree said I'm going to start from the being because I'm curious to know what this land was like before it was America.
ReplyDeleteThe topic I chose to research is New Haven in the Civil War. I chose this topic because I barely heard of New Haven or Connecticut in the Civil War. I didn’t even think that they had much of a battle; I thought they just sent soldiers to protect and that’s it. I never wondered of their perspective on the war of how they felt towards it. So I'm curious maybe I can learn something from this and teach the freshmans of it.
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ReplyDeleteThe topic I chose is on the Civil War. I would like to know more about the Civil War in New Haven, or at least Connecticut. We didn't go in depth with a lot of these topics before the AP Exam because time was limited. Now, I just think it's fun to go back and learn more about a topic, especially when I get a chance to visit the site because it's near my home.
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