2211 U

2211 U.S. History I: On-line Section

Extra Credit Opportunities

1. The Life of Olaudah Equiano/ Gustavus Vassa

We will be reading portions of this slave narrative during Week 4. You can earn UP TO ONE extra credit point added to your final course grade. In other words, you can earn one percentage point if you complete this extra credit paper assignment. (Meaning that if your final course grade is 79, it would move to 80 and therefore from a C to a B). The point will only be awarded to papers that fulfill all the requirements below, and provide an insightful analysis/reaction to the reading.

First, read ALL of the remaining pages of the narrative in addition to the assigned selections. There will be no partial credit given. Your paper will not be accepted if you fail the reading quiz about the required sections of this book. The means you must read the entire narrative. (the assigned portions AND the remaining portions.)

Next, write a 3 page typed double-spaced reaction paper. In your paper, briefly summarize what happened to Equiano AND provide your reaction to it, focusing only on the extra-credit portions of the book. You do not need to summarize the regularly assigned portions of the book, only the extra credit pages. Your job here is to convince me that you read the extra credit sections. You must write three full pages or you will receive ZERO credit

A good amount of of your paper should also focus on your reaction/analysis. You might wish to consider this question: What did this narrative teach you about the life of a slave? About the slave trade? How do you think this narrative could be used by people who were opposed to slavery? Feel free to be in touch with me if you'd like some other questions to consider. How you organize your paper is up to you; some students combine summary and reaction, others write a summary section and a separate reaction section. Both are fine. Just be sure to include both segments of the assignment.

Due at NOON on Tuesday 2/6.

Late papers will not be accepted. Be in touch with Professor Janke if you have any questions about this. Upload your paper to the Assignment Dropbox on D2L.

IF YOU COPY ANY PORTIONS OF THESE PAPERS FROM THE INTERNET, USE CHAT GPT/AI, OR FROM ANOTHER STUDENT, YOU WILL BE PENALIZED BY LOSING 20 POINTS OFF YOUR DISCUSSION GRADE. It's simple: put the entire paper in your own words. If you wish to quote briefly from either narrative, put the quote in quotation marks and note the page number. Example: As Douglass noted, "Slavery soon proved its ability to divest her of these heavenly qualities." (367). You may be asked to provide page number citations for your paper if ChatGPT use is suspected.

2. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass -- in Classic Slave Narratives or available here for free: https://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/douglass/douglass.html

This is a similar assignment to the Equiano paper. You can earn UP TO TWO extra credit points added to your final course grade. In other words, you can earn two percentage points if you complete this extra credit paper assignment. (Meaning that if your final course grade is 78, it would move to 80 and therefore from a C to a B). The points will only be awarded to papers that fulfill all the requirements below, and provide an insightful analysis/reaction to the reading. This assignment is worth more than the Equiano assignment because it involves more reading. You may complete both assignments for an overall total of 3 percentage points.

First, read ALL of the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (in Classic Slave Narratives.). There will be no partial credit given. Next, write a 3 page typed double-spaced reaction paper. In your paper, briefly summarize what happened to Douglass AND provide your reaction to it. The bulk of your paper should focus on your reaction/analysis, although you do need to demonstrate to me that you read the book, as described above for the Equiano assignment. You must read and you must write three full pages or you will receive ZERO credit. You might wish to consider this question: What did this narrative teach you about the life of an enslaved person? How do you think this narrative could be used by people who were opposed to slavery? This connects to material assigned during Week 13, so you might wish to discuss how Douglass's story helped the abolitionist movement. Feel free to be in touch with me if you'd like some other questions to consider.

Due at NOON on Friday 5/10 during Finals Week, submitted to Assignments on D2L.

EXTRA CREDIT FOR YOUR DISCUSSION SCORE: There is an ungraded Discussion Forum in D2L called "Class Cafe." I would like to encourage you to stop by the Cafe and "chat" with your classmates. In order to encourage folks to post in the Cafe, you can earn up to TEN extra credit points to be added to your discussion score at the end of the semester (5 in the first half which will be weeks 3-8, and 5 in the second, which will be weeks 9-Finals). How can you earn the extra credit points? It's pretty easy! I will award points for the posts you make, and will strongly encourage you to have at least one post be a question for others to answer. The rest of your posts can be replies to your classmates. If you make 10 posts and are involved in the overall conversation, you will earn 10 points. If you make 10 posts but don't "stick around" to participate in the conversation, your extra credit points will be reduced.