be sure to read ahead

HIST 1101: Minnesota History

Professor Janke

Spring 2025

Fort Snelling Virtual Field Trip Paper Assignment: 20% of your final course grade

Since you may prefer to avoid visiting museums and historical sites, this assignment has been revised to take a “virtual tour” of two popular sites and then consider some issues related to those sites, drawing on what you have learned from the course readings. To repeat: in order to write a strong paper, you must draw on what you’ve learned in the course, and this will likely include going back to re-read or review past assignments. The best way to demonstrate that you’ve made connections between the field trip location and course materials is to include quotations and examples from the class readings.

Virtual Field Trip -- Fort Snelling -- You CANNOT write this virtual option if you expect to write a paper about an in-person visit to Fort Snelling.
Due Tuesday April 1: Any papers turned in after NOON will be counted as one day late. Late papers are welcome! but they accrue a penalty of three points per day. Submit to the Assignment Dropbox on D2L.

Extra credit points available! If you meet with a writing tutor (more information will be posted on D2L) you can earn 5 extra credit points added to your paper score.

In this paper your job is to consider what you’ve learned about the history of our state, Minnesota’s “founding fathers,” and Minnesota’s indigenous peoples, and use that knowledge to analyze a recent debate about Fort Snelling.

Step One:
Fort Snelling is one of the most popular destinations for field trips for this course and for many school children in Minnesota. First, take yourself on a "virtual field trip" by clicking through the “learn” portion of their website to increase your knowledge about the Fort. Then focus on the issue of “Revitalization.” Read some of the news articles on their website and the Star Tribune articles I’ve posted here. As you will see, how Fort Snelling wrestles with its past is very complicated.

https://www.mnhs.org/fortsnelling/learn

http://www.mnhs.org/fortsnelling/revitalization

Star Tribune Articles: 1. Read about the controversy surrounding Fort Snelling's name change.
2. http://www.startribune.com/fort-snelling-signage-addition-won-t-cause-funding-cut-by-legislature/510412442/

IF YOU CANNOT GET THE STAR TRIBUNE ARTICLES TO LOAD, I HAVE UPLOADED PDFs INTO D2L>MATERIALS>CONTENT

Step Two:

Review what you have learned in this course and think about which readings connect to this topic as a whole. Figuring out which course readings to use when writing your paper is part of the challenge of the assignment so I will not be giving many specific hints or suggestions. My advice would be to look over the course schedule and the North Country note-taking guide to refresh your memory of the topics we have covered. For example, we read quite a bit about life at Fort Snelling earlier in the semester, including the Fort's role in housing the Dakota in an internment camp after the Dakota Conflict.

Here's a link to the notetaking guide for North Country as that has identified some possible locations of course materials. There may be others that you noticed, but this is a good place to start.

Step Three:

Write a 3 page double-spaced paper considering these questions:

Your paper should summarize the issues that have been raised about how Fort Snelling conveys its history to visitors (in this case, visitors of the website.) In your opinion, where are they doing a good job telling that history? Are there areas where you could critique them? Your paper should also summarize and discuss the recent controversies. Using what you’ve learned in this class , what do you think the Fort should do? How should they change what they display? Whose history should they tell and how should they tell it? Why were some so upset about the name change?

While this paper asks you to give your opinion about this, your opinion should be informed by what you’ve learned in this course and I will expect to see some explicit references (quotes) from course materials to support your point of view. I am also expecting to see a clear thesis statement, ideally at the end of the first paragraph. If you're unsure of whether you have a good thesis statement, feel free to share it with Linda and/or a writing tutor. Having a strong thesis statement helps build a strong paper! Remember that your paper should be focused on analyzing these issues, not summarizing the history of the Fort overall.

Writing, Formatting and Citations:

You must turn in at least three double-spaced typed pages, with reasonable margins and font sizes, i.e. no font larger than 12 point, no extra spaces between paragraphs, and no margins larger than one inch. I will reformat papers which do not meet these criteria. I will be happy to read papers longer than three pages; papers less than three pages will be penalized. This is a formal academic paper so I expect you to use proper paragraph development, grammar, spelling, punctuation, etc. Your paper grade will be based, in part, on your writing as well as the content within the paper. Consider taking advantage of ARCC's free writing tutors and earn 5 points extra credit for doing so!

You must save your papers in a format that I can open. Be sure to check your e-mail on the day papers are due because if I cannot open your paper for some reason I will be in touch with you directly. I prefer papers saved in Microsoft Word (.doc or .docx) but I can also open PDFs. I cannot open files saved in "Open Office." Do not share a Google Doc.

Most, if not all, of your paper should be in your own words. Be very careful not to accidentally copy something from course materials or the websites you used for research -- copying even phrases or parts of a sentence can be considered plagiarism.

Citations: Much like your quiz answers, you must demonstrate to me that you acquired your information for this paper from your field trip location website and course materials. Do NOT do outside research or ask ChatGPT. At the end of each paragraph, tell me where you found the information. This does not need to be a formal citation -- just a way to let me know where you got your information. I think the easiest way to accomplish this would be to name the title of the webpage and then the paragraph where you found the information. That sort of thing! When you are using course materials to analyze your visit (a required part of the paper) you can cite the name of the material and a page number, such as [North Country, 32.] If you use a direct quotation (very strongly recommended!) you must tell me the page number for the quotation. I am expecting that the end of each paragraph could have several different sources listed. That's fine! I don't care about the specific formatting of citations, just that you demonstrate you acquired the information from the assigned websites and course materials.

In short, I won’t worry too much about the format of the citations just that you have them at the end of each paragraph, and that the paper is in your own words or properly quoted/cited.

A Word About Plagiarism:

I cannot stress this point enough: Copying ANY PORTION of your paper directly from internet sources, the course textbooks, AND/OR from classmates will result in failing the paper. Again, copying ANYTHING, including short phrases, from other sources or a classmate will result in a grade of ZERO on the paper. In other words, this paper must be written ENTIRELY (100%) IN YOUR OWN WORDS unless you are using a quotation. This paper is designed to describe and analyze YOUR experience. Using AI or Chat GPT is not permitted and will be considered academic dishonesty.