Nicaraguan Revolution Document Paper

Assignment: Document Paper (Documents from the Nicaraguan Revolution)
In the primary document assignment, students will analyze primary material from a variety of sources in order to formulate their own argument about a particular event or trends in the society.  The sources for the Nicaragua paper are: Berryman, Liberation Theology, Roger Lancaster, Life is Hard, and/or Kirkpatrick, “U.S. Security and Latin America.” Background information is found in the Becker text and in lecture notes. We will develop a few different focus questions in class, or students can design their own question (with the professor’s approval).  The paper will be 5-7 pages, have a cover page with author, title and date (this page will not count in the page numbers), double spaced, Times-New Roman, 12 point font, one inch margins on all sides, page numbers in the upper right side—and if there’s any deviation from this, I will chop off fingers for each variation! (Ok, just kidding on the last part.) You need to cite sources using the Chicago Manual of Style (footnotes from HIS 2003).
Content Objective:
1. Students will be able to explain how ordinary people experienced the Nicaraguan Revolution
2. Students will be able to discuss the successes and failures of the Nicaraguan Revolution at meetings its goals. (first, explain what the goals of the revolution were, then assess the success of the government at meeting these goals)
3. Students will be able to demonstrate knowledge of the impact of U.S. foreign policy on the Nicaraguan Revolution.
Skills Objective:
1. Students will be able to develop a research question that will explore some element of post-Revolutionary Nicaraguan society and include this research question in their introduction
2. Students will be able to gather information to write a thesis statement (historical argument) that answers their earlier research question, and include their thesis in their introduction.
3. Students will be able to assess the value of evidence by considering the attitudes of sources, the political motives of sources, etc.
4. Students will be able to collect and present evidence to support their thesis statement, as well as look at alternative interpretations of the evidence. (This is historical analysis).
5. Students will be able to write in a clear and cogent manner--free of grammatical errors, spelling mistakes, and wordiness.