English Language and Literature Commons^™

Rotten In The State Of Aragon: Possible Intrigue Under James I, Timothy P. Roman

Line by Line: A Journal of Beginning Student Writing

Editor's note: This work received the Barbara Farrelly Award for Best Writing of the Issue; it came with a $200 award.

After analyzing a graphic novel tackling the Barcelona Disputation, I made an outline of the opposing arguments presented concerning the identity and legitimacy of the Abrahamic savior. I followed this with a rough draft, which I revised after a short conference with my professor.

Modernity's Empty Symbols And Sequential Snobbery, Grace Pierucci

Line by Line: A Journal of Beginning Student Writing

We were assigned a paper in which we would reconstruct Orsi's argument of the presence and demonstrate its prevalence in one of three options we read earlier that semester. I read some of Orsi's work, focusing on breaking apart his arguments. I then made an outline for the paper, and Perpetua and Felicity's martyrdom fit the paper the best. I actually wrote the body first, adding an introduction and conclusion later in the process. I turned in one draft to Professor [William] Trollinger and met with the Core Write Place consultants twice before finishing the final draft.

The One, The Intellect, And The Soul … Oh My!, Dorian A. Miller

Line by Line: A Journal of Beginning Student Writing

Outlining this essay required many steps between reconstruction and comparison among Plotinus’s Enneads, Plato’s Republic, and Genesis Chapters 1-3. First in the draft, I reconstructed Plotinus’s argument about the three hypostases and his cosmos. Next, I compared Plotinus’s theory of the Intellect to Plato’s Allegory of the Cave and concluded with a comparison between Plotinus’s three hypostases and Genesis Chapters 1-3. I created my first full rough draft and attended a conference with Dr. [Elizabeth] Mackay; from there I used her provided revisions for a second rough draft. I then met with a Write Place consultant for a proofread and …

The Irony Of The “God Fearing Man”, Melina A. Durham

Line by Line: A Journal of Beginning Student Writing

In this essay, my class was required to summarize Martin Luther's idea of justification by faith and then agree or disagree with his argument. I disagreed with Luther; then, I concluded my essay as to how his ideas still exist today in my hometown.

Infighting On The Path To Equality: Women’S Suffrage And The Black Rights Movement, Jessica Jenick

Line by Line: A Journal of Beginning Student Writing

This historiography paper was written for ASI 120. I began preparing for this project by reading Eric Foner's A Short History of Reconstruction. While reading, I became interested in the relationship between the women's suffrage movement and the black rights movement during Reconstruction. As I researched the topic further, I found that historians' opinions of the relationship between the two movements, especially concerning how the movements diverged, have changed dramatically over time. The division between the black suffrage movement and the women's rights movements has a continuing influence on the relationship between the movements today, giving the topics' continued relevance. …

Monkey Houses Or Revolutionary Legislatures? Moderating The Binary Of Black Politicians In South Carolina, Anna L. Biesecker-Mast

Line by Line: A Journal of Beginning Student Writing

Writing this paper was an extensive process. It began early in the Spring semester—in ASI 120. From the beginning of the semester the ASI 120 students knew we would be writing a historiography in the realm of Reconstruction. To hone down a more specific topic, we were assigned Eric Foner’s A Short History of Reconstruction. By reading his account of Reconstruction, I was able to select a topic: black politicians in South Carolina. Next, a research librarian visited my seminar and introduced us to the research process. From there, I was able to gather sources and begin my annotated …

Essential Or Evil? Historians’ Take On Lynching During Reconstruction, Emily Schmitz

Line by Line: A Journal of Beginning Student Writing

For this assignment, my class was instructed to choose an aspect of the Reconstruction era in American history to study more thoroughly. I chose to write about the lynching of African Americans. First, I wrote a topic proposal to explain my intended area to study and what I hoped to find in my research. Next, I found eight scholarly sources on the topic of lynching that were published after the year 1900, and I summarized them in an annotated bibliography. Lastly, I used those sources to create a historiography that showcases the changes in the views historians have had on …

Reconstructing Religion In The Post-Civil War Era, Jordan Mccormick

Line by Line: A Journal of Beginning Student Writing

After learning about the Civil War and Reconstruction in ASI 120, we were assigned with the task of choosing a topic within this time period to research and identify connections or variance in sources and interpretations. After receiving approval for the topic of the Black Church in Reconstruction, I began creating an annotated bibliography with suggested sources from various time periods to ensure differing views and opinions among authors. I provided a summary for each source and separated them into two groups depending on each view or interpretation. This was continued in the final historiography portion in which I elaborated …

The Changing Tides Of The Republican Party During Reconstruction, Nicholas Panson

Line by Line: A Journal of Beginning Student Writing

I wrote the following essay throughout the semester in my ASI 120 course in multiple stages. My reading of Eric Foner’s A Short History of Reconstruction helped me generate my topic of interest and contextualize my historiographical argument. My instructor assigned the class reading responses to Foner’s historiography, which exercised my skills in writing explanatory summaries and academic responses. I next drafted my formal topic proposal to serve as the basis of my descriptive argument, the first paragraph of my introduction. I gathered a collection of eight historiographical sources and summarized each of them, while drawing upon the skills I …

The Repercussions Of Presidential Perceptions: U.S. Reconstruction And President Andrew Johnson, Claudia N. Dominique

Line by Line: A Journal of Beginning Student Writing

My writing process for this assignment was quite extensive as a Historiography is not a simple task. I started this assignment by gathering my sources. I looked for at least two books and articles from four different time periods: before 1950, between 1950-1970, between 1970-1990, and then 1990 to current day. After collecting my sources, I created a bibliography in Chicago style format which I submitted to y instructor for evaluation. After and having the final list compiled by my instructor, then came the tedious task of reading my sources. I read an evaluated each source as it pertained to …

Radical Republicans: How Radical Were They?, Grazia Dipierro

Line by Line: A Journal of Beginning Student Writing

During the Spring of 2019, I completed this paper as part of my coursework for ASI 120. To begin this project, I had to read Eric Foner's A Short History of Reconstruction in order to gain a better understanding of the history and politics surrounding Reconstruction. After reading this book and discussing it extensively in class, I picked a topic to research related to Reconstruction. I decided to focus on how historians' views of the Radical Republicans have changed over time. I had to write a proposal stating what I was going to research and what I hoped to achieve. …

The Legacy Of American Terrorism: Lynching In America During The Reconstruction Period, Grace E. Gibson

Line by Line: A Journal of Beginning Student Writing

This historiography was a semester long project beginning in Spring of 2019. Because the Reconstruction Era of the United States was briefly skimmed over in my previous history classes in high school, much of my knowledge of the subject was brand new from the very beginning of my research. For background on the Reconstruction Period, I read Eric Foner's A Short History of Reconstruction. After completing online modules provided by my instructor, I learned how to properly find scholarly sources through the University of Dayton library and JSTOR. It was through these means that I was able to find …

Reconstruction's First Election: Various Interpretations Of The Lasting Significance Of A Grant Victory, Shannon M. Stanforth

Line by Line: A Journal of Beginning Student Writing

This paper was completed during the Spring of 2018 for my ASI 120 course. The assignment was a multi-phased historiography paper centering around the topic of Reconstruction. To begin preparing for the writing of the historiography and to gain a better understanding of the historical context and political unrest surrounding the task of Reconstruction, I read Eric Foner’s A Short History of Reconstruction. Foner’s book provided me with the knowledge to begin writing my topic proposal and introduced me to the influential event of the Election of 1868. I was interested in exploring the consequences and effects of the …

The One, But Not The Only, Lauren Durham

Line by Line: A Journal of Beginning Student Writing

For this particular assignment, we had to reconstruct the main points that Plotinus, an ancient philosopher and educator, presents in his work titled the Enneads. In order to reorganize and retell his elaborate ideas appropriately, we had to come to understand the text in a way that would make our own interpretations easy to convey to audiences. In addition to reconstructing the Enneads, a comparison between a previously read creation story and Plotinus's ideas had to be made. After numerous in-class discussions, I established a logical order to present Plotinus's various cosmological entities. I felt that beginning with the …

The Body And Blood: What Was And Is At Stake In The Protestant Reformation, Anna L. Biesecker-Mast

Line by Line: A Journal of Beginning Student Writing

This paper is an explanation of Robert A. Orsi's concept of presence from the introduction and first chapter of his book titled, History and Presence. Before writing any paper for a class, I thoroughly review the syllabus for the assignment. Based on the requirements listed in the syllabus, and on the discussion we had in seminar about the Orsi text and Dr. Smith's lecture on the religious origins of modernity, I drafted an outline of my paper. Throughout the process of creating my outline, I considered various organizations for my explanation as well as a few different arguments I …

To Will Or Not To Will: A Close Reading And Interpretation Of Augustine's Argument In 'Confessions', Garrett Reese

Line by Line: A Journal of Beginning Student Writing

After receiving the assignment, I went back and re-read sections 20-24 in Chapter VIII of Confessions. These are the sections in which Augustine details his belief of two wills, a willing will and an unwilling will, and then proceeds to attack the Manichee faith, the religion he used to belong to, for their belief of a good and evil will. From there, I analyzed Augustine's arguments and summarized them before focusing in on making Augustine's argument the weaker one, instead siding with the Manichees that Augustine is arguing against in this chapter of the book. I approached it as …

Enclosed: An Analysis Of American Healthcare Policies Based On Thomas More’S 'Utopia', Maggie Cahill

Line by Line: A Journal of Beginning Student Writing

This piece was the final essay of ASI 110, otherwise known as the fall semester of freshman year in the Core Program. The first part of the assignment required a reconstruction of Thomas More's argument against enclosure in his work, Utopia. Then, the second part of the assignment called for a creative parallel of More's argument to the modern world. When selecting my topic, I chose to analyze the singular topic of healthcare rather than address multiple modern issues to more fully assess and relate the issues. After I wrote my reconstruction, I brainstormed issues prevalent in the 2016 …

Andrew Johnson: The Uniting Or Dividing Factor Of Reconstruction, Nicole Perkins

Line by Line: A Journal of Beginning Student Writing

This historiography began with an abundance of research done on the topic of Andrew Johnson and Reconstruction, annotating each source, noticing trends in interpretation, and organizing my thoughts. Through this historiography, the reader will be able to clearly see the drastically different interpretations of Andrew Johnson and Reconstruction during different time periods of American history.

Historiography Of The Reconstruction Era Kkk: Reconstructing Understandings Of Racism, Mary Mcloughlin

Line by Line: A Journal of Beginning Student Writing

The writing process for this historiography spanned a large portion of the semester. I started by writing a topic proposal where I identified my goal for the project as examining the way the classification of the Ku Klux Klan has evolved. Next, I gathered an array of sources which I later narrowed down to the eight used in my historiography. Using these eight sources, I submitted an annotated bibliography to my professor. I used the feedback given on my annotated bibliography to craft an initial draft of my historiography. After consulting the CORE write place consultants and utilizing the feedback …

A Woman’S Place Is In Politics: The Changing Interpretations Of The Women’S Suffrage Movement’S Involvement In Reconstruction, Sabrina Jemail

Line by Line: A Journal of Beginning Student Writing

I wrote this historiography paper over the course of the Spring 2017 semester in my ASI 120 class. The assignment was to write a historiography paper about a topic of our choosing during the Reconstruction period in America. In addition to the analyzing historians' interpretations of our topics, we were also asked to choose the group of sources that we felt was most accurate and compelling. To prepare for the paper, I read Eric Foner’s A Short History of Reconstruction, which provided me with deeper background knowledge of the time period and guided me in the development of my …

Three Walls, Nicole Perkins

Line by Line: A Journal of Beginning Student Writing

This essay is in response to Martin Luther's Three Walls and his argument as to why Catholicism is flawed. This essay includes a summary of the three walls as well as the reasons as to why I think his logic is erred.

To Early Modern Catholic Lay People, Jacob Blewitt

Line by Line: A Journal of Beginning Student Writing

My process for writing this essay was rather simple, albeit grueling. I read and reread Martin Luther's To the Christian Nobility of the German Nation many times in order to fully understand his message. Then, I wrote an outline of his work so that I could summarize it accurately. After completing my summary, I began to analyze Luther's main points to develop my own position on the subject, which I then wrote about. This, however, was just the beginning of my process. Under the guidance of my instructor, Dr. Mackay, I revised and tweaked my paper over and over again …

A Historiographical Look Into The Origins Of Jazz, Rachel G. Zinck

Line by Line: A Journal of Beginning Student Writing

Historiography handles the way that historians' writings on a given topic has changed over time. My paper, on the origins of jazz music in the United States, takes a particular look at 8 historians, works ranging from 1946 to 2001, and evaluates their arguments. I ultimately make the case for one particular historian as having the best and most comprehensive discussion on the topic.

American Negro Minstrelsy: Good, Bad, Or Somewhere In-Between?, Emily R. Wellmann

Line by Line: A Journal of Beginning Student Writing

I chose my topic for this project early in the semester and began researching it soon after that. I used eight sources for my research and wrote an annotated bibliography. This bibliography was a huge benefit to the first draft of my paper, which just included a description of the sources. That draft was peer reviewed and given notes by my professor. The final paper was turned in shortly after, including an additional introduction and conclusion. After receiving my grade from my professor I edited it before turning it in here.

A Letter To A Struggling German Catholic During The Reformation, Rachel G. Zinck

Line by Line: A Journal of Beginning Student Writing

The assignment presented was to write a position paper in the format of a letter to a German Catholic friend undergoing an existential crisis during the Reformation period. First, we needed to analyze Martin Luther's 3 Walls of the Romanists, and then take a stance either choosing to follow or ignore Luther. In writing this essay, I spent a lot of time reading over Luther's arguments and reflecting on my own personal views and compared them with careful consideration. I was aware that the situation at the time was a matter of life and death for many, and attempted to …