basque history I

Reading requirement. Mark Kurlansky's A Basque History of the World. To purchase a copy check out the campus bookstore; if not go online to amazon.com et.al. where you will find copies

I. PARTICIPATION. There will be numerous opportunities to ask questions.

II. ATTENDANCE. Attendance will be taken at each of the sessions; if you hope to get credit then plan to be at all the sessions on time and the whole time.

III. CONCLUDING ESSAY. A one-credit workshop consists of 15 hours of contact time and 30 hours of work outside of class. The scope of your paper is based on what level you signed up for:
>294 prefix: should turn in a research paper 3-5 pages long
>494 prefix: should turn in a research paper 5-7 pages long
>594 prefix: should turn in a research paper 7-10 pages long

DEADLINE: Th. Oct. 27, 2011 by midnight. Email your paper as an attachment (as a MS Word attachment of else pdf format) to johnysursa@boisestate.edu. I will send you a confirmation email to let you know I received it.

How to Write a Critical Book Review
These questions developed by S. Zabin are derived from Robert Blackey, "Words to the Whys: Crafting Critical Book Reviews," The History Teacher, 27.2 (Feb. 1994): 159-66. Online source: http://apps.carleton.edu/curricular/history/study/criticalbookreview/

Your review should have two goals: first, to inform the reader about the content of the book, and second, to provide an evaluation that gives your judgment of the book’s quality.

Do NOT spend more than one-third or so of the paper summarizing the book. The summary should consist of a discussion and highlights of the major arguments, features, trends, concepts, themes, ideas, and characteristics of the book. While you may use direct quotes from the book (make sure you always give the page number), such quotes should never be the bulk of the summary. Much of your grade will depend on how well you describe and explain the material IN YOUR OWN WORDS. You might want to take the major organizing themes of the book and use them to organize your own discussion. This does NOT mean, however, that I want a chapter-by-chapter summary. Your goal is a unified essay.

If not just a summary, then what more? Throughout your summary, provide a critique of the book (hence the title: “A Critical Book Review.”) A critique consists of thoughts, responses, and reactions. It is not necessarily negative. Nor do you need to know as much about the subject as the author (because you hardly ever will). The skills you need are an ability to follow an argument and test a hypothesis. Regardless of how negative or positive your critique is, you need to be able to justify and support your position.

Here are a number of questions that you can address as part of your critique. You need not answer them all, but questions one and two are essential to any book review, so find a way to integrate those. And these are ABSOLUTELY NOT to be answered one after another (seriatim). Don’t have one paragraph that answers one, and then the next paragraph that answers the next, etc. The answers should be part of a carefully constructed essay, complete with topic sentences and transitions.

1. What is your overall opinion of the book? On what basis has this opinion been formulated? That is, tell the reader what you think and how you arrived at this judgment. What did you expect to learn when you picked up the book? To what extent – and how effectively – were your expectations met? Did you nod in agreement (or off to sleep)? Did you wish you could talk back to the author? Amplify upon and explain your reactions.

2. Identify the author’s thesis and explain it in your own words. How clearly and in what context is it stated and, subsequently, developed? To what extent and how effectively (i.e., with what kind of evidence) is this thesis proven? Use examples to amplify your responses. If arguments or perspectives were missing, why do you think this might be?

3. What are the author’s aims? How well have they been achieved, especially with regard to the way the book is organized? Are these aims supported or justified? (You might look back at the introduction to the book for help). How closely does the organization follow the author’s aims?

4. How are the author’s main points presented, explained, and supported? What assumptions lie behind these points? What would be the most effective way for you to compress and/or reorder the author’s scheme of presentation and argument?

5. How effectively does the author draw claims from the material being presented? Are connections between the claims and evidence made clearly and logically? Here you should definitely use examples to support your evaluation.

6. What conclusions does the author reach and how clearly are they stated? Do these conclusions follow from the thesis and aims and from the ways in which they were developed? In other words, how effectively does the book come together?

7. Identify the assumptions made by the author in both the approach to and the writing of the book. For example, what prior knowledge does the author expect readers to possess? How effectively are those assumptions worked into the overall presentation? What assumptions do you think should not have been made? Why?

8. Are you able to detect any underlying philosophy of history held by the author (e.g., progress, decline, cyclical, linear, and random)? If so, how does this philosophy affect the presentation of the argument?

9. How does the author see history as being motivated: primarily by the forces of individuals, economics, politics, social factors, nationalism, class, race, gender, something else? What kind of impact does this view of historical motivation have upon the way in which the author develops the book?

10. Does the author’s presentation seem fair and accurate? Is the interpretation biased? Can you detect any distortion, exaggeration, or diminishing of material? If so, for what purpose might this have been done, and what effect does hit have on the overall presentation?

Paper Form Requirements

This paper assignment will require documentation; i.e., the use of a minimum of TEN footnotes. This does not mean ten different sources--you can re-use the two or so sources that you have selected. Ten times you will be required to back up what you say with an outside source. "Foot"notes are to be located at the bottom of the page (see below for how to do these). This means do not use endnotes in a list on the last page, or parentheses in the middle of the text to cite a book. Historians prefer--and this assignment requires--a specific format so follow the guidelines below.

FOOTNOTE GUIDELINES

WHY FOOTNOTES? Historians are fond of footnotes because they provide:

substance (demonstrating the scope of your research; quantity does matter)

verification (allowing readers to confirm your evidence and to establish that you are NOT arguing simply by assertion) and

elaboration (allows you to further develop select points that would take you away from the main narrative).

AUTOMATIC FOOTNOTE INSERTION. Inserting footnotes is quite easy using current computer software programs. For example, in Microsoft Word you click on the "Insert" link on the top menu bar and then in the pop-up menu you have "footnote" as a selection and you click there. Type footnote in your program's help section for specifics. The number automatically comes up and now you just type in the data following the examples below and the program automatically inserts it at the bottom of your page.

QUALITY OF RESEARCH. You will be evaluated on the quality of your selected sources. A batch of websites is not very impressive; traditional books and articles [on the shelves in libraries] are recommended. Again, DO NOT simply rely on Internet sources. Note that the minimum of ten footnotes does not mean that you need ten different sources; some of course can be repeated.

FOOTNOTE SAMPLES. There are various ways that your work can be documented/cited and you probably learned one or more ways of doing this for another class. Historians prefer the Chicago style and we will utilize that format in this paper assignment. A footnote number should come at the end of the sentence. Sometimes, you might want to combine several footnotes together at the end of a paragraph. Please follow these guidelines as you reference your sources at the bottom of the page:

IF A BOOK:  Author(s). Book title. Place of publication: Publisher, year of publication. Page(s). For example:
Ronald T. Takaki, Iron Cages: Race and Culture in Nineteenth-Century America (New York: Alfred Knopf Publ., 1979): 2.
or
Allen, Robert and James Brandon. World History. New York: Dodd, 1999.
*Note, with two or more authors, the additional author’s names are listed first name then last name. For a book editor, include a coma and the abbreviation ed. for editor after the individual’s name.

IF AN ARTICLE:  author, title, journal title, volume and page number. For example:
Ronald T. Takaki, “Within the ‘Bowels’ of the Republic,” Journal of History Vol XX, No. 5: 4.

MAGAZINE/NEWSPAPER ARTICLE: Author. "Article Title." Title of Publication. Day Month Year: page number(s).
Williams, James. “New York Tips.” Newsweek. 9 July 2002:33 *Note: for newspapers, section and page number should be included (ex: C3).

ANTHOLOGY / REFERENCE BOOK: Author (if known). "Article Title." Book author or editor. Anthology or Reference Book Title. Place of Publication: Publisher, year of publication. Page(s).
For example: Creasy, James. “George Washington.” Bloom, Harold, ed. Encyclopedia Americana. New York: Groliers, 2001.

FOR A WEBSITE: Author(s) if known. Name of Page. Date of publication (if known). Name of institution/organization affiliated with site. Date of access <URL address>
“Thomas Jefferson on Slavery” in Afro-American Almanac, http://www.toptags.com/aama/voices/commentary/jeff.htm (25 March 2001).   or
Cook, James. Webdoctor. 2004. American Medical Society. 3 September 2004 <http://webdoctor.com>.

FOR A FILM: Citizen Kane. Dir. Orson Welles. Perfs. Orson Welles, Joseph Cotton. RKO Radio Pictures, 1941. or
Fahrenheit 9/11. Dir. Michael Moore. Lions Gate Films, 2006.

SAMPLE PAGE THAT USES FOOTNOTES

Here is a sample page that uses footnotes. The regular text of your essay should be double-spaced. At the bottom if there are footnotes, the text will appear single-spaced [note that this is automatically inserted this way].

RELATED LINKS:
Read a review of his book at www.nabasque.org/Astero
Read what others have said about Kurlansky's book at www.goodreads.com and www.amazon.com

WORKSHOP SCHEDULE: Sat. & Sun, Oct. 8-9, 2011

Session 1: Sat. morning, 9AM-12:00
Where: ILC403 classroom on campus
> Part I of Kurlansky's book: "The Survival of Euskal Herria"

Session 2: Sat. afternoon, 1:30-5:00PM
Where: Boise Basque Museum @ 1:30PM
> Tour of the museum; links with Kurlansky's discussion

Session 3: Sunday morning, 9AM-12:00
Where: ILC403 classroom on campus
>Part II of Kurlansky's book: "The Dawn of Euskadi"

Session 4: Sun. afternoon, 1:30-5:00PM
Where: ILC403 classroom on campus
>Part III of Kurlansky's book: "Euskadi Askatuta"
>Invited guest speakers

GENERAL ADMINISTRATIVE DETAILS

If students miss one or two hours you can grade their attendance accordingly. If a student misses a full day, s/he can't pass the workshop.

Since students can register to take a workshop up to the day before the workshop, there is no pre-assigned material. Instead time is left before the submission of the final paper to complete reading assignments.

Students need to obtain a "C-" or better in order to earn a PASS grade.

Grade of Incomplete and Workshops

The grade of Incomplete may be awarded for a workshop just as for a regular course. The same conditions must be fulfilled:

1) If the student never attended, they would not be eligible for an Incomplete.
2) There need to be extenuating circumstances.
3) The instructor has to agree to award the grade of Incomplete.

If the student does not complete the missing assignment(s), an Incomplete is changed to an F on the transcript.

Adding & dropping workshops

Adding a Workshop — You must register for a workshop prior to the first day of the workshop. To enroll in a workshop that is full and hasn't started yet, you must submit a BroncoWeb Override Form, with the instructor's signature, to the BroncoWeb Help Center, Administration Building, Room 110.

Dropping a Workshop -- A workshop will not appear on your transcript, if you drop the workshop prior to the day it starts.

You will receive a grade of W on your transcript, if you drop on the day the workshop begins, or any day up until the last day before the workshop ends.

You will receive a grade of F on your transcript, if you attempt to drop a workshop on the last day it is being held or later.