Week 8: Joinville

Writing Assignment:

There are two parts to this week’s assignment. Make sure to complete and submit both of them.

First, write an outline for the paper topic you have chosen for the second paper.

Outlines for topics 1-3 should contain the following:

1. The creative topics don't require a thesis statement, but for the outline you should include a sentence or two about the approach you are going to take in your paper. In other words, if you're writing a polemic, which side are you taking? If you're writing about Roland and Abelard, how are you going to present them? If you are giving Help From Heloise, what are you going to focus on?

2. Main ideas for each body paragraph, including the evidence you plan to use (you still need to use direct quotes and paraphrases from the primary sources in the creative topics, and you will need to footnote them in the paper)

3. A conclusion (for the polemic, this will be your coup de grace; for the Roland/Abelard topic it will be their final thoughts; for the Heloise topic, it will be Heloise's summarizing her advice)

Outlines for topics 4 and 5 should contain the following:

1. a thesis statement

2. placeholders for where you will place your historical background and source introduction(s)

3. subsections that each contain the following elements:

• • • • a claim you will make supporting your argument
      • evidence from our primary source(s) to support that claim
      • a placeholder for your analysis (in the paper, the analysis portion of each body paragraph is where you will explain what the evidence means and how it supports your argument)

4. a placeholder for a conclusion (this will usually be a reiteration of your argument/thesis)

These outlines don't have to be incredibly long or detailed (a page of bullet points will do), but you want to think about what points you want to make and how to logically arrange them so that your reader can easily follow your argument. You will peer review your outlines in section, so bring this with you on Friday in addition to submitting it online.

For the writing assignment proper (250-300 words), how are Islam and Muslim customs portrayed in Joinville's Life of Saint Louis? Give at least two examples from the text (with page numbers). What does this tell us about Joinville’s and the crusaders’ knowledge of Muslim customs and Islam as a religion? How accurate is the depiction?

How does this differ from the depiction of Islam in the Song of Roland (no need to include this in your writing assignment, just take notes for yourself to be prepared for discussions in section)?

Answers should be 250-300 words and include specific details and page numbers from the reading.

Grading:

The purpose of these assignments is to demonstrate that you've done the reading and learned something from it. You should make sure to address all parts of the question and provide specifics like names, places, context, and page numbers in your answers.

For example, if you say that someone gave a speech before a battle, I'm going to want to know who gave the speech (names), which battle it was (context), and where it was (places). I also want to know what page(s) this material is on. Although these are short writing assignments, you still want to provide details (history is all about the details).

100% - addresses all parts of the question and provides details like names, places, context, and page numbers.

90% - addresses all parts of the question, but may lack some detail -OR- provides great detail but does not answer part of the question.

80% - answer is correct, but vague, one or more parts of the question may be unanswered.

70% - answer is very vague and multiple parts of the question are unanswered.

50% - I suspect that you read the source, but your answer totally lacks detail and doesn't demonstrate that you learned anything from the reading.

0% - It's clear that you didn't read the source, or you didn't turn in a writing assignment.