Coronavirus Pandemic of 2020 Assignments | Get Homework Help

The only source you need consult is the set of coronavirus journal entries on the class discussion board.

Prompt and Questions

You are a historian in the far distant future. Neither you nor anyone else alive experienced the Great Coronavirus Pandemic of 2020. But you have found a primary source: a set of journal entries kept by the students of a history class at Colorado State University during the spring semester. Using these documents, what conclusions can you draw about the impact of the disease on American college students? Please frame your answer by responding directly to one of the following questions:

1. What happened to American college students during the pandemic and what were the changes in their lives? Use specific examples from the journal entries.
2. Examine the data contained in the journal entries and look for patterns. Generate an original thesis statement (a debatable claim) about the data and demonstrate that the pattern does indeed exist in the journal entries. Explain why the pattern is noteworthy.

As in the Bray assignment, be sure not to cherry-pick only the evidence that supports your position. Instead, in addition to supporting your position with evidence, the strongest answers will also acknowledge the available counter-evidence and refute it.

Also, your answer must consider the source itself and analyze its strengths and limitations as a source. Please discuss what it can and cannot reveal and how you have crafted your arguments to account for that. Call for additional sources/research and explain how, if available, they would improve your ability to understand the pandemic.

Instructions

• The essay should be 3-5 pages long.
• As evidence, draw from at least 6-9 individual entries.
• Do not use your own entries.
• Cite your sources in parentheses by author last name and month/date/year it was submitted to the discussion board. For example: (Orsi, 4/28/20).
• You may use outside sources, but notice that the grading criteria do not give you any credit for doing so. You need not consult any other sources beyond the journal entries. This is not a research paper. It is an exercise in demonstrating your ability to use a primary source to draw historical conclusions.
• You may collaborate by discussing ideas for the essay and/or by reading a classmate’s paper and providing feedback to each other. But each student must write their own essay on their own and will be held accountable for ensuring that it is unique in its words, organization, and content.
• Essays must be typed, submitted via the Final Exam Canvas submission portal, and submitted in MS Word or PDF formats. Submissions not following formatting guidelines will lose three points for each violation.

Grading Criteria

Each of the following is worth 20 points, for a total of 100 possible points:

1. Quality, clarity, and persuasiveness of your argument, including thesis statement (must be in the opening paragraph) and introductory historical context.
2. Writing (clarity, organization, grammar/style, elegance).
3. Discussion of evidence from the journal entries, including accurate characterization of them, quality of analysis, and use of specific evidence and examples.
4. Identification of and analysis of the limitations and strengths of the journal entries as a primary source.
5. Acknowledgment and refutation of counter-evidence.