Boarding Schools Paper Assignment Prompt: Were the children in Brenda Child’s Boarding School Seasons victims, survivors, or is there a different way to think about them altogether?

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Formatting: Your paper should be at least three complete pages long. 12-point font, Times
New Roman, double-spaced, one-inch margins, with page numbers. I prefer Chicago style
formatting for citations (endnotes or footnotes), although parenthetical (MLA style) citations
are acceptable.
Sources: the assigned book and class lectures are the only sources you should consult
for this paper. Please do not consult outside sources.
Give your paper a title. Take the title as a useful opportunity to preview your paper’s
overarching idea. Slapping a pointless title on at the last minute is a wasted opportunity.
Introduction: Your paper should begin with an introductory paragraph that includes a few
essential items:
1) Your introduction should aspire to a compelling opening that captures the reader’s attention
and imagination:
“In 1887, Congress passed the Dawes Act” is not a strong opening hook—it’s flat, lifeless,
boring, and matter-of-fact. Aim instead for something more imaginative: “When Jacob Young
Eagle first broke ground on his new 160-acre plot of land he knew his family’s survival was at
stake.” Both examples concern the Dawes Act, but only one makes me want to read further.
Think of the classic rock and roll riffs—“Satisfaction,” “Whole Lotta Love,” “Johnny B.
Goode,” whatever your cup of tea—that hook into your brain and prevent you from changing
the station in search of a better song.
Examples of great opening lines:
“It seemed like a good idea at the time.” – NDB Connolly, A World More Concrete
“Baby don’t it feel like heaven right now?” – Tom Petty, “The Waiting”
2) Your introduction should establish wider historical context within which you can position
your subjects and central assertion. Set the stage for your reader. Orient your reader to a time
and place. Where are we? What’s the problem? Bring the reader along:
When Jacob Young Eagle first broke ground on his new 160-acre plot of land he knew his
family’s survival was at stake. Senator Henry Dawes and other ‘Friends of the Indian’ left the
Lake Mohonk conference determined to assimilate Native people. Then Congress passed the
Dawes Act and Native Americans had to begin farming.” Whoa! This is incoherent, right?
It’s a series of non sequiturs. Sentences should follow each other rhythmically and
logically to build an intelligible narrative:
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When Jacob Young Eagle first broke ground on his new 160-acre plot of land he understood
his family’s survival was at stake. During the final decades of the nineteenth century, Congress
first began implementing its program to assimilate Native Americans like Young Eagle into
America’s capitalist economy. Inspired by the ideologies that a cohort of non-Indigenous social
reformers devised during a series of conferences at Lake Mohonk in upstate New York,
members of Congress pursued a new policy initiative designed to turn Native people into
independent farmers. This, Congress hoped, would finally solve its persistent “Indian
problem.” That’s better.
Once you have hooked your reader’s attention and provided historical context you next need to
introduce your thesis/assertion/argument/claim/overarching point. Your paper cannot earn a
grade of A without a clear thesis. Your paper needs to do more than just summarize what
happened. It needs to make an evaluative claim about what happened. History is a
conversation. To meaningfully participate in the conversation you must have something to say:
When Jacob Young Eagle first broke ground on his new 160-acre plot of land he understood
his family’s survival was at stake. During the final decades of the nineteenth century, Congress
first began implementing its program to assimilate Native Americans like Young Eagle into
America’s capitalist economy. Inspired by the ideologies that a cohort of non-Indian social
reformers devised during a series of conferences at Lake Mohonk in upstate New York,
members of Congress pursued a new policy initiative designed to turn Indigenous people into
independent farmers. This, Congress hoped, would finally solve its persistent “Indian
problem.” But the Indian problem was never really Congress’s to solve. Rather, the Indian
problem, from the late nineteenth century to the present, has consistently weighed on
the shoulders of Native people like Jacob Young Eagle, who fought for firm footing
within a rapidly changing world. By focusing attention on how Native people confronted
and overcame the Indian problem, we can appreciate how they gradually became less of a
problem for American people and more of an asset during the twentieth century. Through their
collective efforts, Native people—whom Congress initially thought should and would
disappear—became dynamic contributors to American culture and society.”
Main Body: From there you should progress to the main body of your paper, which should be
composed of individual paragraphs that reliably support your thesis. Each paragraph should
begin with a topic sentence that both transitions out of the previous paragraph while
simultaneously suggesting what the new paragraph is about. Each main body paragraph should
address one important idea or point that is supported by evidence from the sources. If you
compose a paragraph that has no clear relationship to your thesis then you need to ask yourself
why you are including it when space it at such a premium.
Conclusion: Finally, your paper should arrive at a Conclusion paragraph that revisits your
principal claim in a fresh way, while bringing your reader to the finish line. Your conclusion is
not the place to introduce new evidence or make a new argument. Rather, it is the place in
which to tie together your various ideas and points for a final cohesive and convincing
statement
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Further Advice
1) When writing about the past, use past tense.
2) Avoid “I believe,” “I feel,” “I think,” “I have often wondered about…” There is no reason
to write yourself into your paper. You are the author; we know these are your thoughts.
3) The past tense of “lead” is “led.”
4) Apostrophes: Singular possessive = ’s (even when it ends with an s); plural possessive = s’.
So, for example:
Congress’s plan to assimilate Indians resulted in disaster.
Douglas’s book is missing.
Loch Ness’s popularity as a tourist site derives from a monster that supposedly lives beneath its
waves.
Jimmy’s guitar is out of tune.
The athletes’ decision to boycott the games resulted in controversy.
The soldiers’ bravery produced a needed victory.
5) Avoid words such as “huge” and “big.” They are devoid of meaning. Rather than suggest
that something was a “big step,” you might instead suggest that it was an “important
innovation,” a “significant improvement,” a “vital decision,” a “pivotal development,” etc.
Please think critically about word choice.
6) Avoid, excessive, commas. Commas, are, only, needed, to suggest, a slight, pause, in reading,
or to, separate sentence, clauses.
7) Avoid passive voice. It’s difficult to explain, and you can look it up on the Internet. But in
the simplest of terms, every action needs an actor.
“Testimony against the Dawes Act was given to Congress” is incorrect. Who gave the
testimony? Don’t keep me guessing.
“Jacob Young Eagle appeared before Congress to deliver testimony against the Dawes Act” is
correct.
8) Non-fiction history books are books, and not novels. A novel is by definition fiction. Brenda
Child’s book is not a novel.
9) Punctuation goes inside quotation marks, unless you are using a quote to ask a question, or
unless you are a British citizen. The following examples are correct:
Johnnie was correct when he claimed, “The Red Hot Chili Peppers do not have any good
songs.”
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Do you agree with Johnnie’s claim that the “Red Hot Chili Peppers do not have any good
songs”?
9) DO NOT PLAGIARIZE. Be honest with yourself, with me, and with the discipline.
Within these guidelines, do your best to think critically and write creatively. When you are
finished, proofread your paper several times. Also have someone else proofread it to catch
typos that you might have missed. Finally, read it aloud to yourself or someone else. Reading
aloud is the best way to catch typos and prevent awkward prose.
Formulating an Effective Thesis Statement: A thesis needs to make an argument. A thesis is
a statement that reflects what you have concluded about the topic of your paper, based on
critical analysis and interpretation of the source materials you have examined.
IF… THEN…
Your thesis statement does no more than
repeat the topic you are writing about It is not a thesis statement
Your thesis statement proposes a question
without proposing an answer It is not a thesis statement
Your thesis statement is merely a fact or
series of facts It is not a thesis statement
Your thesis statement simply reflects a
personal belief or preference It is not a thesis statement
Your thesis statement proposes an answer to
a question (that you have posed or have been
given) AND asserts an argument/ conclusion
with which a reader might disagree, and
which can be supported by evidence from
the sources
IT IS AN EFFECTIVE THESIS
STATEMENT