WRITING PROJECT
(A Speaker from the Past)
Written Communication
Critical Thinking

The Situation
A new technological development will allow you to bring a famous historical person to our modern times. You have arranged for this person to give a speech to our college class. What would your historical person say to us?

Your Task
Choose one of the historical characters from the list below. You will be researching and writing about this one character for all three parts of the project, so be sure to choose someone that intrigues you.

Historical Person	Years Lived	Spodek	CD Rom
Baldassare Castiglione	1478-1529		Doc 13.3
Akbar	1543-1605	pp. 502-505	Doc 12.7
Matteo Ricci	1552-1610	pg. 477	Doc 16.1
John Locke	1632-1704	pp. 524-526
Cesare Beccaria	1738-1794		Doc 17.7
Michael Thomas Sadler	1780-1835	pg. 576	Doc 19.3
Emmeline Pankhurst	1858-1928	pp. 580-582
Sun Yat-Sen	1866-1925	pp. 657-658
Mohandas Gandhi	1869-1948	pp. 783-788	Doc 27.1
Albert Einstein	1879-1955	pp. 652

 

Be sure to keep track of all your sources. As you conduct your research, don't forget to gather the necessary bibliographical information. I am interested in all the sources that you’ve consulted for your information (i.e. books, articles, videos, internet sites). For Part III, you will submit an annotated bibliography, which means, in addition to the typical bibliographical citation (author, title, city, publisher, year), you need to also provide a brief explanation of how each source helped you. You need a minimum of three sources. Don’t limit yourself to the internet.

Three Part Writing Process (worth 100 points total)

• Part I (20 points) You will write an exploratory paper where you explain why you chose this person. You must also show evidence of having done significant research on your historical character and his/her ideas. What have you learned so far? In your final paragraph, you will explore some topics that your historical person might want to discuss in a speech to our class. This is an informal paper that encourages you to discover your thoughts by “talking to self.” It looks more like a diary entry than a typical research paper. You will not be graded on organization, grammar, spelling, or punctuation. Format: one side of a page, single spaced, once inch margins, 300-500 words.* Late papers will not be accepted. Due: February 17th
  
  
• Part II (30 points) You will write a letter to your historical person inviting him/her to be a guest speaker in our History 152 class. Explain why you think his/her ideas or experiences are particularly relevant in our times. To avoid getting off track, just assume that the technological questions of time travel and the language differences are non-issues. Your job is to convince your potential speaker that (s)he can offer our class some insights that will help to illustrate the importance of studying history. This is an informal paper that allows you to use first person references (i.e. I, me, my) to communicate in a letter format. You will not be graded on grammar, spelling, or punctuation. Format: double spaced, one inch margins, 500-700 words.* Late papers will not be accepted. Due: March 24th
  
  
• Part III (50 points) You will write the speech to be given by your historical person to our college class. Write as if you are that person (using his/her voice, not your own). Grading will be based on your ability to write in your character’s voice, using his/her ideas. This paper should be organized around a general theme or message. Organization, grammar, spelling and punctuation will be graded in this part. You must also resubmit your graded Parts I & II, and provide an annotated bibliography (all in a non-plastic folder). Format: double spaced, one inch margins, 800-1000 words.* Late papers will be accepted, but there will be a five-point penalty for each class day that a paper is late. Due: April 26th
  
  

*Please identify the font & provide a word count at the end of each part.
(e.g. Times New Roman 635 words)