What type of source is it [an interview, a diary entry, a painting, music, a public record (court document, census document, political document, treaty, etc.)]?

1) simply report on the primary source by using the source to answer the questions below. In your Response Paper, you can just list the questions as they are here and answer them in full sentences. For some of the sources, the answers will be, in part, in Foner’s introduction to the source.

a. What type of source is it [an interview, a diary entry, a painting, music, a public record (court document, census document, political document, treaty, etc.)]?

b. When was the source published or produced?

c. Motive:
–Who is the author?
–Who is the author? What is her or his place in society? What evidence in the text tells you this?
–Why do you think she or he wrote it? What evidence in the text tells you this?
–Who might be the intended audience? What evidence in the text tells you this?
–Does the author have a thesis or main point? What–in one sentence–is that thesis?

2) Next, you will include a paragraph that discusses the context of the source. As I’ve noted above, context is the circumstances that form the historical setting for an event, statement, idea, or source and the terms in which it can be fully understood and assessed. This can be found in the source itself, in the introduction to the source, and in Give Me Liberty!.

For example, if you were using “Olaudah Equiano on Slavery (1789)”, you would use Chapter 4 in Give Me Liberty! to discuss the Triangle Trade because that’s the context (the historical setting, backdrop, circumstances, etc.) in which Equiano’s narrative was written).

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