The Report of the Paris Medical Faculty

SSH 105 – World History to 1500 FINAL PAPER ASSIGNMENT – DUE ON DECEMBER 11th by 5:00pm ONLINE through Blackboard

For your final assignment (worth 20% of your overall grade), you will be writing a research paper that incorporates the two assignments you have already completed: in Stage 1 you chose a thesis statement based on the background video by Dr. Armstrong, and in Stage 2 you looked closely at 2 primary sources that gave you some first-hand voices from the era of the Black Death. (If you did not complete these assignments or forget them, you can find them on Blackboard under “Course Documents.”) For this final stage, you must incorporate these two assignments into a persuasive historical essay that argues whether or not the Black Death fundamentally produced the modern world we live in today. In other words, after reading your essay, the reader should be convinced that the Black Death was/was not an event that shaped the modern world today. Please keep this central thesis in mind as you write the essay. The requirements for your final paper are as follows:

1. It must be 7-8 double-spaced, typed pages 2. It must be submitted in .doc OR .docx OR .pdf format only (not .pages or any other format) 3. It must be submitted online by 5:00pm on Friday, December 11th, 2020. Any and all papers submitted

after this time will receive a grade reduction (half-grade deduction per day). a. Papers will not be accepted at all after Tuesday, December 15th b. To submit final papers:

i. Go to Blackboard ii. On the left-hand side you will see a link that says “SUBMIT FINAL PAPER HERE

BY 12/11” – click on that link iii. Follow the instructions to upload your assignment through the Turnitin software

4. You are required to use and cite the following three sources in your paper: a. Dr. Armstrong’s video lecture from Stage 1 b. One or both of the primary sources from Stage 2 c. At least one of the secondary sources listed on the reverse of this page.

5. You may use whatever other secondary or primary sources that you like, but you must cite your sources. For example, there are 24 videos in the series about the Black Death that you could use (you watched Episode 1). You may use any of these other videos (all on the Kanopy database) to support your position. You may also use other online sources but do not use any website that ends in .com or that is Wikipedia. For this project, these sites are too problematic and unreliable. The open-access textbook on Blackboard may be helpful (p. 465-467) – be sure to cite it if you use it. (SEE REVERSE FOR MORE GUIDANCE ON FINDING RELIABLE SECONDARY SOURCES)

6. You must include a Works Cited (a bibliography) at the end of your paper that includes all the sources you used to write your paper. It should be in MLA format (see reverse).

7. Be sure to cite and all your sources! Any indication of plagiarism will result in a failing grade for this project. If you are unclear about what constitutes plagiarism, please see the handout titled “What is Plagiarism?”

If you received positive feedback from me on Stages 1-2, feel free to use your responses from those assignments in your final paper. For example, your paper might begin with the paragraph you wrote in Stage 1. You then should have several supporting paragraphs that use convincing evidence (primary and secondary sources) to back up and support your thesis statement. Make sure that each paragraph of your paper can be logically tied back/connected to your thesis (your central argument). If you complete this assignment correctly, by the end of your 7-8 page paper you should have a better understanding of:

1. Why some people argue that the Black Death shaped the modern world 2. The understandings and misunderstandings that various groups (across time/space) have had about

this disease 3. Why this topic continues to attract scholarship and interest so long after it took place 4. What it means to write a persuasive essay in the discipline of history

Works Cited List (MLA format)

Secondary Sources (you can find all these sources through LaGuardia’s Library website or on Blackboard, the database used is listed in parentheses) (Database: Kanopy) Armstrong, Dorsey. Europe on the Brink of the Black Death: Episode 1. The Great Courses: The Black Death. 2016. (Opensource textbook on Blackboard) Berger et al. World History: Cultures, States, and Societies to 1500. Dahlonega, GA: University of North Georgia Press, Creative Commons (https://web.ung.edu/media/university- press/World%20History%20Textbook-082817.pdf?t=1510261063109). (Database: JSTOR) Cohn, Jr., Samuel K. “The Black Death: End of a Paradigm.” The American Historical Review, vol. 107, no. 3, 2002, pp. 703–738. (Database: JSTOR) Davis, David E. “The Scarcity of Rats and the Black Death: An Ecological History.” The Journal of Interdisciplinary History, vol. 16, no. 3, 1986, pp. 455–470. (Database: JSTOR) Mengel, David C. “A PLAGUE ON BOHEMIA? MAPPING THE BLACK DEATH.” Past & Present, no. 211, 2011, pp. 3–34. (Database: JSTOR) Theilmann, John, and Frances Cate. “A Plague of Plagues: The Problem of Plague Diagnosis in Medieval England.” The Journal of Interdisciplinary History, vol. 37, no. 3, 2007, pp. 371–393. Primary Sources (provided on Blackboard): “The Report of the Paris Medical Faculty.” 1348. Ibn Al-Wardi, “An Essay on the Report of the Pestilence.” 1348. You will be tempted to use Google as your primary search engine for this assignment, as this is the easiest way to find quick information about any topic. However, most of what comes to the surface in these searches is unvetted and therefore unreliable information that cannot be used as credible evidence/support for this paper.

Instead, please find your supplemental secondary sources using these steps: 1. Go to the library website at: https://library.laguardia.edu/ 2. On the left-hand side, click on “Articles (Databases)” 3. Under “Browse databases by:” click on “Title (A-Z)” 4. Now you can find databases that contain peer-reviewed, reliable information on the Black Death. Below

are my recommendations of databases to use for history papers:

• JSTOR

• Project Muse

• Academic Search Complete

• World Book Online (this is an online encyclopedia that is peer-reviewed)

• World History in Context

• World History in Video

• Kanopy (video database)

• SAGE All Journals

Remember that the more specific search terms you use within these databases, the more refined and helpful your search results will be. Rather than searching “Black Death,” try searching “Black Death and Politics,” or “Black Death and Society,” and see how your results differ.