Exploring an historian’s arguments and the evidence that she or he…

Question Exploring an historian’s arguments and the evidence that she or he… Exploring an historian’s arguments and the evidence that she or he presents for their argument is one of the most important skills in critically reading history. Any person can say virtually anything without the past, but you aren’t really saying anything of substance if you’re not presenting evidence about why major events or trends are important, or the causes and effects of events or trends. (Making stuff up—including making stuff up about history—may well qualify you for a career as a politician or a used car salesperson, but it will not make you a reliable reader or practitioner of history.) In this Discussion Board assignment, you will carefully consider the arguments and primary source evidence of the readings from Week 3 on the syllabus with a special focus on the readings, “Witchcraft in Seventeenth Century America.” In the readings scheduled for Week 3, you were presented with two different arguments about the history of New England witch trials, including the infamous 1692 Salem witch trials, in the essays by John Demos (beginning on p. 57) and Carol F. Karlsen (beginning on p. 71). In this week’s discussion board assignment, you need to explore the ways in which these essays are different from one another by exploring how each author frames her or his argument as well as the evidence presented in order to justify their argument. You need to account for the significance of gender and class, and, where appropriate, race. This might require a little more collaboration, including raising questions among yourselves about evidence, how it was produced, who produced, the time period in which the evidence was produced, and how the author might have gotten the evidence. In addition, your thread must identify at least one primary source that argues for Karlsen’s point as well as one primary source that argues for Demos’s point, as well as an explanation as to why the evidence seems to justify one or the other author’s argument. The primary source evidence can be found on pages 50-57 of the readings, “Witchcraft in Seventeenth Century America.” Finally, consider how you might expand or complicate Karlsen’s and Demos’s thesis by including some of the arguments and information presented in today’s readings from Alan Taylor’s American Colonies. In particular, how does Taylor’s argument about race—”Puritans and Indians”—inform or complicate this history? This is the most challenging Discussion Board exercise yet, so don’t be discouraged. If you have questions, try using the Discussion Board to work them out with your classroom community. Chances are that if you have a question, at least two of your classmates will—and there’s no small chance that there are two other classmates with a compelling answer. Use this exercise to collaborate.   History US History HISTORY 512:201 Share QuestionEmailCopy link Comments (0)