Not sure how many pages. You will turn in one book journal based on Edwin Gaustad’s Benjamin Franklin  and another one on Solomon Northup’s Twelve Years A Slave. As you read keep a journal organized by chapters of your reactions and responses to the specific incidents and/or interpretations in each chapter. Begin the journal with the Preface or Introduction if applicable; end the journal with the conclusion or epilogue if applicable.  Do not simply tell me that you “enjoyed” it or that it was “interesting.” Indeed, avoid those terms.  The purpose of the journal is to assure that you comprehend the book, can grapple with the problems that it raises, and to encourage you to think analytically and critically about the author’s ideas and research.  Ask yourself, as you write in the journal, such questions: Do I agree with the author? Why or why not?  What thoughts or ideas does the author stimulate within me? What kinds of arguments does the author advance? Do I agree or disagree?  Why or why not?  Might one consider the book a cultural, social, political or military history?  How does this chapter enhance and/or alter my concept of a particular aspect of history? Does this event or development have any message for our times?

What do I think about this or that event or practice?  How does this book illustrate, clarify, or otherwise relate to specific topics that you encounter as you read the chapters in American Promise and thought about the ideas that various scholars advanced in video lessons from “Shaping America.”  These questions are for purposes of illustration; you are not confined to them (I suggest you take them seriously).  Be creative, descriptive, and use a lot of adjectives.  As mentioned above, think analytically and critically.  Your journals should contain: reactions, responses, questions, thoughts, ideas, illustrations, analysis, criticism, interpretation, and expressions of relevance.  You must react to a sufficient amount of each chapter so as to convince the instructor that you not only have read the book, but that you have thought about it.  A mere summary of the author’s main points is unacceptable; tell me what you think about the book and explain how it ties into the course.
A mere summary of the author’s main points is unacceptable; tell me what you think about the book and explain how it ties into the course.

Note: With Respect to Book Journals:

1.  These are not collaborative projects.  Each student’s work must be his or her own work.  I enforce the college’s code of academic dishonesty to the letter.

2.  You will type your name on the upper, right-hand corner.

3. The paper will be double-spaced.

4.  You will break the journal down into chapters, starting with the introduction and finishing with the epilogue.

5. Any kind of block style is unacceptable.  You will indent each paragraph FIVE spaces.  Failure to indent properly paragraphs will result in an automatic ten-point deduction in your grade.

6.  Save the File in Microsoft Word , and name the file by your last