Thursday, April 18, 2013

Reminders for Thursday 4/18

This is to remind each of you of the items due today in class.

First, the revision of Paper One is due. Please be sure to include the original marked-up copy of your first draft stapled beneath your revision copy.

Second, the second submission of the Annotated Bibliography is due today. You are to submit three new sources with complete annotations. Be sure you are properly formatting your citations according to APA or MLA standards. Also, be sure that you are writing at least 200 word annotations that both summarize and explicitly describe how each source will serve your thesis and overall paper!

Sunday, April 14, 2013

(#7) DQs on Lyndon B Johnson

Please answer the following questions after reading and listening to Lyndon B Johnson's speech "We Shall Overcome."
  1. Why did President Johnson believe the right to vote is the most important civil right? 
  2. Explain the significance of why Johnson uses the phrase, "We Shall Overcome." Identify the ways in which President Johnson established his credibility to speak on civil rights? Do you find such explications of credibility persuasive? Why or why not? 
  3. How did President Johnson use history in “We Shall Overcome?” What lessons did he try to teach from U.S. history? Are such lessons still relevant today? 
  4. Do President Johnson’s appeals to the American Promise seem outmoded today? Would Americans in the twenty-first century be responsive to such a narrative? If not, why not? If so, on what subject(s)? 
  5. One could argue that the Johnson speech was far more efficacious in bringing about change in civil rights because it was made by a powerful white president and was the prelude to the 1964 Civil Rights Acts. Do you agree? Why or why not? 
  6. The Web site for the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of International Information Programs contains a transcript of President Johnson’s speech as one of its “Basic Readings in U.S. Democracy” (http://usinfo.state.gov/usa/infousa/facts/democrac/demo.htm) as well as list of readings for citizens of other countries interested in learning about American history. Why might the State Department have included Johnson’s speech? What does one learn about U.S. democracy by reading Johnson’s speech?