Option A.  You are a student at a New York City college in September, 1776.  Write a letter home.  You are asking for money.  Work in a reference to what your parents do — and are they your parents, or is one a step-parent?  You could work in a little social history here, perhaps on high mortality rates.  To sweeten your request, tell the people at home what’s been going on in New York City.  Mention two specific events you’ve witnessed.  Finally — is this a legitimate request?  (Is your college still holding classes?)  You’ll have to cruise the internet for background information; just cite what you use.  If you’re feeling rather proud of what you’ve achieved, by the way, I’m giving you a benchmark against which to compare your efforts, a letter of

James Madison (Links to an external site.)

written in 1774.

Option B.  This is a rather open question, and, again, you’ll be cruising on the internet or using the library’s resources.  If you use Wikipedia, I ask that you go further; maybe you could consult one of the sources listed in the “reference section” usually included at the end of a Wikipedia article.   What I would like you to do is to choose three of the Native American peoples that lived in the Ohio Valley between 1750 and 1850.  Tell me who they are, what they have in common with each other, and some of the differences between each.  Then, locate one myth told by these people.  (You might start

here (Links to an external site.)

on the internet.  The library has some material — rummage!  Search for “North American mythology;” I would consider an Iroquois myth as qualifying.)  Tell me about the myth, and then tell me what this myth says about the culture of the people who produced it.  

Essays are to be turned in as hard copy — either printed, or hand-written.  In either case, if you can manage it, double-space.  I don’t do a word count, but I expect some development.  There should be an introductory paragraph, a body of the essay presenting your argument, with evidence (quotations or particular references are good), and a conclusion.

Grammar matters to me.   Avoid sentence fragments; avoid misspellings and dangling modifiers.

If you use a source I haven’t provided, then cite it.  Don’t copy word-for-word from what I  provide unless you’re using quotation marks; if it’s not self-evident, tell me which source you’ve gotten your quotation from.  Plagiarism rates an F.

There are due dates for each essay.  Aim to get it in on the due date.  I’ll accept it up to 2 days later without penalty.  Not after that.  

You only need to do 3 essays, not all 4!