Miscellaneous
MON 12/8/14 - Topics for Exam Essay-Questions - in-class written (not open-book - no notes) & typed:
PART I - JOHN RANSOM'S ANDERSONVILLE DIARY: 2 In-class E-Qs @ 25 pts. = 50
1) REread pp. mid235 ("Dec.24 ...)-240 (...End of Diary"): Topic-Theme: "Christmas day and didn't hang up my stocking. No matter, it wouldn't have held anything." [= his sense of humor] BUT the Union "boys" he's with now "are very kind" - from a certain General Smith to "every mess." Indeed, "there is peace and plenty among us." So, you'll compose an essay in which you HIGHLIGHT John Ransom's diary-entry for December 25, 1864, by offering several factual details that must have made his Christmas day - empty stocking aside - a merry one, after all.
2) REread bottom247 ("And now a ...)-mid251 (...Mich. Cav."): Topic-Theme: In the concluding pages of his diary as such, John Ransom is explicitly AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL in relation both to his present situation and to what he anticipates upon his return home. So, you'll compose an essay in which you HIGHLIGHT John's self-reflections by offering several factual details that illustrate, on the one hand, "I was having a good time," and, on the other, "It was my sad duty ..."
PART II - Typed E-Q @ 50 pts. due exam-day 12/15 (2-4 p.m.): CLARA BARTON AND THE CIVIL WAR: REread Stephen Oates' concluding chapter EPILOGUE - The Circuit (373-382): Topic-Theme: Compose an essay HIGHLIGHTING, with factual details, how Clara AND many other women of the time contributed to the transformation of American society (particularly in the North) for the general betterment and advancement of women especially in terms of how they could HENCEFORTH play active, meaningful, rewarding career-oriented roles in the (yet male-dominated) workplace. Clara was certainly a pathfinder in this regard, but she certainly learned from women such as Frances Gage to be (we would say today) more socially conscious. BUT, let us remind ourselves that her life-experiences during the Civil War-era profoundly prepared her for the new directions her life-commitments would take her.