IN-CLASS ESSAYS

II. Identifications

An identification is a term, which can be a person, an event, a place, a piece of legislation, or just about anything else. Your answer should be a paragraph that details who or what the term is, when and where it lived or took place, and, most importantly, what the historical significance of the term is-that is, why he, she, or it is important to American history.

The key to a good identification is providing enough background to give the importance of the term meaning without getting bogged down in irrelevant details. Say, for instance, that you were to write an identification of "Nat Turner," a good answer might read as follows:

"Nat Turner was a slave in Virginia, and also a lay preacher and leader in the slave community. In 1831, he had a religious vision that told him to start a slave revolt. Together with five other slaves, he killed his master and then went to other plantations, killing over fifty white slave owners and freeing slaves. The revolt was stopped, and Turner and 40 other slaves were executed. Yet while it was unsuccessful, Turner's revolt embodied southern whites' fears about slave rebellions and showed the hollowness of protestations that slaves were happy and content with their lot in life."

A bad answer would go into too many extraneous details. It does not matter for the sake of an identification whether or not Turner was married, for example, or if he had children. The names of the plantation owners he killed or the way in which he killed them also are not important in this context.