Great Western Schism
Title of Source + Bibliographic Citation: This simply indicates the title of the source you will be using AND also provides a bibliographic citation. You MUST include a proper citation here. You can use whatever citation format you are comfortable with (for example, Chicago, APA, MLA, Turabian, etc.). Also, you are selecting from any of the documents available for the unit you are working on. YOU CANNOT CHOOSE SOURCES THAT ARE NOT IN THE UNIT’S DOCUMENTS FOLDER.
Brief Summary/Description of Source: This should be a fairly brief summary/description of your source. It should let the reader know what the source is about, who wrote it, as well as indicate the contents of the source. For this section, think about how you would describe the source for someone who has not read it.
Historical Context: For this section, you should relate what you read in the source to the other material in the class (i.e. other assignments and especially what you read in the textbook). Here you are placing the source in its wider historical context. Think about what general information the reader should know in order to understand the source. For example, if you were writing about the Code of Hammurabi as your source, you should mention Hammurabi’s dates and what you read about him in the textbook.
Analysis: This is the part of the post that you should spend the most time on. Overall, your analysis of the source should indicate what this source reveals about the topic or time period and why this is significant. In this section, think about answering some of these questions for your source to get at a deeper and rich analysis:
How does what you read in the document/website tie into what you read in the textbook? Does it illuminate a particular topic, contradict the textbook, open up the topic in a new direction, etc?
What does it tell us about society or culture at this time? What did these people value or not value?
Does this show us important aspects about government, religion, politics, class, economics, etc?
Is there any bias to the source? What audience might the author have been writing for?
What is the main theme or message?
Other Remarks: This last section of the post is an area where you can insert your own opinions, thoughts, etc. Here you might explain what you found fascinating, troubling, or remarkable about the source. If you want to compare the source to the present, this is the area to do it.
