EST 361, History of the American Environmental Movement
Research Paper Assignment
In a variety of forms, the American environmental movement has been active for over a century. As a final project for this course, your assignment is to identify an historical or contemporary American environmental advocate (or opponent), organization, campaign, or issue that you would like to learn more about and write a medium-length research paper on that topic. As an integral part of the assignment, you are expected to effectively utilize course concepts, frameworks and understandings in analyzing the relation between that subject and the American environmental movement more broadly. In the discussion section of your paper, for example, explain:
The assignment includes two interim deliverables as well as the final paper:
Grading. Your research paper will be graded along the following lines:
A Outstanding: fulfils all aspects of the assignment, in an exceptionally clear, coherent, and convincing way; highly effective use of course concepts, frameworks and understandings, plus material from a variety of scholarly sources
B Very good: fulfils all aspects of the assignment, including use of course concepts, frameworks and understandings; well organized (clear thesis statement and conclusion, well developed argument); well documented (use of citations, quotes as appropriate, and references); careful attention to detail (proofread, spelling, citations & references, pagination)
C Acceptable: fulfils some, but not all, aspects of the assignment; limited use of course concepts, frameworks, and understandings; argument, organization okay, but could be improved; limited but correctly utilized documentation; some attention to detail, but significant room for improvement; meets minimum length requirements
D Minimally passing: marginal evidence of attempt to address the assignment; poor organization, documentation of sources, attention to detail; less than required minimum length
F No credit: no viable evidence of effort to undertake the assignment; inappropriate use of secondary material (failure to use quotations or cite sources, as appropriate)