History 200 Final PaperAssignment

Fall 2007

Please write a 6-8 page paper on one of the topics provided below. Your paper should be double-spaced, typed, and in a twelve-point font. You must provide both citations and references to all of your sources. This assignment is worth 20% of your course grade.

Your paper must have a signed cover sheet (available at http://people.umass.edu/llovett/cover.html).

Please make sure that your paper makes a clear claim and that your claim is well supported with evidence. Review the Writing Guidelines for this course before you begin to research or write. (http://people.umass.edu/llovett/writing.html)

Due Friday, December 14th.

Please bring one copy of your paper with you to section, and submit a second copy through Spark. For this assignment we will use the Turnitin service for textual comparison or originality review for the detection of possible plagiarism. All submitted assignments will be included in the UMass Amherst dedicated databases of assignments at Turnitin. These databases of assignments will be used solely for the purpose of detecting possible plagiarism during the grading process and during this term and in the future.

TOPICS:

(1) The Scopes Trial can be interpreted as a conflict between evolution and fundamentalist Christianity, a conflict between modernity and tradition, a conflict between generations, a conflict over academic freedom and state power, and a conflict between critical thinking and deference to authority (religious or otherwise). Each of these interpretations has created a legacy that persists to the present day. How do you see one of these interpretations of the Scopes Trial also applying to some later event? In other words, in your opinion, what is the most significant continuity between the Scopes Trial and some later event? Do you find significant differences between the Scopes Trial and that later event? What significance does historical context make?

OR

(2) Read the December 2nd article in The New York Times on the Texas teacher, Christine Comer, who was fired for announcing a lecture on evolution (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/03/us/03evolution.html?_r=1&ref=us&oref=slogin). Imagine that you have been hired as an expert on the Scopes Trial to advise either the prosecution or defense team as they prepare for an eventual trial in Texas. How would you compare and contrast this event to the Scopes Trial? What continuities and departures would you argue are most significant? Why? In your answer please clearly indicate whether you are advising the prosecution or the defense.

FOR BOTH TOPICS: Explain your answer using evidence and citations from course material on the Scopes Trial, Inherit the Wind, the Kitzmiller Decision for the Dover Case, or other sources on debates after 1925, such as those on Doug Linder's Exploring Constitutional Conflicts: The Evolution Controversy (http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/evolution.htm), which includes links to later Supreme Court decisions like the Epperson vs. Arkansas (1968) or

Edwards vs Aguillard (1987), as well as links to both creationist and evolutionist sources and further material on evolution in the public schools.