History of the Americas Summer
Research Project
Juniors - Summer 2009
Course Overview
History of the Americas is a two year study of history that
includes studies of the United States, Latin America, Canada, as well as the
world during the twentieth century. This
course will delve into the who, when, why, what,
where, and how of many specific topics. You
will write an internal assessment, a research paper, during your senior year as
the part of your final grade for this course.
Your final assessment (IB exam) will be given at the end of the second
year and will be in the form of 3 essays:
·
Document based
assessment with 4 short answers
·
2 questions (from
30 choices) covering 20th century world topics
·
3 questions (from
24 choices) covering US, Latin America, and Canada
These answers will require detailed knowledge of the subject
areas as well as a critical analysis.
This means that you will test on information that you have learned
during your junior year.
Summer
Research Project
In an effort to prepare you for your senior year, you will
write a practice internal assessment during your junior year. This will teach you the process, making your
senior year internal assessment much easier.
This means you will write 2 internal assessments over the next two
years. One of the diploma requirements
is an Extended Essay, and many students will often select a topic for this
paper in the realm of history. If you
select an extended essay topic in history, none of the 3 essays (2 internal
assessments and extended essay) can cover the same topic. This summer project will help you begin
researching topics that are of interest to you.
The idea is to begin building a plan that you will use during the next 2
years. This is not a binding plan, and
you will be able to change it as ideas grow due to your new experiences.
DIRECTIONS:
Extended Essay
1.
Think
about what subject that you might like to write your extended essay. IF
this subject is history, think about narrowing this choice to a specific
topic. You will be able to change this
topic as necessary until early the second semester of your junior year. This is just a rough plan to make these
choices easier.
Internal Assessment
2.
Select 2
history topics that interest you for your internal assessments (1- jr;
1- sr). These
topics should be different from each other, and they cannot be the same topic selected
in task #1 (if the EE subject is history).
Take the time to do some initial research on these topics to ensure
there is enough information to write about.
3.
For task #2, write a brief paragraph for each
topic, briefly explaining what you found during your research that drew you to
select those topics. Also list at least
5 resources that you found in your initial research for each topic. Identify what type of resource they are and
rank them from best to worst.
4.
Turn in
your 2 short paragraphs – typed - on the first day of class in August. You will select one of these topics during
the first weeks of school to begin working on for the practice internal
assessment.
(Example on reverse side…)
EXAMPLE Johnny
IB Student
History of Americas
– Summer Assignment
1. Extended Essay Topic - ??????????
2. 2 Internal Assessment Topics
–
a.
World War I airplanes
and their impact on the war
b.
Winston Churchill’s legacy after the war
3. Brief paragraphs for each topic –
World War I airplanes
???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
?????????????????
Winston Churchill
????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
??????????????????????????????????????
Mininum of 5 Resources:
Title Type Rank
1.
History of Aviation Reference 2
2.
Winston Churchill: A Biography Biography 5
3.
????
4.
????
5.
????