RBA Out-of-Class Peer Review Week 8

Date of meeting (or online?) Time Location

2/28/17 1:00pm Tresidder

My Group Members Contact information Research Topic

Sara Espinoza Email

Kristina Harris Email Civil Rights Activism in

History Textbooks

Instructions:
Meet up with your group members and exchange drafts (decide beforehand if
youre going to exchange paper copies or digital copies so that folks know if
they need to bring their laptops/tablets). Before everyone starts reading,
have a quick discussion about what you think is going well for your RBA and
where you think your RBA could use improvement. This gives your peers
suggestions on what they should pay special attention to while reading and
leaving comments.

As you read, leave marginal comments of suggestion. You might also leave
questions where you feel lost at sea. In addition to your marginal comments,
fill out a cover sheet (one for each of your peers) and give this to them
when you are finished. They will turn in their peer cover sheets in with their
final materials.

After they have read and discussed your draft with you, answer the following
short prompts (you will turn this page in with your materials in addition to
the cover sheets your peers provide you):

One of the main concerns my peers currently have with my paper is:

Three of the best suggestions my peers made toward further

revision that I plan to take into careful consideration are:
 RBA Week 8 Peer Review Cover Sheet
For Kristina
1. Comment on your peers title. Have they
treated this moment as a unique rhetorical
moment? Does the title interest you?
(After reading through the draft, you might
circle back to this question and suggest an
alternative title).
2. Find what you think to believe is the
authors thesis. Flag it because youll need
to come back to it later. Once you are done
reading the entire paper, go back to the
thesis and rewrite the authors thesis in
your own words. (If this was your paper,
how would you articulate their thesis?)
3. Give two suggestions toward
organizational strategy.
The title is neat and concise it tells the
audience exactly what the paper is about
without being superfluous (youd be
surprised by how many research paper
titles dont do that, unfortunately).
By analyzing history textbooks and
utilizing popular media sources, I argue
you that Civil Rights educations
nationalistic tendencies and narrative
approach to storytelling promotes an
idealistic portrayal of the relationship
between activists and the state.
In my own words: The history of the Civil
Rights Movement in America has been
oversimplified and idealized by hyper-
nationalistic history textbooks that present
the movements history in an abridged
narrative format that smooths over
moments of animosity.
I really appreciate the bolded headings for
each section in your RBA because it
provides a clear, organized outline of what
to expect in the paper. Im curious as to
how you might go on to discuss each of the
five textbooks in the Nationalism in
Textbooks section will you list each one
and describe its themes paragraph-by-
paragraph, or group similar textbooks
together and discuss their common
characteristics? I think the latter approach
might be more effective in terms of
supporting your argument, but both would
work!
4. Give two suggestions toward your peers
concluding moment (consider what the
RBA Assignment Sheet suggests about
conclusions).
5. Provide an end comment discussing the
use of sources/source variety/source type
throughout the argument.
6. Provide an end comment articulating
what the writing persuaded you of
For the conclusion, itd be really fantastic
to tie everything back to the opening
paragraph about current-day civil rights
activism (BLM activism). How will the way
textbooks write about Black Lives Matter
impact the way civil rights activism will be
viewed by a new generation of students
learning American history? I think that
suggestions for the future regarding Civil
Rights education would be incredibly
valuable in the conclusion, and Im glad
you will be including that.
Your sources and methodology section is
simply excellent the description of how
you selected and analyzed each source
was incredibly professional and effective!
You have a solid balance of scholarly
sources and references to popular media
as well in terms of hashtags and the
mention of Tomi Lahren.
Ive been persuaded that activist
movements, particularly the civil rights
movement in America, have been
simplified and unrealistically portrayed due
to both the steamlined narrative structure
and and the heavily nationalistic nature of
popular American history textbooks. It
seems as if the negative, grittier aspects of
the civil rights movement has been erased
in favor of showing unity.
7. Provide an end comment that a) points to
the strongest point/aspect of the paper and
b) points to the point/aspect of paper that
could be worked on the most. Provide at
least one suggestion for how to revise
further.
a) The strongest points of this paper
would definitely be the thesis
moment (second paragraph) as well
as the discussion of how historians
simplify and synthesize complex
events by adopting a narrative
format (excellent variety of examples
and discussion of pre-existing
scholarship on the topic).
b) (I know youre still working on this
section) Nationalism in textbooks has
the potential to be an incredibly
powerful section, but I worry that it
may end up being too similar to the
Nationalism and storytelling in
American history section. Be sure to
distinguish between the two and that
there isnt too much overlap in
discussion.
 RBA Week 8 Peer Review Cover Sheet
For Sara
8. Comment on your peers title. Have they
treated this moment as a unique rhetorical
moment? Does the title interest you?
(After reading through the draft, you might
circle back to this question and suggest an
alternative title).
9. Find what you think to believe is the
authors thesis. Flag it because youll need
to come back to it later. Once you are done
reading the entire paper, go back to the
thesis and rewrite the authors thesis in
your own words. (If this was your paper,
how would you articulate their thesis?)
10. Give two suggestions toward
organizational strategy.
Very catchy and concise lets the
audience know right away not only what
the topic will be but also what your
argument/thesis is.
When focusing on the United States,
groups tackling the war on human
trafficking can be classified as one of two
distinguishable categories: federal law and
their enforcers or local community
organizations. With the federal law and
their enforcers using a trafficker-orientated
method, there are often high tensions
between local community organizations
that use a victim-orientated approach. If
the federal government adapted the
methods of these organizations, a greater
amount of justice could be reached.
In my own words: To reduce tensions
between the two major groups fighting
human trafficking federal law and local
community organizations the federal
government should adapt the latters
victim-orientated approach to more
effectively combat the enormous number
of victims in human trafficking.
The headings for each section in your RBA
were excellent because they provided an
organized, clear outline of what to expect
in the paper. Right now you only have up
to Federal Law and Their Enforcers but I
assume you will also include a section
discussing the victim-orientated approach
of local community organizations. It may
also be helpful to include a section that
directly compares victim-orientated vs.
trafficker-orientated methods later on in
the paper.
11. Give two suggestions toward your peers
concluding moment (consider what the
RBA Assignment Sheet suggests about
conclusions).
12. Provide an end comment discussing the
use of sources/source variety/source type
throughout the argument.
13. Provide an end comment articulating
what the writing persuaded you of
It would be fantastic for the conclusion if
you could substantively argue for the
benefits of combining the powers of local
organizations and federal governments in
fighting human trafficking there are a lot
of statistics and facts on it (as proven
throughout your paper), so it may be
challenging to tie everything together but
judging from your thesis moment, it should
be no problem for you!
Wonderful balance of scholarly sources,
statistics on the current situation of human
trafficking in the US, and quotes from
articles and reports.
Ive been persuaded that it is not enough
to simply rely on only federal government
or local organizations techniques to
combat human trafficking instead, these
institutions must adapt their strategy to
best fit what is most effective, and find
compromise.
14. Provide an end comment that a) points to
the strongest point/aspect of the paper and
b) points to the point/aspect of paper that
could be worked on the most. Provide at
least one suggestion for how to revise
further.
a) The introduction and background on
human trafficking in the United
States is incredibly powerful and
effective at not only drawing in the
audiences attention but keeping us
enthralled as we learn about the
misconceptions and truths regarding
the crisis.
b) The section about the farmer and law
enforcement interviews was a bit
dense and hard to follow perhaps
too much detail about the process of
the interviews. Maybe focus on the
results/conclusions (or lack of
conclusions) instead, to make your
paper and argument flow.