This assignment demands your critical attention to bias in historical writing. Give it your very best attempt, even if you're unsure that you're doing it correctly. Because it is in preparation for a future writing challenge (see further below), we would classify this as a formative assessment.

If you need a copy of the textbook reading, please click here.

SUMMATIVE ASSESSMENT

Focusing on the six paragraphs under the subheadings, “Indians Fight Back” and “Chivington Massacres the Cheyenne” (pp. 415-16), now rewrite the history textbook selection without changing the factual aspects of it. Meaning, after identifying the bias of the current text, think about how you might use diction, voice, length and inclusion/exclusion to create a different bias in your own version. 

You may confine your rewrite to any THREE contiguous paragraphs for this assessment. In a fourth and separate paragraph, you will need to explain which method(s) you employed (inclusion/exclusion, length, diction, voice, or other) to substantively change the bias, citing specific examples (i.e., quotes) from the text. Click here for a link to the raw text so you can avoid retyping sentences.

Content warning: feel free to include some of the primary source details provided by two US soldiers (Silas Soule and Joseph Cramer) who were at the Sand Creek (Chivington) Massacre. Make sure to scroll down in order to read the primary source material. The last link is a more recent interpretation (meaning, a secondary source) provided by the National Park Service.

In the end, this writing challenge will function as a mirror to the final exam.