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User Scenarios for The African American Experience

Basic Research Assignment: Write a research paper or speech on a 20th-century African American of your choice.

Research Task African American Experience Resources
Choose subject/person. Use Subject Browse to find well-known African Americans under Icons, or use Browse to look for biographies of prominent figures in such topic areas as Arts & Entertainment, Politics, and Education.
After selecting a subject for your paper or presentation, pull up all information on him or her in the database. Let's say a student sees "Malcolm X" in the Icons list on the Home Page and decides to select him as the subject of his paper. From here, he can perform a Quick Search on "Malcolm X." The most relevant material - much of which comes from the acclaimed The Malcolm X Encyclopedia - will appear at the top of the Results page generated by his Search term. The student can further sort the list by content hits type (e.g., article, image, primary document) or search within the results to narrow his content sources.
Take notes and/or clip out quotes from secondary sources to begin to pull together the core material in the paper. Make sure to provide sources for all quoted material. The user can Email content to his account, Print out articles, or cut and paste from the source material. All articles include full citation/source information in both Chicago and MLA style on the bottom of printed or emailed articles, as well as in a clickable pop-up window.
Browse for background information to put Malcolm X in the context of his times. Use this information in the introduction and conclusion of your paper or speech. The user can search a general Timeline by key word and time period, or search for more specific timelines and chronologies for in-depth coverage of various subjects and time periods.
Incorporate images and references to primary sources in your final paper or speech. An Image Index provides access to thousands of images. A search for "Malcolm X" within the Image Index will locate relevant photos. Or type "Malcolm X" into the Quick Search box and click on the "Image" tab. Dozens of Images will appear as Results. Our Primary Source Index contains thousands of documents, including speeches, treaties, and legal cases. Landmark Documents collects and highlights some of the most important primary sources in African American history.
Find other sources of information about Malcolm X. Under the Other Resources tab on the Search results screen, users will find more than 250 relevant, vetted Web links, selected by our editors and subject experts from our Advisory Board.
Write rough draft, edit, and create final paper or presentation. In addition to 88 lesson plans, the Classroom Resources section includes tips and tricks for getting the most out of using AAE. Future updates to AAE will include guidelines for writing a research paper and other valuable student aids.

Advanced Research Assignment: Write a term paper describing what life was like for slaves in the United States prior to emancipation.

Research Task African American Experience Resources
Put together a general background description of slavery in the US, using secondary sources. Browse by topic (e.g., Slavery) or perform a Search for "slavery." Search results hits will be relevancy ranked, but the user can also narrow search results (there will be hundreds for such a broad search) by searching within the results.
Compile statistics on slavery at different times/decades in American history. Perform a Quick Search for "slavery statistics." Results will include material from Historical Statistics of the States of the US: Two Centuries of the Census, 1790-1990, and other statistic-rich sources.
Find slave narratives and other primary sources. The Slave Narratives resource page contains the entire 40-volume compilation of WPA slave narratives – almost 3,500 in all – as well as literary narratives from the 3-volume African American Slave Narratives: An Anthology. For context on the Slave Narratives, click on the Slave Narratives Topic Guide from the Home Page. Topic Guides provide contextualizing essays, images, links to key figures, timelines, further reading lists, and more on topics of key interest to multicultural researchers. Look for new Topic Guides with each Mosaic enhancement.
Find images of slavery in paintings and daguerreotype. Use the Image Index or the Image tab in Search Results to find appropriate historical images, such as maps, newspaper illustrations, and portraits. The Image Index contains more than 3,000 images.

Student-Teacher Assignment: Prepare a lesson plan on the role of African Americans in the American Revolution.

Research Task African American Experience Resources
Find sample lesson plans on African American history topics. Under Classroom Resources teachers will find a lesson plan titled "African Americans in the American Revolution." The 88 lesson plans contained in AAE feature document-based questions, glossaries, and contextualizing essays. AAE’s Classroom Resources provide tools even veteran teachers can incorporate into the curriculum. Look for correlations to state curriculum standards in Fall 2008.
Create student activities, incorporating primary sources wherever possible. Each lesson plan contains student activities that link directly to related primary source materials in a separate area of the site. For example, Activity IV, Comparing and Contrasting Representations of the American Revolution links directly to two different images of the Boston Massacre (a drawing by Henry Pelham and an engraving by Paul Revere) for students to examine and discuss.
Provide a wider perspective of the topic. Each lesson plan ends with a Contemporary Connection section that provides a modern-day application of the topic and suggestions for further student and teacher resources and Web sites.