Causes of Conflict CBA

Mr. GormanHarrison Prep

2011-12

What are Causes of Conflict?

• A Conflict can be defined as the struggle between opposing

forces.

• A conflict can have many causes. To avoid and resolve conflicts, it helps to understand these causes.

• This paper asks you to research a conflict that has taken place in the Journey Across Time text (except the American Revolution) develop a position in which you explain the causes of a conflict.

What is a Position?

• All CBA responses should include a position.

• A position is: “a point of view adopted and held to” example: I made my position on the issue clear

• For your CBA a position, or thesis is a persuasive, well‐reasoned argument that is supported by research (facts).

• Your CBA should tell the reader what you think, why you feel this way, and support your belief.

How do I support my Position?

• Any required explanation or analysis should include at least one specific detail or example as well as the student’s commentary on how the detail or example relates and supports the position, issue, or topic being addressed in the CBA response.

• Just providing commentary or just listing specific details is not adequate to earn a response credit for explaining or analyzing something.

What are sources?

• All CBAs for grades 6‐12 require responses to use and cite 3 or more sources.

• To be credited for the use and citation of a source, the response must explicitly address the source within the text and provide enough bibliographic information so that an outside reviewer could find the source (e.g., author, title, and url for an online article).

• Search Engines such as: Wikipedia, Bing, Google, Ask . . . Etc. are not primary sources!!!

What will you be graded on?• There are four qualities that any CBA response must have to earn credit. In short, they must be

accurate, clear, cohesive, and explicit in addressing the relevant concepts.

• Cohesive: All parts, paragraphs, or sections of a CBA response must fit together in one cohesive

whole. If it is so disjointed that an outside reviewer would not be able to gather the overall

position, it cannot earn credit.

• Clear: If an outside reviewer cannot follow the points made in a CBA response due to lack of

clarity, it cannot be credited.

• Explicit: Responses should address concepts and elements required by the rubric in explicit

terms. For example, if the rubric requires the response to include a discussion of a particular

perspective, it should be clear to an outside reviewer where that discussion is in the response.

Credit should not be given to points that require inferences to be made.

• Accurate: For a response to earn any credit, the information provided for a particular criterion

must be accurate. The following is a supplemental criterion to be used in conjunction with CBA’s

rubric when the response contains inaccuracies. In sum, a response should earn no more than a

“3” for a particular criterion if there are some minor inaccuracies and no more than a “2” for a

particular criterion if there are any major inaccuracies.

Let’s Look at the Rubric

• What is the paper asking for?– State a position on the main causes of a conflict

– Provide background by describing:• Who• What• When• Where

– Tell us why you feel this conflict occurred, and if one factor was more important than others

– Make references in the paper to three credible sources and provide a work cited page

Let’s look at a sample paper

• Evaluate and grade a student sample

Position

• States a position on why a factor played a primary role in causing the conflict.

• Finds similarities between this conflict and current conflicts.

• Draws a conclusion about how studying this conflict helps us understand the causes of current conflicts.

Background - Research

• Does the Paper describe all four of the following:

– Who was involved?– What the conflict was?– When the conflict took place?– Where the conflict took place?

Background - Factors

• Does this paper provide background on the causes of the conflict by explaining three factors that helped cause the conflict?

– Factor #1– Factor #2– Factor #3

Reasons and Evidence

• Does this paper tell us why the author holds their position?

• Is their position supported by evidence?

• Does the evidence tell us why one factor was more important than the other?

• Does this analysis tell us how the conflict may not have occurred if one of the main causes did not happen?

References

• Does this paper make references to four or more credible sources?

– Source #1– Source #2– Source #3– Source #4

• Does this paper cite sources with a Work Cited Page using MLA format?

What is your Grade?

• What did this paper get?

• What questions do you still have?

Next Step

• Meet with “Stamp Crew”

• Rest of class:– Look over assignment– Make sure you have documents in portfolio– Write due dates in calendar– Look in index in JAT Text for “Wars”

• Start your research!!!