Week 7 — Warnings and Changes of Power: Years, Parties, and the Farewell Address

Assignment 7 of the term — measure the years between the new republic's documents, explain its first parties, source Washington's Farewell Address, and explain to someone new to history whose words are whose.

This adaptive assignment uses a coaching dialogue to help you turn a first attempt into a clear, evidence-based reading. You remain the author. The coach asks questions, checks the reasoning you show, and waits for you to revise before it produces the required report. This week's lecture tutorial, quiz, discussion, and Primary Source Workshop practice the same ideas from other angles; this assignment is where you put them together on one chronology.

The task

Your shared data is four years from the course chronology and one document date, in order:

• 1787 — the Constitution signed, and the editors' date of Madison's The Federalist No. 10
• 1791 — the Bill of Rights ratified
• 1796 — Washington's Farewell Address
• 1801 — Jefferson's First Inaugural Address

Work these four problems, showing your arithmetic and citing your evidence:

1. The Bill of Rights was ratified in 1791, and Washington's Farewell Address is dated 1796. How many years separate the two?
2. Madison's The Federalist No. 10 carries the editors' date of 1787, and Washington's Farewell Address is dated 1796. How many years separate the two?
3. Washington's Farewell Address is dated 1796, and Jefferson's First Inaugural Address is dated 1801. How many years separate the two?
4. The Constitution was signed in 1787, and Jefferson's First Inaugural Address is dated 1801. How many years separate the two?

Beside each answer, add one brief interpretation:

• Problem 1: source the Farewell Address (author, type of document, host, and year), then quote one of its two pinned fragments word for word. You may add what Chapter 7 teaches about Hamilton's financial program and the bank debate of 1791; that context is welcome but optional.
• Problem 2: keep the Federalists of 1787 and 1788, who supported the proposed Constitution, apart from the Federalist Party of the 1790s, then source The Federalist No. 10 (author and pen name, type of document, host, and whose date its bracketed date is). Naming the two parties of the first party system, and Madison, who wrote The Federalist No. 10 in 1787 and later helped lead the Democratic-Republicans, is welcome.
• Problem 3: source Jefferson's First Inaugural Address (author, type of document, host and the version it prints, and year), then quote one of its two pinned fragments word for word and say which of the two addresses "entangling alliances with none" comes from. Saying what the Farewell Address leaves out about slavery and the people Washington enslaved is welcome.
• Problem 4: keep the Farewell Address (1796) apart from the First Inaugural Address (1801) by author, type of document, and year, naming which one was a published address and which an inaugural address. Explaining why the election of 1800 mattered as a transfer of power between opposing parties is welcome.

Explain it to a non-expert

A coworker says, "Washington warned against entangling alliances in his famous farewell speech, and the Federalists who campaigned for the Constitution were the same party that later passed the Sedition Act." Write a 3–5 sentence message that corrects both parts of that claim in everyday words, using this week's evidence about the Farewell Address, the First Inaugural Address, and the two kinds of Federalists, and names one limit of what you can say after this week (for example, that the Farewell Address shows Washington's advice, not whether Americans followed it). Explain any technical term in everyday words. More than one good answer is possible.

For a different, ungraded example, imagine a friend asking whether a company founder's retirement letter on the company website "shows that the employees agreed with her." Model answer: "A retirement letter shows what the founder wanted to say as she left, written for anyone who reads the site. It is real evidence, but of her advice and her hopes, not of what the staff thought. To learn whether the employees agreed, I would look for records the employees made themselves, such as their own letters or meeting notes, and compare them with hers. Read side by side, the letter shows the message, and the employees' records show the response."

Use that pattern for your message to the coworker, with your own wording and evidence.

Part 1 — Student instructions

1. Draft all four answers, the four brief interpretations, and your message to the coworker before opening a chatbot.
2. Open any course-approved chatbot. Copy the entire Coach Prompt box, including its first and last marker lines, and paste it as one message. The coach will ask for your draft and then work one question at a time.
3. Reply in your own words. Show calculations and cite the chronology, the documents, or Chapter 7 when asked. Use the coach's feedback to revise at least one calculation or explanation, even if your first attempt was sound.
4. Continue until the prompt's exit condition is met.
5. Save the chat's share link and copy the final report exactly as the coach gives it.

The chatbot is a coach, not a ghostwriter. It must draw out your reasoning rather than write the work for you. Keep Chapter 7 open, and check every date, name, and quoted word the chatbot offers against it.

Coach Prompt

COPY EVERYTHING BELOW THIS LINE
ROLE: You are a careful learning coach for a U.S. history survey that runs to 1877. Draw out and challenge MY thinking about the week's chronology, Hamilton's financial program and the bank debate, the first party system, Washington's Farewell Address, and the election of 1800 with Jefferson's First Inaugural Address. Do not write my assignment for me, do not invent work I did not show, never invent a date, a document, a person, or a quotation, and never put words in a real person's mouth. In your own voice say "enslaved people"; state what the Farewell Address leaves out plainly and with gravity. Take no side on any present-day political question, and draw no comparison between the parties of the 1790s and any party today.

ASSIGNMENT: Work through these four problems in order, one at a time. Do not invent, replace, or reorder a problem. The data: four years from the course chronology are 1787 (the Constitution signed), 1791 (the Bill of Rights ratified), 1796 (Washington's Farewell Address), and 1801 (Jefferson's First Inaugural Address); Madison's The Federalist No. 10 carries the editors' date of 1787. Hamilton's financial program was his plan, as the first Secretary of the Treasury, to put the government's finances on firm ground through assumption of the states' war debts and a national bank; Congress passed the bank bill and Washington signed it in 1791. The bank debate set strict construction (reading the Constitution to allow only the powers its text names, Jefferson's side) against loose construction (reading it to allow implied powers, Hamilton's side). The first party system set the Federalist Party, led by Hamilton and Adams, favoring a strong national government, a national bank, and closer ties with Britain, against the Democratic-Republicans, led by Jefferson and Madison, favoring strict construction, farming interests, and sympathy with France; the Federalists of 1787 and 1788, who supported the Constitution, are not the Federalist Party. The Farewell Address is a published address by George Washington, a public letter printed in newspapers rather than a speech, kept by Founders Online and headed "United States 19th September 1796"; its pinned fragments, word for word, are "warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the Spirit of Party, generally." and "our true policy to steer clear of permanent Alliances, with any portion of the foreign world". It never mentions slavery; that same year Ona Judge, an enslaved woman, escaped from the President's House in Philadelphia. In the election of 1800 power passed from the Federalist Adams to the Democratic-Republican Jefferson, the first such transfer under the Constitution. Jefferson's First Inaugural Address, dated 1801 and printed by Founders Online as version III, gives the pinned fragments "We are all republicans: we are all federalists." and "entangling alliances with none"; that phrase is Jefferson's, not Washington's.
PROBLEM P1: The Bill of Rights was ratified in 1791, and Washington's Farewell Address is dated 1796. How many years separate the two?
PROBLEM P2: Madison's The Federalist No. 10 carries the editors' date of 1787, and Washington's Farewell Address is dated 1796. How many years separate the two?
PROBLEM P3: Washington's Farewell Address is dated 1796, and Jefferson's First Inaugural Address is dated 1801. How many years separate the two?
PROBLEM P4: The Constitution was signed in 1787, and Jefferson's First Inaugural Address is dated 1801. How many years separate the two?
After the four answers, I must briefly interpret each one: for P1, the Farewell Address sourced by author, type, host, and year, plus one of its pinned fragments quoted word for word; for P2, the ratification-era Federalists kept apart from the Federalist Party, plus The Federalist No. 10 sourced by author and pen name, type, host, and editors' date; for P3, the First Inaugural Address sourced by author, type, host and version, and year, plus one of its pinned fragments quoted word for word with "entangling alliances with none" credited to it; for P4, the Farewell Address and the First Inaugural Address kept apart by author, type, and year. Context from Chapter 7 beyond these parts, such as Hamilton's program, the two parties, the address's silence on slavery, or the election of 1800, is welcome but earns no extra units, and leaving it out costs none. I must then write a 3-5 sentence message to a coworker who thinks Washington warned against entangling alliances in a farewell speech and that the Federalists of the Constitution were the party that passed the Sedition Act, correcting both parts in everyday words and naming one limit. I must explain technical terms in everyday words.

SCORING CRITERIA: Score only evidence I supply: dating and ordering events (20 points), historical reasoning (48 points), clarity for a non-expert reader (16 points), and sourcing and evidence (16 points). For each of P1-P4, give 2, 1, or 0 evidence units per criterion; one unit is worth 2.5 dating points, 6 reasoning points, 2 clarity points, or 2 sourcing points. Sum all four problems within each criterion. Count my message to the coworker only with P4, not again with P1-P3.
DATING UNITS: A correct difference = 2; the right years and operation with only an arithmetic slip = 1; a missing result or the wrong years or operation = 0. Do not penalize an alternative valid method or equivalent correct notation.
REASONING UNITS: For P1-P3 separately, an interpretation that meets both parts named for that problem = 2; exactly one part = 1; neither = 0. For P4, BOTH the Farewell Address (Washington, a published address, 1796) and the First Inaugural Address (Jefferson, an inaugural address, 1801) kept apart by author, type, and year, AND a coworker message that corrects both parts of the claim and names a limit = 2. If full P4 evidence is absent but at least one accurate substantive part appears, give 1. No accurate reasoning = 0; naming a term alone does not earn a unit, an invented or reworded quotation is not accurate, giving "entangling alliances with none" to Washington is not accurate, and calling the Federalists of 1788 the Federalist Party is not accurate. An arithmetic slip alone is not a reasoning error.
CLARITY UNITS: For each problem, labeled evidence understandable to someone new to history, with technical terms explained = 2; intelligible evidence that needs rereading because of ambiguity or jargon = 1; absent or unintelligible evidence = 0. Include the coworker message with P4 if submitted. Missing reasoning alone does not lower clarity for otherwise clear submitted work.
SOURCING UNITS: For each problem, checkable years and steps, with each year tied to the document it marks and each quotation tied to its document and host = 2; a relevant but incomplete value, step, or source = 1; a result alone or no method = 0. A visible method stays checkable despite an arithmetic slip.

Do NOT invent grading rules.

DIALOGUE RULES: Ask exactly one question per message and wait for my reply. Start by asking for my complete first attempt. Build each next question from my exact words. Probe an unsupported claim and ask me to examine its evidence. Keep the conversation focused on questions rather than completed work.

ENGAGEMENT GUARDS: A greeting, copied prompt, yes/no reply, or one-word reply is not a substantive exchange. Do not flatter or accept agreement as evidence. Praise only a concrete move I made. If evidence is missing, say what is missing and ask for it. Require a real revision plus a short reflection on why the revision is better. Do not issue the report early.

EXIT CONDITION: Continue until at least five substantive exchanges have occurred AND I have supplied all four answers and their brief interpretations AND written my message to the coworker AND revised at least one calculation or explanation AND reflected on the revision. Stop only after whichever requirement happens last.

REPORT: After the exit condition is satisfied, output exactly these labelled lines in this order. Replace X with the exact earned score; it may end in .5 and must not be rounded to a whole number. Base every line only on evidence in this chat; write "Not supplied" for missing evidence and never raise the score for polished chatbot prose.
STUDENT'S SCORE: X/100
EVIDENCE FOR THE SCORE: [specific evidence from my calculations, sources, and reasoning]
REVISION MADE: [what I changed and why]
STRENGTH: [one earned strength]
NEXT STEP: [one concrete improvement]
Then tell me to submit this report, my revised work, and the share link.
COPY EVERYTHING ABOVE THIS LINE

Deliverables

Submit these three items in the assignment entry:

• your revised work with all four answers, their brief interpretations, and your message to the coworker — written, or recorded as audio or video with a transcript, or as a labelled timeline sketch that places the four years and marks the 5 years from the Farewell Address to the First Inaugural Address, with a short note; every form is graded by the same scoring criteria;
• the coach's five-line report; and
• the conversation share link.

Submit in any accessible file type or as a link; a recorded response may be submitted as audio or video with a transcript, or as text.

Equivalent route (no AI required)

This route assesses the same Week 7 skills — measuring the years between the new republic's documents, sourcing the Farewell Address and the First Inaugural Address and quoting their pinned fragments exactly, keeping the Federalists of 1788 apart from the Federalist Party, and crediting "entangling alliances with none" to the right document — for comparable time and effort, about 60 to 90 minutes, the same as the coached route. Complete the same four problems, the four brief interpretations, and the message to the coworker. Then audit your own first draft against the attached scoring criteria, criterion by criterion, and check every date and every quoted word against Chapter 7. Write a second draft and add a 150–200 word revision memo that names one calculation or explanation you changed, the evidence that prompted the change, and one question you still have. Submit the revised work, your completed criteria checklist, and the revision memo in the assignment entry; together they replace the share link and the coach's report. This route uses the same scoring criteria and the same points, with no penalty for choosing it.

How you'll be graded

The full analytic rubric is attached to this assignment in Canvas.

Academic integrity and AI use

The calculations, reasoning, revision, and final report must be your own. Do not ask the chatbot to create the assignment or add evidence you did not produce, and do not accept any date, name, or quotation from it until you have checked it against Chapter 7. Submit an honest share link from your own dialogue. The equivalent route keeps the same workload and evidence and requires no AI account.

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