Week 10 — A Told Life and a Reforming Nation: Years, Voices, and the Truth Narrative

Assignment 10 of the term — measure the years inside The Narrative of Sojourner Truth, keep its two dated events apart, explain the reforms of these decades, sort sources, and explain to someone new to history whose words are on the page.

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 set of years.

The task

Your shared data comes from the week's workshop document, the course chronology, and the source-sorting set:

• 1776 — the Declaration of Independence (the course chronology)
• 1797 and 1800 — the two ends of the birth range The Narrative of Sojourner Truth gives
• 1827 — the year the narrative ties to the free papers her enslaver promised and refused to give
• 1850 — The Narrative of Sojourner Truth, a dictated narrative told by Sojourner Truth and written by Olive Gilbert
• 12 illustrative items in the source-sorting set: 7 primary and 5 secondary

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

1. The Narrative of Sojourner Truth says she was born between the years 1797 and 1800. How many years wide is that range?
2. The narrative ties the year 1827 to the free papers Truth's enslaver promised her, and the narrative appeared in 1850. How many years separate the two?
3. The Declaration of Independence is dated 1776, and The Narrative of Sojourner Truth appeared in 1850. How many years separate the two?
4. The illustrative source-sorting set has 7 primary items and 5 secondary items. How many more primary items than secondary items does it hold?

Beside each answer, add one brief interpretation:

• Problem 1: source the narrative (its teller, its writer, its date, its type, and its host) and quote its pinned fragment word for word, then explain how the word she in the fragment shows whose wording is on the page.
• Problem 2: tie each year to its pinned record — 1850 is the narrative's date, and 1827 is the year in the narrative's own sentence that, in paraphrase, she was to have been free — then close-read that sentence's words "was to have been free": say what they state and what they leave open, and name one source you would check them against. Keeping the promised free papers apart from her emancipation by the State, which the narrative places in 1828, is welcome but optional.
• Problem 3: quote the Declaration of Independence's pinned line "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal" word for word and source it (its origin, type, year, and host), then keep the Declaration of 1776 apart from the Constitution of 1787 by what each document did. Naming reforms the Second Great Awakening fed, explaining immediate abolition, or saying how the Declaration of Sentiments used the 1776 text is welcome.
• Problem 4: sort items 11 and 12 of the source-sorting set with a reason for each, and explain why The Narrative of Sojourner Truth is primary for Truth's own experience.

Explain it to a non-expert

A coworker says, "Sojourner Truth wrote her own life story back in 1827, and because someone else wrote it down, it is only a secondary source." Write a 3–5 sentence message that corrects both parts of that claim in everyday words, using this week's evidence about The Narrative of Sojourner Truth and about sorting sources, and names one limit of what you can say after this week (for example, that the narrative shows Truth's account as Gilbert wrote it, not every word Truth spoke). 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 famous athlete's "as told to" memoir "shows how the athlete writes." Model answer: "An as-told-to memoir is a life story the athlete told aloud and a professional writer put on paper. It is real evidence of the athlete's memories, but the sentences, the order, and some of the comments are the writer's choices. To learn how the athlete writes, I would look for something the athlete wrote alone, such as a letter or a post, and compare it with the book. Read side by side, the memoir shows the story, and the athlete's own writing shows the voice."

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 narrative, the chronology, the source-sorting set, or Chapter 10 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 10 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 Narrative of Sojourner Truth, its teller, its writer, and its two dated events; the Second Great Awakening and the reforms it fed; immediate abolition; the Declaration of Sentiments; and sorting sources as primary or secondary. 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 slavery and the broken promise to Truth plainly and with gravity. Read every religious belief as history and never judge it. Take no side on any present-day political question, and draw no comparison with any present-day cause or movement.

ASSIGNMENT: Work through these four problems in order, one at a time. Do not invent, replace, or reorder a problem. The data: the Declaration of Independence is dated 1776 (the course chronology); it is a declaration made in Congress, read in the National Archives' transcript, and its pinned fragment, word for word, is "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal". The Declaration of 1776 announced independence and framed no government; the Constitution of 1787 framed a government. The Narrative of Sojourner Truth is a dictated narrative of 1850, told by Sojourner Truth and written by Olive Gilbert, kept by the Avalon Project; its pinned fragment, word for word, is "born, as near as she can now calculate, between the years 1797 and 1800", and the narrative speaks of Truth as she. The narrative ties 1827 to the free papers her enslaver promised her a year before the date the State had fixed, a promise he refused to keep, and it places her emancipation by the State in 1828. The narrative's second pinned sentence says, in paraphrase, that its subject was to have been free in 1827; its words "was to have been free" state an expected freedom, not the day she became free. A dictated narrative's dates are checked against other sources rather than settled from the narrative alone. The Second Great Awakening fed reform movements: temperance, public schooling, asylum and prison reform, abolitionism, and women's rights; the course reads belief as evidence of what people thought and did and never judges whether a belief was true. Immediate abolition demanded an end to slavery without delay or payment to enslavers, grew in the 1830s, and remained a minority movement in the North, with Black abolitionists among its leading voices. The Declaration of Sentiments, adopted at the Seneca Falls Convention, was modeled on the Declaration of Independence and demanded rights for women, the vote among them. The illustrative source-sorting set has 12 items, 7 primary and 5 secondary; item 11, an online encyclopedia entry summarizing the census, is secondary, and item 12, an oral account recorded in the 1930s from a person born into slavery, is primary for that person's own experience.
PROBLEM P1: The Narrative of Sojourner Truth says she was born between the years 1797 and 1800. How many years wide is that range?
PROBLEM P2: The narrative ties the year 1827 to the free papers Truth's enslaver promised her, and the narrative appeared in 1850. How many years separate the two?
PROBLEM P3: The Declaration of Independence is dated 1776, and The Narrative of Sojourner Truth appeared in 1850. How many years separate the two?
PROBLEM P4: The illustrative source-sorting set has 7 primary items and 5 secondary items. How many more primary items than secondary items does it hold?
After the four answers, I must briefly interpret each one: for P1, the narrative sourced by teller, writer, date, type, and host with its pinned fragment quoted word for word, plus how the fragment's she shows the writer's voice; for P2, 1850 tied to the narrative's date and 1827 to the narrative's own sentence, plus a close reading of its words "was to have been free" with one source to check them against; for P3, the Declaration's pinned line quoted word for word and sourced, plus the Declaration of 1776 kept apart from the Constitution of 1787; for P4, items 11 and 12 sorted with reasons plus why the Truth narrative is primary for her own experience. Context from Chapter 10 beyond these parts, such as the narrative's 1828, the reforms the Second Great Awakening fed, immediate abolition, or the Declaration of Sentiments, 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 Sojourner Truth wrote her own life story in 1827 and that the narrative is only a secondary source because someone else wrote it down, 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 or counts and operation with only an arithmetic slip = 1; a missing result or the wrong years, counts, 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 items 11 and 12 sorted with reasons and the Truth narrative explained as primary for her own experience, 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, calling the narrative Truth's own written words or leaving out Olive Gilbert is not accurate, reading "was to have been free" as the day she became free is not accurate, and a verdict on whether a religious belief was true 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 or counts and steps, with each year tied to the document or event 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 1776, 1797, 1800, 1827, and 1850 and marks the 23 years from the promised free papers to the narrative, 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 10 skills — measuring the years inside The Narrative of Sojourner Truth, sourcing it by its teller and its writer, close-reading its pinned sentence on 1827, quoting and sourcing the Declaration's equality line, and sorting sources as primary or secondary — 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 10. 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 10. 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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