3 replies to this topic

[AsemZ]

Compare and contrast lives of 2 ethnic minorities in USA during the Great Depression.
this is a 1500 word essay topic history HL
now, I come up blank when i think of the structure of this essay. I'm thinking my minorities will be african americans vs. women.
Please, those who read this, help me come up with an essay plan, i'd really appreciate your help.

[AmoKnocK]

I'm sorry but I don't know much about your topic but from the question I'm pretty sure that women aren't an ethnic minority

[Arrowhead]

Maybe focussing on African-Americans and Irish-Americans?

[Soiboist]

I frankly don't know what essay you're asked to do since neither Paper 2 or Paper 3 have any word limit. I guess it is just a practice assignment?

A command term is the main word in the question or statement telling you how to structure your essay. In this case "Compare and contrast" means "Give an account of similarities and differences between two (or more) items or situations, refering to both (all) of them throughout". You can look these up in the History Guide, last page. The guide can be downloaded from the "Files" section at this site, even if you're not a VIP member.

Anyway, having a clear and effective structure is crucial in compare/contrast essays, which seem to be the hardest essays for many people. What you'll want to do is to have a paragraph for each type of area of compare/contrast. This ensures that you are refering to both ethnic minorities throughout your essay, which is stated in the above definition. You should NOT have one entire paragraph for one ethnic minority, and then another paragraph for the next. If you don't know what you're doing, this decreases the likelihood that you are refering to both ethnic minorities throughout your essay. Unfortunately I don't do American History, but I can show you an example with Nazi Germany:

"Jewish women were exempted from the Nazi ideas emphasising women as mothers and housewives: when birth centres were closed, Jews were still castrated and propaganda aimed at having more children never targeted Jews. Moreover, medals of honour that women received for having more than 6 children were never given to any Jews..."

"Gypsies were seldomly castrated, but no propaganda encouraged any Gypsies to have children..."

In this case, I am not refering to both items throughout, nor do I have any elements showing comparing or contrasting. This is why you should structure your essay according to different areas of comparison. For instance:

"While Jews generally were purged more violently than Gypsies, neither of them were encouraged to have children. Gypsies were not, unlike Jews, castrated, but they were not subjects to propaganda encouraging women to become mothers, nor could they achieve medals for having multiple children. Moreover [...] Thus, the Nazis motherhood propaganda targeted German women solely, as both Jews and Gypsies were [...]"

Here, I am refering to both items in the entire paragraph, and am both comparing and contrasting. Then you'll just choose different relevant areas where you can compare and contrast. In an essay about Jews and Gypsies in Nazi Germany, these could be:

Family (above paragraph)

Education (could both ethnic minorities go to school, how were the respective situation?)

Concentration camps/treatment by Nazi security such as SS and Gestapo (were both ethnic minorities purged in the same way?)

And no, you cannot choose women as an ethnic minority. Arrowhead's suggestion would be good.