IIIF for Educators

Dog Eat Dog

Students are introduced to the practice of "Ekphrasis" to practice "reading" an image/photograph.

Dog Eat Dog

💡 Concept

Detail of a broadside (cartoon) with a dog with a broom tied to its tail running from gallows, various speech bubbles, and a caption "Strange's Case, Strangly Altered."

Framing the Assignment

Blood and destruction shall be so in use,
And dreadful objects so familiar,
That mothers shall but smile when they behold
Their infants quartered with the hands of war,
All pity choked with custom of fell deeds,
And Caesar’s spirit, ranging for revenge,
With Ate by his side come hot from hell,
Shall in these confines with a monarch’s voice
Cry “Havoc!” and let slip the dogs of war..

-Shakespeare, Julius Caesar

When Stephen College was hanged, drawn and quartered for treason in 1682 none was giddier about it than Roger L'Estrange. The two had been at each other's throats for years, and had "Towzer" L'Estrange not slipped the noose years earlier, College would have been no less delighted. The bloodthirstiness of political discourse is evident across the spectrum of primary source published documents from the period, from pamphlet to play, from broadside to ballad, and playing cards to poem. Even humor, "children's" literature (e.g. fables), and art were weaponized in the religious-political battles to the death between what emerged as our two party (Whig v. Tory) system.

Discourse of all kinds became entangled with violent religious symbolism, public pageantry, and collective historical traumas, such as the Great Fire of London (1666), and words and images were rich with allusion and allegory. Put more simply: documents said more than was evident at first glance. Historians are still hard at work decoding and contextualizing materials that have been available for over 300 years, and now it's time for us to have a crack at it. The Clark Library holds a treasure trove of materials from the late Restoration period, which we will soon view with our own eyes. To prepare us for that opportunity, we have one more summative activity to develop your methodological proficiencies as undergraduate historians: a thesis-driven analysis of one primary source document.

Are a College type or a more of a L'Estranger? Take your pick. Whatever side of the hellish Whig/Tory divide you find yourself on, we have an item for you.

Scaffolding Information Literacy

First, however, a brief word from our sponsor, the Association for Colledge & Research Libraries (ACRL). You already had a stab at searching as strategic exploration. Another scaffold, or "Frame" of information literacy from which to hang your inquiry is:

RESEARCH AS INQUIRY

We quote from the original document:

Research is iterative and depends upon asking increasingly complex or new questions whose answers in turn develop additional questions or lines of inquiry in any field.

Experts see inquiry as a process that focuses on problems or questions in a discipline or between disciplines that are open or unresolved. Experts recognize the collaborative effort within a discipline to extend the knowledge in that field. Many times, this process includes points of disagreement where debate and dialogue work to deepen the conversations around knowledge. This process of inquiry extends beyond the academic world to the community at large, and the process of inquiry may focus upon personal, professional, or societal needs. The spectrum of inquiry ranges from asking simple questions that depend upon basic recapitulation of knowledge to increasingly sophisticated abilities to refine research questions, use more advanced research methods, and explore more diverse disciplinary perspectives. Novice learners acquire strategic perspectives on inquiry and a greater repertoire of investigative methods.

🖥️ Activity

The analysis and interpretation of primary sources is the most important task of the inquiring historian. In this assignment, you will demonstrate proficiencies that you have learned in Unit 1 by penning a 3-4 page, doubled-spaced document in which you offer a close reading and analysis of one such source. The paper will be due on Thursday, October 13, to be turned in on our BruinLearn site. There will be two sources from which you will choose one to write about.

The purpose of your paper is to present an argument for the most important thing that the source that you select reveals about the subject and period under study. The sources are provided below, with additional linked tertiary (encyclopedic) information about the authors for context and reference. You can, of course, consult outside reference sources, such as the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) to look up unfamiliar words, and consider other primary and secondary sources that have been assigned and/or discussed in class.

Alert: this is not a research paper. It is a focused primary source analysis of a single item from your perspective. As you begin the assignment, bear in mind that each historian brings a unique perspective to the analysis of primary sources, which can result in different interpretations of any single document. Therefore, there is no single “correct” interpretation of any source. Your job is to persuade your reader of your point of view, based on your careful reading and analysis. While you are free to discuss this assignment with your colleagues, the paper you turn in must consist entirely of your own work. The paper will be evaluated for specificity of observations and interpretations, and clarity, content and effectiveness of your argument. A clear style and basic writing skills are also essential.

To begin work on this assignment, read your source carefully – several times – to learn what it says. When you are satisfied that you understand the contents of the document, you should ask the following questions:

Who wrote the document, when and why?
Is the document descriptive or prescriptive?
Who was the intended audience for the document?
What historical events/developments inspired the author to compose the document?

- You will want to consult the secondary sources (the textbook and other articles) that we have read for this class
- You might find the library’s tutorial on academic articles helpful for this task: https://uclalibrary.github.io/research-tips/breaking-down-academic-articles/

To what extent do you find the document credible?

When you have answered these questions, you can begin to draft your thesis-driven paper in response to the following prompt.

What is the most important thing that the document tells you about the subject and/or period of study?

It should begin with an introduction, where you first present your thesis, followed by paragraphs (not necessarily in this order) that briefly summarize the contents of the document, provide supporting evidence for your thesis, and a conclusion.

🧱 Materials

The two items from which to choose are illustrated and linked in the table below, along with supplementary reference materials you might find helpful. The assigned portions of these documents are:

College: full document (2 pages)
L'Estrange: first 2 pages (out of 34 pages total)

You are, of course, welcome to read and consider additional portions of L'Estrange, if it helps you to understand and/or explicate the assigned portion.

"A true copy of the dying words of Mr. Stephen Colledge"

L'Estrange's Narrative of the Plot

Item

Small image of old text