Essay Outline

Evaluating Woodrow Wilson:

Essay Outline

 Introduction (1 Paragraph)

            *Give some background information about Woodrow Wilson

*Explain what was going on in the U.S. during his presidency (WWI, segregation/Jim Crow, Gilded Age/Progressive Era/Industrial Revolution)

*Introduce the topic of the essay: explain that you will be evaluating Woodrow Wilson

Body Paragraphs: Explain your Evaluation Criteria (1-2 Paragraphs)

            *Explain how you will evaluate Wilson’s beliefs, character, and effectiveness

*Explain to the reader which of the three qualities (beliefs, character, effectiveness) is most important. (How you rank them in importance vs. each other)

Body Paragraphs: Evaluate President Wilson (2-3 Paragraphs)

            *Make a claim about the presidency of Woodrow Wilson.

Your claim should relate to your evaluation criteria. For example, if you said that leadership and effectiveness is the most important thing about being a president, than your claim should be much related to Wilson’s leadership and effectiveness.

            *Support your claim with evidence

            *Make sure you analyze your evidence- explain why its evidence for your claim.

Body Paragraph: Counter-Claim (1 paragraph)

            *You need to explain why somebody might disagree with your criteria and/or with your evaluation of Wilson, and then argue that they are wrong.

                        -Example: “While some may argue that……this is wrong because….

Conclusion:

            *Re-state and clarify your evaluation criteria

            *Restate and clarify your claim and your best evidence

            *Explain why this is an important topic

            *Link or connect to something in the world today

Sample Essay

Evaluating a President: Sample Essay

Sample Essay

Explanation

President Obama was elected in 2008 and re-elected in 2012. When he became president, the economy was doing worse than any other time since the Great Depression.  Though things have slowly improved, President Obama’s popularity has gone down. Many of his major ideas have faced intense opposition, including the Affordable Care Act. This essay will evaluate his time as president.             Historians sometimes use three major criteria to evaluate presidents: his or her policies, effectiveness, and character. However, this essay will only focus on President Obama’s policies and his effectiveness. These are the two most important criteria because they focus on a president’s actions, and what he or she accomplished. Someone’s actions are more important than what kind of person they are. What kind of person someone is comes out in what they do.             President Obama has been an effective president who policies have helped the country. When President Obama had a Congress that was willing to work with him, he was able to pass many important laws. And most of those laws had a positive impact on the country. The country is a better place today than it was in 2008.             From 2008-2010, President Obama had a Congress with a Democratic majority. Being a member of the same party as most of Congress allowed him to be a quite effective president. Just a few months into his presidency, he passed a law that has been called the “Stimulus Bill.” This law was intended to help save the country’s economy from how poorly it had been doing. The fact that he was able to pass this law so soon after being elected shows just how effective he was. He had no time to get used to the job or learn how to be president, but it didn’t stop him. The next year, President Obama passed the Affordable Care Act, commonly known as “Obamacare.” This is proof of Obama’s effectiveness because health care has been a controversial issue for a long time. Many presidents from Harry Truman in the 1940s to Bill Clinton in the 1990s have tried to pass a major new health care law and failed. President Obama succeeded where they failed.             President Obama’s policies have, on balance, been good for the country. The Stimulus Bill might not have gotten the economy back to where it was, but it still helped reverse a downward trend. Even though the recovery hasn’t been complete, we are no longer in crisis. Unemployment was almost 10% when he first became president, and now it is under 6%. This shows that some of his policies have worked. The Affordable Care Act has also been good for the country. Almost 10 million Americans now have health insurance who didn’t before, and more are signing up each day.             Some may argue that President Obama has not been effective because since 2011, when a different party became the majority in Congress, he hasn’t been able to do much. They might argue that he has failed to pass new laws on guns, immigration, and climate change. They are correct that there aren’t new laws about those issues, but they are wrong to blame it on Obama. It is hard for any president to pass controversial new laws when the majority of Congress disagrees with him. Even FDR, one of our most effective presidents, wasn’t able to pass many more laws when there started to become an increased number in Congress who thought differently than him.             In conclusion, President Obama has been an effective leader with beneficial policies. He has passed major laws that helped the economy and healthcare. It is important to be able to evaluate a president because in a democracy we are often asked to vote in elections where the current president is running for re-election. If we do not know how to judge a president’s accomplishments, we won’t know how we should vote. Part of being a good citizen is knowing about the world around you. Evaluating Obama is good practice for evaluating future presidents.

This is the Introduction. I give background information about President Obama and state what I will do in this essay. This is the Evaluation Criteria paragraph. It explains how I will evaluate President Obama. I have chosen to use the categories of policies and effectiveness, though you may have chosen any combination of the 3 or all 3 (policies, character, effectiveness. This is my claim- notice in my claim I mention something about both his policies and his effectiveness, because those are the 2 categories I picked in the previous paragraph. This paragraph contains my evidence for President Obama being effective. It also has my analysis: why my evidence proves that he was effective. You need both evidence and analysis. This paragraph contains my evidence for President Obama’s policies being positive. It also has my analysis: why my evidence proves his policies were good. You need both evidence and analysis. This paragraph is my counter-claim. It shows why the other side is wrong. This paragraph is my conclusion. It sums up my argument and connects it to the world.

Reading: The Sedition Act

The Sedition Act Passed By Congress May 16th, 1918 (Modified)

Whoever, when the United States is at war, shall willfully utter, print, write or publish any disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language about the…government of the United States or the Constitution of the United States, or the military or naval forces of the United States, or the flag of the United States, or the uniform of the Army or Navy of the United States . . . or shall willfully utter, print, write, or publish any language intended to incite, provoke, or encourage resistance to the United States . . . shall be punished by a fine of not more than $10,000 or the imprisonment for not more than twenty years, or both.

Vocabulary Utter: say Profane: disrespectful Scurrilous: insulting Incite: stir up or cause

Context President Woodrow Wilson wanted to pass the Sedition Act because he believed that if people expressed dissent (disagreed) with the war, it would hurt out ability to win the war. It was Using this law that Eugene Debs was put in jail for his anti-war speech.

Reading: 14 Points

President Woodrow Wilson’s “14 Points” Speech to Congress January 8th, 1918 (Modified)

1. Open covenants of peace must be arrived at, after which there will surely be no private international action or rulings of any kind, but diplomacy shall proceed always frankly and in the public view.

(Countries should not make secret alliances with each other.)

3. The removal, so far as possible, of all economic barriers and the establishment of an equality of trade conditions among all the nations consenting to the peace…

(Countries should be able to trade openly with one another.)

4. Adequate guarantees given and taken that national armaments will be reduced to the lowest points consistent with domestic safety.

(Countries should reduce the size of their militaries.)

14. A general association of nations must be formed under specific covenants for the purpose of affording mutual guarantees of political independence and territorial integrity to great and small states alike.

(A League of Nations should be created to prevent future wars.)

Vocabulary Covenants: agreements Diplomacy: negotiation, deal-making Armaments: weapons, military Territorial integrity: borders

Context President Wilson believed that his “14 Points” should be the basis for the peace with Germany. They were designed to promote fairness and equality among countries and prevent future wars. He gave this speech without consulting with his allies (Britain and France) and it angered them.