Possible Cause/Effect Prompts:

• T1 Causation: Evaluate the relative importance of causes which led to _____.

• T1 Effect: Evaluate the relative importance of effects which resulted from _____.

• T2 Causation: Evaluate the extent to which _______ caused ______.

• T2 Effect: Evaluate the extent to which _____ resulted from _____.

The differences between T1 and T2 is that T1 students are not given a theme (or organizational category) to write on, so they can choose what they want. In T2 students are given a specific theme to write on .

You will sometimes be asked to make historical arguments about events or ideas that cross multiple time periods or compare different societies or peoples.A strong comparison argument should involve an explanation of the causes of differences and similarities. Therefore, causation often plays a crucial role in supporting a comparison. Here, we'll walk through how to connect the two historical reasoning skills to begin to develop an argument about early European colonization of the New World.

Step 1: List and categorize your relevant historical knowledge.

A good place to start a historical comparison is by simply considering what you learned about the early era of Spanish colonization in Period 1 alongside your knowledge of the characteristics of seventeenth-century French, Dutch, and Spanish colonies. In this way, you are already comparing both two different era (the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries) and multiple peoples (the French, Dutch, Spanish). If you are unsure how to approach this kind of comparative thinking, it may help to ask yourself questions about the features of each of these nation's colonies. It's also helpful to break these features into different major categories for analysis.

• politics

• economy

• society/culture

• interactions with the environment

• technology

As you think about each of these categories, make note of anywhere two or more of the colonies show similarities and/or differences. Keep in mind that categories often overlap and that this is just a strategy to begin your prewriting. One way to approach this process is by creating a table like the one that follows. In it, we have taken one category--economy--and modeled how you might jot down descriptions of a similarity and a difference between two or more colonies before connecting them to causes.

Remember, this process is just one way to use causation to establish reasons for each historical development you note. Any system that allows you to quickly categorize similarities and differences along with their causes is one you should continue to develop as you approach writing in this course.

Step 2: Summarize your thoughts in a short paragraph.

Gather your thoughts by writing one sentence comparing and/or contrasting at least two, if not all three, colonies for each of the categories we explored in step 1 (politics, economy, society/culture, interactions with the environment, and technology).

Be sure to include all three nations, and remember that comparison should always take differences into account. Then, support your comparisons by adding one to three sentences that explain the causes of the similarity or the causes of the difference. The purpose of writing three sentences down isn't to craft and support a well-developed argument. For now, you should merely focus on clearly expressing your knowledge of how historical events relate to each other and explaining the causes for those similarities and differences. For example, a summary comparing the economies of each nation's colonies might look like this:

By the time the French and Dutch began colonization in North America, the Spanish had established the encomienda system of forced labor for American Indian communities in Central and South America. This system required that American Indians perform manual labor on behalf of the Spanish including farming and mining for precious metals in some regions. Because the encomienda system grew out of the Spanish need for forced labor, it depended upon a relatively large population of occupying Spanish forces, colonists, and religious authorities who sought to convert American Indians to Catholicism. The French and the Dutch, on the other hand, established sparsely populated colonies in the early seventeenth century, at least a generation after the Spanish, and concentrated primarily on establishing trade networks with American Indians for goods such as furs.

Although this short paragraph is very general and straightforward, it is a strong example of how to comment comparison to causation in that it brings together the Spanish desire to transform native societies for Spanish benefit and the relatively large Spanish colonial population required to oversee the encomienda system. Likewise, this paragraph establishes that the late arrival of the Dutch and French, and their desire to create trade networks with American Indians rather than a forced labor system, resulted in their colonies' sparse populations.

The English, from the time of Jamestown's founding in 1607, developed tobacco exporting colonies tin present-day Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina. These tobacco economies generated great wealth over the next century and a half. HEre, we'll walk through how to organize your reflections on both the immediate and distant causes that allowed these tobacco economies to flourish in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries.

Step 1: List a categorize your historical knowledge

A good place to start is by taking a few minutes to hot down all possible causes of the growth of tobacco economies in Virginia, maryland, and north Carolina that you can think of. Remember to draw on your knowledge of Period 1 as well. A solid strategy to generate ideas is to ask yourself causation questions divided into some broad categories: politics, economy, society/culture, interactions with the environment, and technology.

Next, think about whether each of the causes you listed is more immediate or distant from its effect (in this case, the creation of wealthy tobacco economies in the Chesapeake and northern Carolina colonies).Annotate each cuase by labeling it as immediate or distant, Your list of annotated causes may look something like this:

Step 2: Write at least causation statements linking distant to immediate causes

Now extend your brainstorm by asking yourself what factors led to the immediate causes in particular. This may lead you to add new distant causes to your list, or you may find that distant causes you have already listed math up to your immediate causes.

To help organize your thoughts about the links between the distant and immediate causes you have listed, it's a good idea to write at least three causation statements that explicitly connect them. It is important that you do not merely state what each cause is--you must explain the relationship between the distant and immediate causes. In other words, you need to give at least one reason why a given distant cause led to an immediate cause, generating a chain of causation that shows why tobacco economies emerged. The following example statements have distant and immediate causes labeled.

Profit motives led to the tobacco economies in Virginia, Maryland, and North Carolina. [distant cause] These profit motives stemmed from the English monarchy's competition with Spain [distant cause]. Spain grew rich and powerful from American colonies, and the English crown sought similar gains by chartering the Virginia Company as a profit-seeking joint-stock corporation [distant cause]. John Rolfe's discovery that Caribbean tobacco grew well in the Chesapeake caused tobacco to become the primary cash crop in the Chesapeake [immediate cause]. Tobacco as a profitable crop resulted from Rolfe's discovery, but the English crown's long-standing goal of making colonies profitable in North America was also an important cause [explanation of immediate and distant causes].

Notice these statements move from distant to immediate causes, starting with the English desire to find profit in North America as the Spanish had in Central and South America, moving to the specific source of English profit (tobacco), and ending with an explanation of the immediate and distant causes of the English tobacco economy in the seventeenth century.

Taking these steps to think about the forces behind immediate causes shaping developments will help you deepen your historical analysis. By showing causation as a chain of linked events, you gain practice in strategies for clarifying and supporting historical arguments.