Sample Mid-term: Scoring Guidelines

Note

The following indicators are for reference only. Your essay is not graded against a check list, but evaluated holistically based on its overall effectiveness in historical argumentation. It is better to develop one or two arguments well, rather than seek to score as many points as possible.

Primary Source: Du Mu: Ode to Epang Palace

High-level Indicators

• Registers Du Mu’s Confucian critique of Qin: it collapsed because it didn’t display love and benevolence to its subjects;
• Compares and contrast Du’s view of Qin with earlier Confucian historiography, such as Jia Yi’s essay, Faults of Qin;
• Considers alternative explanations for Qin’s collapse – imperial overreach, eunuch control, etc. – beyond Du’s analysis;
• Contextualizes changing notions of rulership in pre-Qin China and sources of unity around the emperor: How did “the heart of one person” become “the heart of millions”?
• Notes Du’s sympathies for women, especially the concubines and consorts, and analyzes their role in political struggles;
• Considers Du Mu’s own time of writing – Tang in the aftermath of the An Lushan Rebellion – and how he uses Qin history to lament the contemporary decline of Tang;
• Examines the moral and pedagogical function of history: What lessons should later generations learn from the past?

Primary Source: Du Mu: Ode to Epang Palace

Low-level Indicators

• Fails to register the Confucian critique of Du Mu and his diagnosis of Qin’s collapse;
• Overlooks the legacy of Han-dynasty historiography on Qin, and how it distorts our understanding of the Qin, especially the first emperor;
• Offers little context to the rise and fall of Qin, especially the interstate relationship: Why, for example, does Du believe that “the ones who destroyed the six states were the six states themselves, not Qin”?
• Has little to say about Du Mu’s chosen medium – rhapsody, a predominant literary style during the Han dynasty – contributes to the meaning of the poem;
• Misses Du’s own contemporary context, especially An Lushan Rebellion, as motivation for his writing;
• Does not consider the reception of Du Mu’s message for future generations, especially his fear of dynastic cycles tending towards despotic, one-man rule;
• Overly negative about the moralizing tendency of Confucian writings.

Secondary Source: Han vs. Xiongnu

High-level Indicators

• Assesses Di Cosmo’s key argument that Emperor Wu of Han’s military success against the Xiongnu was based on superior military capabilities and strategic alliances with Xiongnu’s neighbors;
• Engages with Di Cosmo’s puzzle as to why, after failed appeasement policies, the Han dramatically shifted its strategy and launched an all-out campaign against the Xiongnu;
• Historicizes the relationship between the central plain and the steppe people, from the warring states period to the Han dynasty;
• Considers the relevance of the salt and iron debate for understanding Han’s frontier policies, especially as to whether the campaign could be justified as an act of “defensive acquisition”;
• Contextualizes the Han’s strategies of incorporating northern frontiers into the empire (such as migration of settlers, use of Xiongnu soldiers as frontier garrisons), and considers their efficacies;
• Analyzes how war with Xiongnu fostered state-building in Han and changed its political economy (through development of government monopolies, etc.);
• Reflects on the role of nomads in shaping Chinese history, and considers biases and limitations of existing sources.

Low-level Indicators

• Offers little context as to how the war with Xiongnu changed Han’s political economy, especially the creation of key government monopolies and enlargement of the bureaucratic state;
• Has little to say about the organization of the Xiongnu, its tribal organization, and relationship with the Han Empire;
• Only summarizes the Salt and Iron debate without explaining its larger stakes – especially its impact on Han’s ability to finance the war against the steppe;
• Fails to engage with Di Cosmo’s contention that Han’s campaign against the Xiongnu was shaped by not only ideological victory of the realist / Legalist faction of the court, but by a host of military, economic, and diplomatic developments in the rest of the Han empire;
• Offers little context to the history of Xiongnu-Han/Qin relationship before Emperor Wu’s military campaigns;
• Has little to say about the rewards of (and potential pushback against) de-centering China and focusing on the Xiongnu as a rival empire to Qin and Han.

Multi-media source: Classics of Chinese Thought

High-level Indicators

• Engages with Zhang Weiwei’s main argument about the fundamental continuity of Chinese civilization as one “unity in diversity”;
• Assesses the efficacy of his evidence (dragon motif, reference to Taiwan, ethnic minorities, etc.)
• Situates Zhang’s point about the Great Unity in earlier writings on the topic, especially during the Warring States period;
• Considers periods of disunity and fragmentation – and their relationship to major, unified dynasties in Chinese history;
• Notes the format of the program – a foreigner student asking a Chinese professor – and considers its intended audience;
• Notes how unity contributes to a sense of Chinese exceptionalism – and considers its historical expressions;
• Identifies the program as part of Xi Jinping’s ideological campaign to tell “China’s story well” abroad and to build a “shared community for mankind”, and analyzes the centrality of history in contemporary Chinese nationalism.

Low-level Indicators

• Fails to problematize the meaning of “Chinese” when discussing the unity of Chinese civilization;
• Has little to say about the concept of “civilization” and its usefulness for understanding China;
• Rejects Zhang’s arguments about unity based on simple assertions that certain regions and peoples “have not always been part of China”, without considering his point about differences and diversity;
• Offers little reflection on the relationship between history and nationalism, and the ethics of using the past for present-day politics;
• Overlooks the context of the program, and how it reflects ideological developments in contemporary China under Xi Jinping;
• Overly dismissive about the program as CCP propaganda and its value for understanding ideological developments.