Sample Identification Answer

History 103

In preparing for your mid-term examination, look at this sample of how to answer an ID item.


Note: This answer includes a variety of the information from lectures, the textbook, and readings you have available. I will not expect you to get every single detail, but you should present the majority. Also, note how this answer makes the point about the Great Awakeningâ€™s significance quite clearâ€”you must do this to receive full credit. For items that have obvious links to readings (either online or in one of the books we read), be sure to include that information.


Great Awakening


              American religion experienced significant changes during the early to mid eighteenth century.  Preachers began insisting on a more emotional, personal style of worship, and the personal conversion and faith of each individual.  Ministers such as Jonathan Edwards threatened their followers with eternal damnation in a fiery hell if they did not confess their sins and believe in God (sermon we read).  Many worshippers were moved by the charismatic, persuasive sermons of individuals such as George Whitefield, who preached to thousands in open fields and on city streets.  Faith, not formal training, mattered as congregations quarreled with ministers over the style and substance of worship, and new colleges popped up across the thirteen colonies to support the New Light (evangelical) or Old Light (traditional) approach.  The Great Awakening was significant because it taught Americans to investigate their own faith personally and not merely believe what their ministers told them.  Their questioning authority laid the intellectual groundwork for the later Revolution.