Read the following:

Alexander X. Byrd, “The Slave Trade from the Biafran Interior: Violence, Serial Displacement, and the Rudiments of Igbo Society,” in Captives and Voyagers: Black Migrants across the Eighteenth-Century British Atlantic World (Baton Rouge: LSU Press, 2008), 17-31.
Marcus Rediker, “African Paths to the Middle Passage,” in The Slave Ship: A Human History (Penguin Books, 2008), 73-107.Then write a three-page critical reading assessment, in essay format, which addresses the following:
Source:

Insert here the full, proper, Chicago Manual of Style citation – either footnote or bibliography format or both – for the reading that you’re summarizing. [You can simply copy and paste from the syllabus]
Central Question(s):

Insert here what you take to be the question or set of questions to which the [reading] you’re summarizing purports to answer. Sometimes this question or set of questions will be explicit (usually spelled out in the introduction). Other times it’ll only be implicit, and you’ll have to infer it.
Thesis/Argument:

Insert here what you take to be the thesis of the [reading] you’re summarizing. Sometimes the historian cues you into the thesis with statements such as “I argue,” or “I contend,” etc. Other times the thesis is less explicitly presented. Whether explicit or implicit, the thesis is the interpretive posture assumed, argument to be made, position to be defended, etc., in its most pithy analytic articulation – the answer to the central question(s) you’ve previously identified.
Examples of Evidence in Support of the Thesis/Argument:
Insert here some key pieces of supporting evidence that the historian brings in defense of their thesis. You’ll find the supporting evidence in the [paragraphs] that follow the introduction. Sometimes, [paragraphs] serve as building blocks in the construction of the overarching thesis. Other times they’re less cumulative and provide different types of evidence in support of the overarching thesis.
Critique/Questions/Reflections:

Insert here, your reactions to the book, what types of questions it raises for you, what are its strengths and weaknesses, how does it relate to other books and articles that you’ve read on the topic, etc.
Primary Sources (when assigned):
If you are writing about primary sources, please summarize the primary source(s) and consider how the primary source readings offer more intimate context for understanding the experiences/phenomena discussed by the authors of the assigned secondary source readings (those readings without the “P” in front of them on the syllabus) and how these sources connect with the secondary readings.
Please cover ALL of the week’s readings in the same 3-page assessment.

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