1.
A short analytical essay (1000
words, or around 3 pages double-spaced) that addresses the issues/question(s)
posed for your chosen topic. These questions are intentionally broad, to give
you freedom and room for some degree of creativity in how you bring together
the documents assigned for your topic. However, keep in mind that you are
required to synthesize information from
the various sources in order to arrive at your overall claim. In other
words, your essay must be centred on a thesis;
this thesis would be a one- to
two-sentence answer to the question assigned, and then the rest of your
essay elaborates on it by discussing specific points from the documents.

Do not attempt to meet your word
count with ‘filler’: First, keep your introduction and conclusion concise (under half a page each), so
that you have space to elaborate properly where it counts. Second, don’t summarize
the documents, nor introduce each document, giving background, and/or referring
to them all by their full titles (which are often long)![1] Instead,
assume that your reader is familiar with them already, and simply use relevant details from the documents to
make your points (i.e. to answer the question(s) assigned). What the
texts are and what background is necessary to understanding them will be clear
from your Works Cited and your annotations page.

2. Religion and Science in the Late 19th Century
Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man, 1871
J. H. Gladstone, “Points of Supposed Collision Between the Scriptures and Natural Science,” 1872
Ernst Haeckel, The Confession of Faith of a Man of Science, 1892

Question: What do these documents jointly tell us about the relationship between science and religion in the late 19th century? In what senses did science pose (or not pose) a new threat to the traditional worldview? Were science and religion seen as compatible or incompatible? Does there seem to have been agreement on these points?