Instructions This is your final exam or portfolio and should reflect your person

Instructions
This is your final exam or portfolio and should reflect your personal thoughts regarding new knowledge.  Your essay should be a minimum of 1000 words or one and one-half to two pages single-spaced.
Please review the rubric to better understand the assignment and grading.
Submissions will be checked for plagiarism and use of AI.  Any work that has been plagiarized will receive no credit.  This includes even small portions of submissions.  Avoid long quotes–these are used to fill space and/or fail to show how students have internalized (understood and learned) course material.
Review your posts and comments in previous modules.
Review the journal notes you have been taking over the last few weeks to  help you develop responses.
Choose any issue covered in previous modules that you would like to re-evaluate based on a better understanding of African-American History as a result of having read the Classic Slave Narratives and completed material presented in the course.  Possible issues include slavery in Africa vs U.S, any of the various forms of resistance, role of Africans in the slave trade, Africans had no history or culture before slavery, etc.  Here is a list of possible topics and be sure to answer question number 4 and 6 in bold at the bottom of this section:
Did Africans have a rich history and civilizations before arriving in the Americas?  Describe what you have learned about the rich rich history of West African civilizations.  Be sure to include government, art, higher education, and wealth. How does Olaudah Equiano’s description of his village help us understand African self-government and family structures, including slavery, at the local level?  That is, explain what he left behind.
What do you understand about the role of Africans and Europeans in the slave trade?  What drove the trade? What made it profitable or how did create wealth?  How did it drive innovation and expansion of infrastructure?  How might it be similar to what we have today?  Who won and who lost? Did those involved know and understand the extent of the long-term harm they created?  Equiano’s as well as Douglass’ and Jacobs’ narratives can help you evaluate some of this.
Compare and contrast systems of slavery in Africa and the U.S.  What do you understand better about the differences between slavery in Africa versus the practice in U.S.? What do understand better regarding the violence of slavery in the United States? Compare the status of enslaved people in Africa versus the U.S.  Use at least one of the narratives as your reference.  For instance, explain how Olaudah Equiano’s description of his enslavement in Africa differs from that of Frederick Douglass or Harriet Jacobs to support your answers.
How has your thinking and understanding of African Americans, their roles in American society, and slavery in the U.S. changed?  (The last module, Module 6, will provide additional insight). What was responsible for that change in thinking?   The following questions can help you organize your thoughts/notes.  What do you better about the ways in which enslaved people resisted their condition? How were enslaved people active in their liberation and the end of chattel slavery?  What have you learned about the resilience of African Americans? 
What do you understand now, compared to what you thought before this class about the ways in which free and enslaved African Americans influenced policies regarding the continuing practice of chattel slavery, achieving equality, and realizing the promise of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”?
What is the most valuable thing you have learned in this course and how will you use this new knowledge to help you understand present conditions in American society and the need for change? 
How has your thinking and understanding of American History changed as a result of this new knowledge and interpretation?  How did the slave narratives help you to gain that insight?  (Your journal might help).
Write in essay format as opposed to answering numbered questions