“In preparing for the Cherokee removal, state and federal officials were motivated solely by desire to seize the natives’ land.” This statement does not present the full picture of the event as there were underlying reasons as to why the officials wanted to seize the Cherokee tribal lands. My revision to the statement to present a more complex explanation would be the following:

“The motivation for the removal of the Cherokee from their land stemmed from state and federal officials wanting to exploit the land and expand the national frontier.”

The revision creates a complexity to the reasoning behind the Cherokee removal besides just the desire for land. It helps open explanation on what they would do with the seized lands beyond just wanting more land. Part of the complexity is the purpose that what drives them to seize land, the planned purpose of the newly acquired land, such as farmland or urbanization.

Considering how this sort of approach could be useful to approaching the historical complexity to my topic of the Space Race, instead of focusing only on the point of view from the United States citizen, it would help to show the view from a citizen from the Soviet Union. Portray the feelings of seeing your homeland’s adversary achieving the goals first that your country was hoping to reach first. A big example would be how the citizens of the Soviet Union felt when they seen the footage of the United States astronauts walking on the moon and planting the flag of the United States of America into the ground of the celestial body.

In response to your peers, share any preconceived notions you may have about their topic. Lastly, consider how further exploration of the viewpoints around their topic would potentially change the lens through which they currently view the event.