Today's Frame - Christendom

Medieval Europe conceived of itself as "Christendom"- God's Kingdom on Earth or a lesser version of the promised paradise in Heaven available to believers and pious individuals.  How did Christian theology infuse itself into all aspects of daily life in the Medieval period?  (think about our buckets)

Today's Frame - Early Medieval Europe

How did Medieval Europe blend together ingredients from German barbarian culture, the Roman Empire, and The Roman Catholic Church? (Cultural diffusion)?

Today's Frame - Dar al-Islam

How did Dar al-Islam reflect a diverse, yet relatively unified Islamic civilization during the Middle Ages?  How did it find its parallel in Europe's Christendom?

Today's Frame - Spread of Islam

How and why did Islam spread so rapidly following the death of The Prophet Muhammad, creating Islamic empires known as caliphates? 

Today's Frame - Islam

How did Islam emerge as the fastest-growing faith and the latest version of monotheism?

Today's Frame - The Byzantines

Why did the Byzantine Empire outlast the Western (Latin) Roman Empire by approximately 1,000 years? How were the Byzantines, with their capital in Constantinople, different politically, culturally, and socially from Rome?

The Project, Unit 4, & Activity Points

As you know, I pushed back the deadline for the project by a few days, providing one last weekend (new due date is Monday, 11/20 at 8 AM). Activity Points for the 2nd Quarter have been posted. And finally, today we will start looking at outlines, subtopics, and get our first intro to Animoto and our new GoogleCommunity.

Today's Frame - The Emergence of Christianity

How did Christianity emerge from a persecuted religion to official state religion of the Roman Empire?

Today's Frame - Roman Empire

What conditions led to the dramatic rise and fall of the Roman Empire?  What are the Roman Empire's greatest legacies?

Today's Frame - The Roman Republic

During the late Hellenistic period, how did Rome emerge as the dominant power in the Mediterranean?

Today's Frame - Art & Architecture

How does the art and architecture of Classical and Hellenistic Greece reflect the values and ideas of these civilizations?

Greek Art & Architecture Activity handout (Click here)

Art & Architecture Google Folder (Click here)

Today's Frame- Hellenism

How was Hellenism a cultural and political force in ancient Greece, Egypt, and central Asia?

Today's Frame- Classical Greece

"Classical Greece", "Golden Age Greece", "Periclean Athens"...  these are ways to describe the ascendance of Greek civilization during the 5th century BCE.

• What conditions enabled Athens to rise above other city-states and become a center of cultural achievement? (think art, architecture, philosophy, politics, theater, math, engineering, etc.)

• How was war a defining factor for Greek civilization, shaping it immeasurably by uniting and fracturing Greek city-states and cultivating a fierce sense of competition, arete, and ultimately, hubris?

Today's Frame- Origins of Greece

How did geography affect the development of ancient Greek civilization?

Today's Activity: Adapted from a "mini" DBQ, you will read and annotate all the documents in your packet. You must write a short thesis statement that addresses the prompt and share that as a stand-alone GoogleDoc to your Hapara folder (due tomorrow).

Today's Frame- Persia

How and why did the Persians (Achaemenids) create the world’s first multilingual, multiethnic, multireligious, and multilingual empire?

Unit 3... But First...

A day to take some time away from curriculum to discuss current events.

Today's Frame: The Qin and the Han

Why did Legalism prevail over Confucianism and Daoism as the main philosophy of the Qin Dynasty 221-202 BCE? Why was Confucianism later championed by the Han?

Today's Frame - Confucianism, Daoism, & Legalism

How does Confucianism serve as a glue to hold Chinese civilization together for thousands of years?

Today's Frame

How did China’s origins spring from the ancient Shang and Zhou Dynasties? How were ancient Chinese complex societies shaped by their geography?

Continuing Yesterday's Frame...

From Hinduism Onward: When Siddhartha becomes the Buddha and his message becomes a separate, yet linked religion called Buddhism.

Optional video (if you're interested in more about the life of Buddha).  Click here

Today's Frame: Hinduism & Buddhism

Why did ancient India bring forth the two great Eastern religions:  Hinduism and Buddhism?

Today's Frame - Harappans & Aryans

• How did an ancient civilization thrive along the Indus River Valley in India? (Harappans)
• How did the Aryan invaders dramatically change the culture and religion of ancient India, fusing together Aryan and Harappan/Dravidian civilization into a new, largely Hindu culture?
  

Test Down, New Unit...

We've certainly jumped right into Unit 1, and now we're moving forward.  For this unit, all HW (Merged Reading & Condensed Notes) will be digital only.  You will complete one GoogleDoc for each reading, label the doc. exactly as it is titled on the syllabus (cut and paste), and you will merge directly onto these docs. in class.  I recommend you organize your folders.  You must use the Hapara folder for this class only.  All work should be completed the day it is due for full credit.

Final Review Day for Unit 1 Test

Great review sessions today!  The sessions we used in GoSoapBox are live and have been emailed to you.  Keep it simple and don't overdo it tonight: LESS IS MORE if you have done what is asked of you and studied for the past 2-3 days, pacing yourself.

Review & Unit 1 Test

As you review, remember to "chunk"- to break your studying into several shorter pieces, rather than cramming 4 hours the night before.  Be sure to do "active studying"; writing, annotating, highlighting, making review sheets. All these activities will make you better prepared than simply staring at a sheet of paper.  Look at all frames, themes, targets, and merged notes: contextualizing them into your review sheet is the best way to do "active studying".  Good luck!

Today's Frame - The Hebrews

Why was a strict code of ethics integrated into the first great monotheistic faith: Judaism?

Today's Frame - Egyptian Kingdoms

Egyptian kingdoms rose as an ancient Middle Eastern river valley rival of the Mesopotamian civilizations. How did ancient Egypt build and maintain such an enduring civilization well over 5,000 years ago?

Today's Frame - Babylon & Hammurabi

Mesopotamia was composed of several complex societies, including the Sumerians, Akkadians, Babylonians, Hittites, Assyrians, Chaldeans (neo-Babylonians), and others.  How did Hammurabi and his Code come to personify Mesopotamian society at large?

Hammurabi's Code Activity (Click here)

Today's Frame - Sumer / Mesopotamia

What are the unique characteristics of ancient Mesopotamia’s complex society/civilization called Sumer? How was Sumerian society shaped by its geography?

8/30/17, 8/31/17 Today's Frame - The Agricultural Transformation

How did sustained agriculture and the domestication of animals lead to the development of complex societies or civilizations, particularly in the ancient Middle East?

Today's Frame: Clash - The West vs. the Rest?

It was once a widely accepted idea that Western civilization both existed and was the dominant and/or "universal" civilization (think Western colonialism, for one).  With a textbook author that rejects the very term "civilization," Huntington's article proclaiming it as a central unifying force arrayed against "The Rest"...  What theories and concepts about the West and "civilization" should we bring into our curriculum this year in our study of history across the globe for the past 5,000 years?

Link to Ferguson's Civilization

Today's Frame: Rise or Descent of the West

Historiography provides perspective and theoretical approaches to interpret history. We are starting to wrestle with multiple perspectives, according to Ferguson, Fukuyama, and now Zakaria. Will Western civilization remain dominant in the current period of the "Rise of the Rest"- or will the sharing of "killer apps" dilute this singular power and diffuse it? ... And what does President Trump have to say about this phenomenon?

Today's Frame: "The Rise of the Rest"

1) How do we account for approximately 500 years of Western domination of the world- and why does it matter?

2) What lenses or approaches can we use to understand this domination and "The Rise of The Rest"?

Fareed Zakaria's Rise of the Rest excerpt (click here)

Today's Frame: Historiography

Historians interpret and contextualize evidence.  What tools do they use and how can we begin to utilize their approach and methodology, including historiography?

Welcome to Honors World History!

Welcome to class!  I'm looking forward to a great year together.  This website has all the information you will need to stay up to date for class. Here's what I'd like you to do for tomorrow:

• Return signed contracts
• Civilization: what is civilized/civilization/write-up (one paragraph, hand-written or typed hard copy)
• Respond to survey