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School Year 2019-20
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Prof. Fee: $0
Homework: yes
Hours/Week: 7
Max/Min Students: 12/4
Grade Range: 9-12
A two semester survey of world history covering the birth of civilization to the 1500s (first semester) and the 1600s to the Modern Age (second semester). The course will focus primarily on Western Civilization but will touch on other areas of the world as well.
This course will use the textbook, World History: The Human Odyssey by Jackson J. Spielvogel. The textbook will be supplemented with a selection of directed readings (essays, non-fiction, primary sources, biographies, and historical literary works) to help students focus more in-depth on particular civilizations, historical periods or subjects of specific interest.
Class sessions will include lectures and discussions that will focus on understanding the development of key civilizations and societies as well as developing an understanding of important global events. Lectures will highlight the nature of change throughout major societies including the causes and consequences, as well as comparisons among major societies.
Course Expectations: Students must be self-directed. Due to the abundance of material that will be covered in this class, students (and parents) must be committed to doing the work necessary to keep up with weekly assignments. Students will be held responsible for completing all readings and assignments in a timely fashion. The instructor will be unable to accommodate students who do not keep up with the assignments as this would be unfair to the rest of the class and would result in the inability to cover all the material. Students may be assigned some reading over the summer. The instructor will try to be available to meet individually with students to go over essays and term papers.
Teacher Provides: Supplemental handouts, lecture notes, study guides, practice essay questions, etc.
Students Provide: Textbook (used copies can be obtained for reasonable price online). Materials for taking notes during lectures. Additional historical texts which will be used for research papers and projects. These resources can be obtained through the library, online etc.
Prerequisites: The course textbook is regularly used in both upper level high school and at the college level so student must have a 10th grade reading level in order to keep up with the course workload. Students must be able to write a coherent, well researched paper. This includes understanding what a thesis is, how to properly organize a research paper and how to properly cite works using footnotes or parenthetical citation and a bibliography.
Workload: Very heavy. Approximately 5-10 hours per week. Due to the vast amount of information that will be covered in this class, students will be required to read approximately 50 pages a week from the main textbook as well as other short supplemental readings. Two exams will be given per semester. These exams may include multiple choice questions, true and false questions, definition of terms and essay questions. Exams will either be take home or given during class. A small essay (2-3 pages) may be assigned each semester on selected topics that may require the reading of additional sources as well as a longer 5-10 page research paper which will require the use of additional sources (such as historical biographies and non-fiction accounts of historical events).
Students will be graded on quizzes, tests, essays, and papers. The grading of essays and research papers will focus on each individual student's understanding and analysis of the material and their ability to organize ideas into a well-written paper.
** This ID is assigned to classes not on the current class schedule. The codes and descriptions are available then to revive to offer again. **
Details:Class meets on Monday from 9:00 PM to 9:55 PM