Download V. Student Learning Goals

GENERAL EDUCATION ASSESSMENT AND REVIEW FORM
INDIGENOUS AND GLOBAL 5/15
Please attach/ submit additional documents as needed to fully complete each section of the form.
COURSE INFORMATION
Department: MCLL (Classics)
Course Number: HSTR 303
Course Title: Ancient Athenian Social History
Type of Request:
Rationale:
New
One-time Only
Renew*
Change
Remove
It is not exactly a new course, but a new version of what was once a 'History' Gen Ed course, modified for confirmation under recently
discovered categories that have updated an obsolete "Non-Western" category to "Indigenous or Global", thereby opening the group
conceptually to this course.
*If course has not changed since the last review and is taught by the same tenure-track faculty member, you may skip sections III-V.
JUSTIFICATION FOR COURSE LEVEL
Normally, general education courses will not carry pre-requisites, will carry at least 3 credits, and will be numbered at the 100-200
level. If the course has more than one pre-requisite, carries fewer than three credits, or is upper division (numbered at the 300 level
or above), provide rationale for exception(s).
That it is upper division in numbering does not designate it as specialized: There are no prerequisites. (If anything is a problem, it is
over-preparation in half-understood stereotypes acquired in other course-work.) Note that although the course is listed as HSTR 303,
it is the property not of the History Department, but of Classics in MCLL (OSHA has certified this a consequence of the new numbering
system.) Nonetheless, it is true to say, as History does of the courses that it governs, it "rests on a modicum of . . . ability". The course
in principle presupposes some ability to read and write English, for instance. But it does not presuppose any lower-division history -or anything else of the kind -- since it essays to be also an introduction to social history in its own right, by introducing students to the
earliest such collection of sources so completely documenting the ways of a society.
II. ENDORSEMENT / APPROVALS
* Instructor: Hayden Ausland
Signature __________________________________________ Date____________
Phone / Email: x2125 [email protected]
Program Chair:
Elizabeth Ametsbichler
Dean: Christopher Comer
Signature __________________________________________ Date____________
Signature __________________________________________ Date____________
*Form must be completed by the instructor who will be teaching the course. If the instructor of the course changes before the next
review, the new instructor must be provided with a copy of the form prior to teaching the course.
III. DESCRIPTION AND PURPOSE
General Education courses must be introductory and foundational within the offering department or within the General Education
Group. They must emphasize breadth, context, and connectedness; and relate course content to students’ future lives: See
Preamble
The course treats of Ancient Greek Social history by examining the Ancient Greeks via primary sources of the 6th through the 4th
centuries BC, and, based on this material, comparing Greek thought and practice with those of other peoples and also with our own.
Within Greece, in consequence of the state of the sources and for other pertinent reasons, Athenian thought and practice is the main
focus, and is, in turn, compared with the thought and practice of other Greek groups with a lesser claim to indigenousness, as well as
"Barbarian" (=non-Greek) groups and also our own modern society.
IV. CRITERIA
BRIEFLY EXPLAIN HOW THIS COURSE MEETS THE CRITERIA FOR THE GROUP.
1.
Familiarize students with the values, histories, and institutions of two or more societies through the uses of comparative
approaches.
By a society's "values" is here understood the worths characteristically assigned various things by members of a given society.
Ancient Greek society employed distinctive values, which have survived in a classical (i.e. paradigmatic) form. HSTR 303 exhibits
these values through numerous readings illustrative of such values on the level of ordinary life, and as such familiarizes students with
ancient Greek social values. HSTR 303 is a history course, and as such fosters an appreciation for history properly understood. In the
plural, the same term can also refer to stories (cf. "narratives"). HSTR 303 examines many such stories, for instance those integral to
several forensic speeches among the required readings. By requiring students to read many such stories, the course also familiarizes
then with such histories. Institutions presumed or mentioned in the ancient literary sources for the course include citizenship,
marriage, inheritance, slavery, public religion, courts of justice, public poetic forms, and the public management of orphans, invalids,
and prostitutes, among numerous other such things. HSTR 303 in this way familiarizes students with institutions. The values,
histories and institutions so confronted can in most cases be brought into comparison with rival values, histories, and institutions of
other ancient peoples. But they are always brought into comparison with our own -- whether these be modified derivatives from
them, or novel rivals to them. To offer examples taken from but a single source used in the course: Against Neaera is a speech
accusing a man's wife of being a foreign ex-prostitute rather than the Athenian citizen woman she seems to be. In reading this
speech, students learn the Athenian social value attached to citizen birth for women (only their offspring can inherit), a foreign
prostitute's history likely invented in many respects, but also designed (by the prosecutor) to be plausible to an Athenian jury, and the
Athenian legal institutions governing the disposition of such a case: conviction would carry a stiff penalty for Neaera and her man
alike, but acquittal by a large percentage of the jury a fine for the prosecutor. The values, typical stories, and legal institutions of
Athens here revealed admit of comparison with those of other contemporaneous societies (e.g., Egyptian), as well as with our own.
HSTR 303 proceeds so as to bring out these and many other such comparisons.
2. Indigenous perspective courses address the longstanding tenure of a particular people in a particular geographical region, their
histories, cultures, and ways of living as well as their interaction with other groups, indigenous and non-indigenous.
The Greeks of antiquity have demonstrably inhabited Greece since about 2000 BC, and in fact may have arrived rather earlier. They
eventually spread into many other areas around the Mediterranean and Black Seas. As a whole, the ancient Greek people inhabited
its home until it was absorbed under Ottoman rule. Within the ancient Greek people, there were two main groups: "Achaeans", who
came into Greece by 2000 BC at the latest, and Dorians, who arrived around 1000 BC. Among the former, a dialectal sub-group
called Ionians occupied Athens and its territory Attica, among other areas of ancient Greece, from about 2000 BC onward through
archaic, classical, and Hellenistic eras and into Christian times. When Dorian Greeks came in, they pushed some of the Ionian and
other earlier populations aside in the process. Among the institutions the Ionians in Attica developed and sought to export something
they at length termed "democracy", but first called "equality under the law". Integral to this effort, they claimed to be the sole
people of Greece that was truly indigenous (Greek autochthones; Latin indigenae). The classic statement comes from the orator
Isocrates:
". . . for we did not became dwellers in this land by driving others out of it, nor by finding it uninhabited, nor by coming together here
a motley horde composed of many races; but we are of a lineage so noble and so pure that throughout our history we have continued
in possession of the very land which gave us birth, since we are sprung from its very soil and are able to address our city by the very
names which we apply to our nearest kin; for we alone of all the Hellenes have the right to call our city at once nurse and fatherland
and mother." (Isocrates Panegyricus 4.21)
Archaological evidence supports the claim, which is better attested historically than like claims on the part of a number of presentday groups recognized as indigenous (e.g., the Sámi, whose precedence in Northern Scandinavia remains conjectural, scientifically
speaking). The ancient Athenians are in any case the first people on record to claimed an "indigenous" status in a way integral to
their assertion of an interpretation of human culture. While some modern scholars have raised doubts, assimilating the phenomenon
to modern "indigenismo", the best ancient testimony goes to the contrary (see Herodotus 8.44.1). The ancient Athenians were thus a
long-standing indigenous cultural group, and also remain the classic instance of a self-consciously indigenous "culture".
3.Global perspective courses adopt a broad focus with respect to time, place, and subject matter and one that is transnational
and/or multi-cultural/ethnic in nature. Whether the cultures or societies under study are primarily historical or contemporary,
courses investigate significant linkages or interactions that range across time and space.
Ionians and Dorians preserved distinct societies, and a strong sense of their mutual difference: Athens was open and democratic,
Sparta closed and almost totalitarian. In the early 5th century, this difference had to be overcome in order to engage in a critical
struggle against invading Persians (the subject of Herodotus' history, half of which he spends examining and comparing other groups
around the Mediterranean: Lydians, Egyptians, Scythians). Its subsequent resurgence conditioned a war between Dorian and Ionian
Greeks groups in the late 5th century (the subject of Thucydides' history, which dwells on the differences between the Athenian and
Spartan ways of life). During the 4th century, a Macedonian threat materialized, causing some for a while to contemplate alliance
with the Persians. In the event, Athens and Greece succumbed to the new empire.
During the classical period, however, Athenian history, culture, and private lives are particularly well documented and of special
comparative interest due to the lasting cultural authority Athens gained beginning already in ancient times. Sources for this course
amply describe or illustrate many histories (including, but not limited to, the kind exemplified above) and numerous features of
Athenian culture, while documenting the dynamic struggles Greeks as a whole and Athenians in particular underwent opposite a
geopolitical power like Persia and a cultural rival like Dorian Sparta, respectively. By presenting these matters to students from the
perspective of primary sources, i.e. from the perspective of the indigenous peoples themselves, rather than via reductive modern
portraits of them, HSTR 303 fosters an appreciation of the peoples, and for their histories, culture, and struggles to remain the Greeks
they were, and to institute and enjoy freedom and equality.
V. STUDENT LEARNING GOALS
BRIEFLY EXPLAIN HOW THIS COURSE WILL MEET THE APPLICABLE LEARNING GOALS.
1.
Place human behavior and cultural ideas into a wider (global/indigenous) framework, and enhance their understanding of
the complex interdependence of nations and societies and their physical environments.
By exchanging ignorance or preconceptions -- whether positive or negative -- of the ancient Greeks for evidence derived from the
testimonies used in a social history of Greece, and particularly of classical Athens, students will be able to view the Greeks as an
indigenous people among others that has, through its actions (or behavior) within the social sphere suffered stress though its
politically complex relationships with both external imperial powers and Dorian Greek rivals. They will also come to appreciate how
ancient Greece and Athens have had a peculiar and long-standing cultural significance for a great part of the world, and potentially
all of it. Essay questions on the examinations, marked for historical accuracy and effective focus on the assigned question (or takehome paper assignments marked also for the writing) will test this synthetic ability. Example: a take-home paper assignment, asking
students to explain Example: an exam-question challenging students to explain the consequences, as parodied in Aristophanes'
Acharnians, for both Megarian and Athenian farmers early during the greater Peloponnesian war. The grading measure will be the
instructor's considered judgment of the whole result, based in part on his professional experience.
Demonstrate an awareness of the diverse ways humans structure their social, political, and cultural lives.
Comparison of Greek with Persian (or other foreign) ways, Athenian with Spartan ways, and, finally, Classical Greek with modern
European and American ways, will induce awareness of their diversity in social, political, and cultural respects. Essay questions on
the examinations, marked for historical accuracy and effective focus on the assigned question (or take-home paper assignments
marked also for the writing) will test this awareness.
Example: a take-home paper assignment on Demosthenes' Against Neaera, with a question asking how free, citizen women's
preferences for a life-style in ancient Athens differ from those of today's American or European women. The grading measure will be
the instructor's considered judgment of the whole result, based in part on his professional experience.
Analyze and compare the rights and responsibilities of citizenship in the 21 st century including those of their own societies and
cultures
Students will engage in a comparative analysis of their own institutions governing what are now called "rights and responsibilities" in
many particular ways based on the readings, as referred to experience or knowledge of the present. Examples: they will compare
and contrast our current European and American cultural, social, and legal norms in regard to the differing legal statuses of Citizen
and non-Citizen women and children as part of their study of Demosthenes' Against Neaera (see the explanation above); they will
compare and contrast our current European and American cultural, social, and legal norms in regard to the treatment of
handicapped citizens by studying Lysias' On Behalf of the Cripple); and they will compare and contrast our current European and
American cultural, social, and legal norms in regard to the disposition of family property in the settlement of estates by reading
Isaeus' On the Estate of Philoctemon. These, and many other matters resembling them in the readings for this course, number
among rights and responsibilities apt for comparison. Students will be encouraged to develop, and expected to show, an analytic
command of such questions. Essay questions on the examinations, marked for accuracy, and analytic acuity on the assigned question
(or take-home paper assignments marked also for the writing) will test this analytic command. Example: a quoted passage from
Isaeus' On the Estate of Philoctemon, with an exam-question challenging students to explain elements in it indicative of the need for
analysis of our own assumptions, practices, and laws in matters of bequest and inheritance. The grading measure will be the
instructor's considered judgment of the whole result, based in part on his professional experience.
VI. ASSESSMENT
A. HOW ARE THE LEARNING GOALS ABOVE MEASURED ? Describe the measurement(s) used, such as a rubric or specific test
questions that directly measure the General Education learning goals. Please attach or provide a web link to the rubric, test
questions, or other measurements used.
Tests and prepared papers, as detailed on the syllabus (q.v.)
1. Sample paper assignments:
Aristophanes' Acharnians and his Lysistrata were produced during, and are also set dramatically in, Athens at the time of the
Peloponnesian war. In what ways does either of these two comedies (please choose only one) reflect serious social or political
conditions in Athens during this time? Please offer specific examples.
What are some of the views that Greek authors we have read read so far in this course exhibit about women? Please cite and discuss
some illustrative examples.
2. Sample test questions:
Briefly identify ten of the following items in a way relevant to this course:
[Sample answer: Socrates: 'ugly civic nuisance executed for impiety & corruption']
Archon
Critobulus
Demokratia
Dikaiopolis
Hetairai
Lycurgus
Megara
Oikonomia
Solon
Stephanus
Symposion
Theodote
Greek Political organization of Classical times remained based upon the older and smaller unit of the oikos ("household"). In
a considered but relatively free essay, discuss some of the specific institutions of the Greek polis (as represented by Athens)
that seem aimed at preserving the stability and continuity of this smaller social unit.
A General Education Assessment Report will be due on a four-year rotating cycle. You will be notified in advance of the due date.
This will serve to fulfill the University’s accreditation requirements to assess general education and will provide an opportunity to
connect with your colleagues across campus and share teaching strategies. Items VI.B- D will be helpful in compiling the report.
B. ACHIEVEMENT TARGETS
[This section is optional. Achievement targets can be reported if they have been established.]
Describe the desirable level of performance for your students, and the percentage of students you expected to achieve this:
(omitted as optional)
C. ASSESSMENT FINDINGS
What were the results/findings, and what is your interpretation/analysis of the data? (Please be detailed, using specific
numbers/percentages when possible. Qualitative discussion of themes provided in student feedback can also be reported. Do NOT
use course grades or overall scores on a test/essay. The most useful data indicates where students’ performance was stronger and
where it was weaker. Feel free to attach charts/tables if desired.)
(omitted as optional)
D. ASSESSMENT FEEDBACK
[This section is optional. Assessment feedback can be reported if it is available.]
Given your students’ performance the last time the course was offered, how will you modify the course to enhance learning? You
can also address how the course could be improved, and what changes in the course content or pedagogy you plan to make, based
upon on the findings. Please include a timeframe for the changes.
(omitted as optional)
A General Education Assessment Report will be due on a four-year rotating cycle. You will be notified in advance of the due date.
This will serve to fulfill the University’s accreditation requirements to assess general education and will provide an opportunity to
connect with your colleagues across campus and share teaching strategies.
VIII. SYLLABUS
Please submit syllabus in a separate file with the completed and signed form to the Faculty Senate Office, UH 221. The learning
goals for the Indigenous and Global Perspective must be included on the syllabus. An electronic copy of the original form is
acceptable.
(syllabus attached)