Download DRAFT: 3-20-2013 Early College Survey of World History This is a

[email protected]
DRAFT: 3-20-2013
Early College
Survey of World History
This is a full year study of Global History for 10th through 12th graders. With each
unit we will explore the contemporary consequences of belief systems, events,
personalities and the political, social and economic systems that come to us from
the past. We do this because history is a look at the past from a contemporary
perspective. Our hope is that with a sense of our contemporary context we can
find utility and purpose in studying the core forces of human history.
An early college class, like an AP course, delivers college content to high school
age students. The difference between AP and early college is found in the
pedagogy – how the instruction is delivered. Early college instruction is weighted
to prepare students for the seminar based, liberal arts college experience.
Instructional practices include:
Socratic teacher-led discussions & lectures
Essay composition
Research projects
Graded student-only discussions
Readings from multiple sources and styles of historical writing.
The objective of these activities is to help students master the core qualities of an
educated person. Students will be led to:
Define, Describe, Identify and Recognize
Analyze and Explain
Assess and Evaluate
Synthesize, Critique, Create and Construct
(College Board, AP World History goals)
This course seeks to advance the classical ideals of intellectual invention,
arrangement, and finally elocution: knowing the inventory of information,
organizing data around a point of view, and finally expressing ideas
appropriately.
These lofty objectives are largely achieved unawares because students will find
themselves sequenced into the skills over the course of the first semester. Early
units open the door to historical thinking with easier content delivered in a
thematic and chronological format. Contemporary issues are drawn into every
theme to demonstrate the overwhelming value of historical thinking. And finally,
the lost art of memorization is given play as students learn to map the world from
memory over the course of the first semester. (After much gnashing of teeth,
students quickly find this easy and utterly useful for retaining vast amounts of
historical knowledge.) It turns out that geographical knowledge gives a scaffold
for cataloging a rich historical inventory that students can call upon at will.
[email protected]
DRAFT: 3-20-2013
Second semester introduces more challenging and contemporary themes and
content. Students begin to take the talents they have learned first semester and
begin to grapple with political, economic and social themes (chronologically) that
invite deeper study and more complex synthesis and critique. Without the stress
of learning course expectations and process (which is taught first semester), the
deeper learning tends to come easily.
Core Themes:
Interactions between Humans and the Environment
Development of Interaction and Cultures
State Building, Expansion, Conflict and failure
Creation, Expansion, and Interaction of Economic Systems
Development and Transformation of Social Structures
(College Board, World History Curricular Framework)
Units:
Semester One
Human Origins, Political Geography, Demographics (the Myth of
Exceptionalism).
Neolithic Revolution / Agricultural Civilization.
Axial Age: Origins of modern Eastern and Western Civilization.
Religion, philosophy, Culture. (India, China, Greece)
Rise and Fall of the West: Ancient Rome.
European Middle Ages, Rise of Islam, Mongol conquest, and the Origins of
capitalism.
The Liberal Arts: Renaissance, Reformation, Revolution.
Semester Two
Age of Exploration for Empire (AKA: Imperialism and Globalization)
Capitalism, technology, conquest.
Ecological Imperialism – a case study on the process of globalization.
Case studies: Latin America and Africa (Survey of ancient history through
their European powers and modern nationhood).
Political Ideologies of the modern Nation-State: Democracy, Militarism,
Communism, Fascism, Autocracy. Global Wars.
Post War World: MAD and Bipolar politics (the Cold War), Post Colonial
migrations,
The middle-class ideal.
Contemporary Issues in a Global Context: (Case study on the rise of modern
[email protected]
DRAFT: 3-20-2013
fundamentalism reaction to Globalization.) Capstone project development
& presentation.
AP exam preparation –ongoing though Spring Semester to prepare for the writing
demands of this exam.
Evaluation:
The goal of all evaluation is to return to students the stolen skill of assessment.
Students will receive regular and traditional evaluations to inform students where
they stand in relation to grade level and college level expectations. There are
three specific types of evaluation: formative, summative and mastery. Formative
assessments are on-going low stakes assessments intended to keep students
informed of their progress on the way to our goals. Summative assessments are
high stakes events that identify what a student achieved at the end of a unit of
study. Mastery assessment applies to high stakes assignments that take a lot of
practice. For memorization of the map and graded discussions, students
receive ongoing grades and many chances to work on their skills. Only the level
they achieve at the end of the semester becomes a final grade.
The following is only a guide:
20% Homework and Reading assessments. Quizzes are brief and low stakes.
Their purpose is to help students track their skills at reading in the content area.
Over the years, knowing where you stand in relation to grade level and college
level reading is critical to college and work readiness.
50% Unit Assessments:
20% Writing. Each unit includes written work. These essays also serve as
preparation for the graded discussions that close each unit.
20% Graded discussion. Each unit includes a central question that
students get to answer. In these discussions, students present and
defend their findings.
10% Unit exams
15% Research projects.
15% Final Exam.
Attendance and Absenteeism:
Attendance and promptness is the first half of participation. They assist greatly in
a student success. Students depend on each other to make the classroom an
[email protected]
DRAFT: 3-20-2013
intellectually rich environment. Attendance is mandatory for assessments. For
example, there is no making up a graded discussion since it depends on the
entire class – in a real sense these are a performance.
As the teacher, I will do what I can to assist in the case of occasional
absenteeism, but it is incumbent on the student to ask for help, make-up work
and to plan ahead.
Office Hours:
Often, more personalized instruction helps a student through a rough patch.
These types of meetings can happen before or after class and through email.
This is available on a regular basis.
Late Work:
All work is due on time to receive a grade. Late work will be given feedback but
not granted credit. If a student is absent when work is due, the work should be
delivered via email, fax or courier and the teacher informed of the absence via
email prior to the start of class. Class is an informal and comfortable place but
performance expectations are rather formal.
Discipline and Behavior:
All students have the right to learn. Anything that obstructs this singular rule will
be addressed. In an extreme case the teacher has the authority to drop a
student from the course. Tuition will not be refunded under this circumstance.
University rules and standards apply to this course.
The Instructor:
Steve Levey has an MA in history from the University of Colorado. He taught
high school history for ten years. In 2005 Steve introduced Early College
pedagogy to Fairbanks prior to leaving public education. Many of his students in
Honors World History at West Valley High School took the World History AP test
without AP-specific preparation. This started as a whimsical dare from a
colleague and a challenge to students. Over the years, all but one student
passed the exam to merit college credit for their achievement in 10th grade.
In previous incarnations, Steve has served the State of Alaska as a historian in
the Office of History and Archaeology, worked as a teacher and mentor for
autistic boys, taught Environmental History to college students in New Zealand,
and flipped 10,000 hamburgers and scooped 50,000 ice cream cones.
Steve now serves as a certified mechanic, manager and owner of a small
business in Fairbanks. He has two boys that play cello beautifully.
[email protected]
DRAFT: 3-20-2013
He enjoys teaching because he loves to watch how people learn.