"The first core unit of World History is titled “rise of
civilizations”. Although this core unit
encompasses many different cultures it can be distilled down to six basic
historical concepts- “iTRACS”- institutions, technology, religion, agriculture,
cities & specialization. These are
the basic building blocks of any civilization, any where.
First an institution is a significant practice, religion or
organization in a society. Early
civilizations like Egypt
had intricate religions and stratified methods of rule. Hammurabi’s code is an example of a law code
developed to make crime, civil disputes and punishments clear to all in
society.
Second, technology existed to make life easier. “Necessity is the mother of all invention”
and in the ancient world, needs included faster, better, easier and more stable
ways of producing food, communicating, building homes and making weapons. A prime example of technology is writing.
Next, religion provided answers and order to an otherwise
chaoctic and sometimes cruel world. In
the case of the Sumerians, they honored their gods by building structures
called “ziggurats” in an attempt to get closer and closer to heaven.
Agriculture allowed humankind to remain in one place. They reaped crops and harvested domesticated
animals at a low caloric cost.
Agriculture could be called the linch-pin of society as without it,
the others would not co-exist.
Cities are complex arrangements of humans whereby a food
source and a potable, travelable water source (in most cases) is located
nearby. Cities provided a stable
environment for specialization, technology and institutions to flourish.
Specialized tasks were able to appear because of food
surpluses due to agriculture. You have
the farmer, the weaponmaker, the soldier, the weaver, the scribe and the ruler
all doing very different albeit important jobs.
iTRACS is a central concept to early history and will be an
important component of this course."
INSTRUCTIONAL VIDEOS FOR CLASS
The students that would view this instructional film would be tenth grade American History students. Our district owns a DVD copy of an ABC series titled "The Century: America's Time" starring Peter Jennings as the host. The series details the different eras in American History. In this case, it is the beginning of the twentieth century. This particular episode would be shown at the conclusion of a few different units of study: Labor Unions, Progressivism, Immigration and American Imperialism.
INSTRUCTIONAL VIDEOS FOR CLASS
The students that would view this instructional film would be tenth grade American History students. Our district owns a DVD copy of an ABC series titled "The Century: America's Time" starring Peter Jennings as the host. The series details the different eras in American History. In this case, it is the beginning of the twentieth century. This particular episode would be shown at the conclusion of a few different units of study: Labor Unions, Progressivism, Immigration and American Imperialism.
This is another example of an instructional documentary that would be shown in a tenth grade American History course. It would be viewed after our final units of study: Reagan Revolution and End of the Cold War. Showing these films after the lessons, reading and activities is a great summative organizer and visual representation of what they've learned.
