CDAT10 Project 1--River Valley and other early Civilizations Unit-- Overview
Title of Project: Length:
| Survivor Sugar Hill: Welcome to Apocalypse High | 2 weeks |
Project Description: Driving Question(s):
| This project focuses on the River Valley Civilizations World History standards. Students will be presented with the following problem: Earth has been wiped clear of all manifestations of civilization. You have your basic needs fulfilled, but you don’t have any elements of a society or civilization. In groups, you will need to create a new civilization based on what you can discover about the world’s earliest civilizations. |
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Unit Rationale:
For our first unit, the social studies standards really drive the project and the language arts skills will support the project. Rather than explicitly teaching the causes and effects of the Neolithic Revolution, students will assume the role of a group of people at the dawn of the Neolithic Revolution and, using the geographical and technological resources of the time, make decisions about how they will create and maintain their budding civilization. They will be reading a variety of historical texts (mostly articles pulled from the AP World History materials) and will have to take what they learn in their reading and apply it to their group project. In order to support their reading, we will conduct a “Round Up” (a twenty to twenty-five minute lesson) on academic reading strategies. In addition, they will also have PowerPoints and podcasts assigned for homework, so essentially they are getting their lecture at home so we have time to discuss, research, and question in class.
In addition, students will complete a Document-Based Question pretest over their learning at the end of the end. College prep students will write a Gateway-style essay and AP students will write an AP-style DBQ. Because the Gateway and the AP test are the major standardized assessments for this course, we will use these assignments as baseline data for the rest of the year.
Objectives and Standards per course:
| LA: | · 5d: analyze the influence of mythic, traditional, or classical literature on contemporary literature · 5e: analyze and compare style and language across significant cross-cultural works · 11b: draw comparisons between specific incidents in a text and broader themes that illustrate the writer’s important beliefs or generalizations. · 11c: include formal works cited or bibliography when application · 15e: analyze the author's purpose in writing 15g: evaluate information from common graphic features (e.g., graphic organizers, diagrams, captions, and illustrations) · 30: produce exposition (informational) writing to convey information and ideas from primary and secondary sources accurately and coherently · 35c: use correct sentence construction (subordination, proper placement of modifiers, parallel structure) and proper English usage (consistency of number, gender, point of view, verb tenses, agreement, and punctuation [end marks, commas, semicolons, quotation marks, colons, ellipses, and hyphens]) 36a: produce writing that conforms to appropriate manuscript requirements 36b: produce legible work that shows accurate spelling and correct use of the conventions of punctuation and capitalization 36c: reflect appropriate format requirements including pagination, spacing, italics or underlining, and margins, and integration of source material with appropriate citations (e.g., in-text citations, use of direct quotations, paraphrase and summary, and weaving of source and support materials with writer's own words, etc.) |
| History | · 30a: summarize the impact of the Neolithic Revolution, · 30b: explain how geographic features and cultural diffusion affected the development of ancient Mesopotamia and ancient Egyptian and River Valley civilizations, · 30c : analyze the development of Mesopotamian societies including religious, cultural, economic, and political facets of society including Hammurabi's Law Code, · 30d : describe the relationship of religion and political authority in Ancient Egypt, · 30e : explain the development of monotheism including the concepts developed by the ancient Hebrews and Zoroastrians, 30f: identify and examine early trading networks and writing systems existent in the Eastern Mediterranean including those of the Phoenicians, |
Assessment(s): Tests, Quizzes, Essays, etc.
| Formative: During the Project | Summative: End of Project | |
| LA: |
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| History |
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Round Ups:
21st Century Skills:
| Collaboration | Students will work in groups to research and create their civilizations. They will have to collaborate on their research, their project, and the proposal and results paper. |
| Presentation | Each group will present their civilization in a “Gallery Walk Through” and explain how they used their research to justify their decisions. |
| Critical Thinking | Students will have to draw on research and then apply that knowledge to their project, analyzing what they read and making judgment calls about the best way to implement what they learn. |
| Inventive Thinking | Because the project is so open-ended, students will have to address the ambiguity of the assignment in ways that are creative and innovative. |
Reflection:
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