WORLD HISTORY (HONORS)

Syllabus

Mrs. Atwood

atwooda@ocps.net

 

Welcome 10th Grade World History Students,

 

Are you interested in friends, family, and yourself?  If you answered “yes” to that question then you are a historian.  The more effective we are as historians, the more fully we find out about AND understand ourselves and the rest of the people with whom we share this planet.

 

To be a better historian, you will want to use skills that professional historians use to evaluate historical information.  These skills are effective for helping you to understand your textbook and the other primary and secondary sources we will use in this class.  These techniques will also help you to become a better consumer, a more informed citizen, and a more enlightened human being.

 

Social Studies Skills:

 

1)      Identifying Main Ideas and Supporting Details.  Distinguishing between the most important concepts and the evidence that provides those concepts is essential to understanding primary and secondary source readings.

2)    Understanding Geography as a Key to History.  Understanding where something happened can help you understand why it happened.

3)    Interpreting Maps.  Reading maps is an effective way to understand a great deal of information in a short time.

4)    Using Time Lines. Time lines are a simple way of putting information in chronological order.

5)    Reading Charts, Graphs, and Tables.  Charts, graphs, and tables can condense may facts into a more understandable format.

6)    Understanding Cause and Effect.  Developing an awareness of the relationship of cause and effect is an essential historical technique.

7)    Recognizing and Understanding Bias.  All historians bring to their studies bias based upon their backgrounds and life experiences.  Learn to recognize bias and account for it.

8)    Identifying Primary and Secondary Sources.  Primary sources are an essential tool for historians, but both primary and secondary sources are important.

9)    Comparing and Contrasting.  Almost everything we know can be described in terms of how it is either similar to or different from something else.

10) Recognizing Fact versus Opinion.  Facts are important that can be verified as true or untrue.  Opinions may be either true or untrue, but can not be verified objectively.

11)  Analyzing Information and Drawing Inferences.  The ability to reason and reach conclusions based upon evidence is an advanced skill.

12) Looking at the Arts as a Key to History.  The Fullness of history is sometimes better realized through art, architecture, music, and literature than through actual historical writings.

13) Studying Economics as a Key to History.  How people distribute and use their resources may be the most powerful indicator of their beliefs, traditions, and actions.

14) Making Hypotheses and Predicting Outcomes.  By using other social studies techniques, the advanced historian should be able to predict outcomes based upon evidence presented.

15) Conducting Research and Writing Research papers. Conduction thorough research and writing a research paper utilizes most, if not all, of the other social studies skills and can be the most challenging and rewarding of assignments.

 

Reading, writing and thinking skills will be very important in this class.  Please bring your textbook to class every day.  Please come to class having read your weakly assignment.  You will have reading to do EVERY week.  Get into the habit of setting aside some time each night to work on homework.  Many students feel that if they don’t actually have a written assignment then they don’t have homework.  It would be unwise to adopt that philosophy for this class.  Expect reading check quizzes every week (sometimes several a week).

 

Honesty is also an important component for success in this class.  I do not tolerate plagiarism, cheating, or copying homework.  Please do not test me on this.  Even if it is only a couple of homework questions copied from a friend (both will receive “0” for the assignment).

 

Grades will consist of tests, quizzes, supplemental reading assignments, essays, projects, homework and class work assignments.

 

I am looking forward to a great year!