AP World History Teaching Units General Editors: Patrick Manning and Deborah Smith Johnston World History Center, Northeastern University
TEACHING UNIT A1 THE NEW WORLD HISTORY: INTRODUCTORY UNIT Deborah Smith Johnston
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THE NEW WORLD HISTORY Table of Contents
Deborah S. Johnston
Abstract The AP World History Course Main Points of the Unit Big Questions Best Practices Lesson Summary Assessment Overview AP World History Course Description Connections Objectives Materials
Historical Context Lesson 1. Perspective Lesson 2. Thinking Differently About the World Lesson 3. What Is World History? Lesson 4. Textbook Orientation and Periodization Lesson 5. The AP World History Themes and Visual Literacy Lesson 6. Civilization and the Habits of Mind Lesson 7. Synthesis Highlighted Reading Bibliography Appendices
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THE NEW WORLD HISTORY
Abstract
Deborah S. Johnston
Abstract Students, in order to be encouraged to think about overarching global patterns and themes, need to be guided on an initial walk-through of the processes of global study and interpretation. As students learn to move beyond basing their understanding of history on isolated civilizations and regions, they need to become comfortable with new temporal and spatial perspectives. This unit presents principles and methods that encourage linkage in the study of world history for all times and places: it addresses all time periods in the AP World History course, and all regions of the world. The unit encourages dialogue among teachers, students, the textbook, the Web, and other visual and written sources. The seven lessons in this unit address multiple perspectives, connections of local and global history, definitions of world history, periodization, visual literacy, Habits of Mind in world history, and a synthesis of these skills. The unit can be used in the first week or so for any secondary (or college) classroom. Student activities include drawing “mental maps” (maps of the world from memory), group discussion of a text on geographic perspectives, brainstorming on meanings of world history, conducting a critique of a textbook, visiting Web sites to develop visual literacy writing narratives on periodization, and discussing why history matters. Through these activities, students will be encouraged to question the assumptions underlying what they read and know, while applying the AP themes and Habits of Mind. This unit works best as the introductory unit to the AP World History course. In some schools where AP world history is a two-year course, teachers could present the unit in either or both years. Other teachers may wish to just do a few lessons from the unit initially and use the others for enrichment during the year.
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THE NEW WORLD HISTORY AP World History Course
Deborah S. Johnston
The AP World History Course What Is World History? World history, in one way or another, is the story of connections within the human community. It ranges in scope from tales of individual families to narratives of all humanity. At every level, the work of the world historian is to seek out the crossings of boundaries and the linkages of systems in the human past — connections across regions of the world, among themes in history, and across periods of time. World history, rather than the sum total of all of history, provides a focus on the connections among localities and themes in history. World history involves thinking about patterns over time. The great debates in world history focus on the connections in trade among regions (as between Europe and East Asia), the connections between free and slave labor in the Atlantic world, the occasional outbursts of epidemic disease over huge regions, and the interchanges that led to the rise of national states throughout the world. The patterns of world history include continuities as well as changes. Though human life spans are now longer on average than in earlier times, the love of a mother for her child is not much different than before, and neither is the competition among siblings. The messages of major religions have remained remarkably stable. Much of world history is depicted in terms of continents and other major regions — South Asia and Africa or the Indian Ocean and Europe. Yet there is more to world history than the history of region after region: The exchange of silver and gold has linked distant sites, and the histories of Christianity and Islam touch on every continent. The story of industrialization centers on the development of factory systems in a few nations, but the story cannot be completed without the intercontinental movements of raw materials, finished goods, and workers. World history includes the history of the United States and of the European regions that are studied as part of Western Civilization, but world history addresses these regions and all other regions as part of a long-term and increasingly interconnected set of human societies. World history is a challenging and exhilarating field of study. It is conceptually and methodologically complex. As students develop proficiency in defining and solving historical problems, they develop important organizational skills that they will practice in understanding difficult issues they will face in many aspects of life outside the classroom. One benefit of studying world history is clearer thinking about past and present.
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THE NEW WORLD HISTORY
Approaches
Deborah S. Johnston
World History Graphic Organizer World history has a long history, but there are many ideas about the best ways to research, organize, interpret, and teach it. This "graphic organizer" presents a variety of these approaches and strategies AP World History Themes (See the current AP World History Course Description in the "Document Library" on AP Central at http://apcentral.collegeboard.com) Other themes might include: migration, justice and equity, belief systems, identity, globalization, power, human environment interaction, technology, and family.
THEMES
Allow for a less textbook-centered approach Provide a selective lens through which to view an aspect of world history
Why use themes?
Help students to remember, organize, and sequence
There is a debate about the selection of 1500 as a turning point for Europe and Americas
Sometimes determined in part by significant turning points, interactions, or changes
Does not necessarily reflect global turning points or changes
PERIODIZATION
Traditional tripartite periodization: ancient, medieval, and modern
One might use regional expertise as an anchor from which to spin off to a more global approach Develop broad questions that address a wide variety of places By looking at patterns, all places might be the focus, not just the four or five big civilizations.
INTEGRATING REGIONAL STUDIES
Use case studies to integrate areas including South East Asia, Oceania, the Americas, Sub-Saharan Africa, the Indian Ocean, Atlantic and Mediterranean basins, South Asia, East Asia, and Europe, including Russia
Events, processes, people, and ideas from multiple points of view
PERSPECTIVE Be able to uncover bias Be able to understand, even when disagreeing, why something happened
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THE NEW WORLD HISTORY
Approaches
Deborah S. Johnston
Art, music literature, linguistics, and communications Interdisciplinary
CHARACTERISTICS
History, geography, political science, economics, anthropology, and archaeology Science and technology Religion and philosophy
Global connections and interactions through time
Essence of world history Go beyond national, political, geographical, and cultural boundary lines
GLOBAL HISTORICAL PATTERNS AND PROCESSES
Include climatic changes, spread of disease, migration, technology transfers, imperial expansion, biological diffusions, cross-cultural trade, spread of religions, movement of ideas, cultural encounters and exchanges, and imperialism Provide units of analysis for world historical study May include comparisons between national, regional, geographic or economic categories
For example, circummaritime studies: Indian Ocean trade, Atlantic plantation systems, Pacific futures, and Mediterranean societies
Cultural studies
APPROACHES TO WORLD HISTORY
Western Civilization plus cultures of non-West
WHAT WORLD HISTORY IS NOT Thousands of discrete dates, names, places, and events A textbook-driven course Comparison Change and continuity over time Analytical thinking Document analysis
BEST PRACTICES IN TEACHING HISTORY
AP Habits of Mind (See the current AP World History Course Description in the "Document Library" on AP Central)
Role plays/trials/simulations Inner/outer seminars, scored class discussions
Interactive classroom instruction Use of visuals and multimedia
Use of artifacts
Traditional and authentic assessment
Independent and small group projects
Spread of world religions Demographic and cultural effects of Columbian exchange Consumerism and global cultures Comparative labor systems
EXAMPLES
Afro-Eurasian imperial policies of tolerance, trading systems Changing role of women Urbanization and demography Decolonization Comparative nationalism (or revolution or industrialzation)
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THE NEW WORLD HISTORY Main Points of Unit
Deborah S. Johnston
Main Points of the Unit Big Questions • How does perspective shape the way we view the world? • How does one look at local history and “do” world history? • What is world history? • What is periodization, and what are its advantages and disadvantages? • How do the AP themes address major issues in world history? • How can the AP Habits of Mind help in understanding history? • What is meant by the concept of civilization?
Best Practices Best Practices are teaching strategies that are interactive and involve high-level thinking skills. The appropriate Best Practices vary widely with teacher strengths, school environment, student population, and experience. But all student populations will benefit from experience with strategies showing that world history is much more than lectures, and more than a survey of facts and dates. This unit, within its individual lessons, includes the following examples of Best Practice teaching strategies: • Read and analyze text documents • Analyze visual documents • Graphic organizer • Mental mapping • Analyze periodization • Inner-outer circle seminar
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THE NEW WORLD HISTORY
Main Points of Unit
Deborah S. Johnston
Lesson Summary Lesson 1. Perspective Students will explore the idea of perspective. Beginning with assessing their own spatial view of the world by drawing maps and then looking at other map projections, they will have a sense of the power of perspective visually. In addition, they will read a short passage on worldviews for homework.
Lesson 2. Thinking Differently About the World After a brief discussion on worldviews, students work with excerpts from the book The Myth of Continents. Through small group questions, they utilize many of the Habits of Mind to understand some of the book’s main arguments. They read a passage from The World and a Very Small Place in Africa for homework in order to introduce the connections between local and global history.
Lesson 3. What Is World History? Beginning with an event of their choosing, students will make connections between local and global history. They will then analyze quotes to discuss what world history is and is not. They will complete a Textbook Scavenger Hunt for homework.
Lesson 4. Textbook Orientation and Periodization Through a series of questions, students will become better acquainted with their textbook as a true world historical tool. The class begins with students writing a short letter to the author based on what they found. Then, through small group discussions, the idea of periodization will be introduced. Students will complete a reading, “The Idea of Civilization in World Historical Perspective.”
Lesson 5. The AP World History Themes and Visual Literacy After brainstorming topics that might address the AP World History Themes, students will look at several Web sites and determine which of the Themes can be best seen through each image. They will fill out a chart to help organize the information and help them gain familiarity with the Themes. (Suggestions are made for classrooms where computer access is not possible.) Homework involves writing a one-page narrative on civilization based on the previous night’s reading as well as the images.
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THE NEW WORLD HISTORY Main Points of Unit
Deborah S. Johnston
Lesson 6. Civilization and the Habits of Mind Through peer review of the narratives, students will discuss the idea of civilization. They will need to identify the Themes and then will be asked to critique or challenge statements in the narratives by using the Habits of Mind. The class will then have a discussion on civilization.
Lesson 7. Synthesis In a brief concluding lesson, students are given a quiz in which they apply the Themes and the Habits of Mind. Students may be asked to choose a Theme to follow through the year.
Assessment Overview • Assessment is built in throughout this unit, culminating in the brief quiz. • The introductory mental mapping exercise is not formally assessed until the end of the year, but it does allow the teacher to see early on where individual students are in terms of geographic knowledge. • The small-group written work on The Myth of Continents and the chart on themes and visual literacy could be collected. • The independent work on local and global history could be assessed, along with the Textbook Scavenger Hunt. • The civilization narrative provides a good example of individual student writing practices. • Peer review and discussion questions on the civilization narratives could be evaluated. • An important element of world history classes should be class participation. Therefore, a teacher may wish to set up guidelines for students to encourage participation in class. The discussions on worldview, periodization, and Habits of Mind could then be scored.
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THE NEW WORLD HISTORY
Main Points of Unit
Deborah S. Johnston
AP World History Course Description Connections This unit addresses all of the AP themes and all of the AP Habits of Mind, in addition to a few of the major developments.
Themes • Patterns and impacts of interaction among major societies: trade, war, diplomacy, and international organizations. • The relationship of change and continuity across the world history periods covered in this course. • Impact of technology and demography on people and the environment (population growth and decline, disease, manufacturing, migrations, agriculture, and weaponry). • Systems of social structure and gender structure (comparing major features within and among societies and assessing change). • Cultural and intellectual developments and interactions among and within societies. • Changes in functions and structures of states and in attitudes toward states and political identities (political culture), including the emergence of the nation-state (types of political organization).
Habits of Mind or Skills • Constructing and evaluating arguments: using evidence to make plausible arguments. • Using documents and other primary data: developing the skills necessary to analyze point of view, context, and bias, and to understand and interpret information. • Developing the ability to assess issues of change and continuity over time. • Enhancing the capacity to handle diversity of interpretations through analysis of context, bias, and frame of reference. • Seeing global patterns over time and space while also acquiring the ability to connect local developments to global ones and to move through levels of generalizations from the global to the particular.
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THE NEW WORLD HISTORY
Main Points of Unit
Deborah S. Johnston
• Developing the ability to compare within and among societies, including comparing societies’ reactions to global processes. • Developing the ability to assess claims of universal standards yet remaining aware of human commonalities and differences; putting culturally diverse ideas and values in historical context, not suspending judgment but developing understanding.
Major Developments Applications to each course section.
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THE NEW WORLD HISTORY
Main Points of Unit
Deborah S. Johnston
Objectives Content objectives: By the end of the unit students will have an understanding of: • the fluidity of spatial constructs and theories (why ideas like “Europe” and the Asiatic Mode of Production are of limited use in world history); • what world history is and how it might differ from European or American history; • periodization and its role in world history narratives; • an African case showing how to see world history through local experience; • what civilization means (or can be construed to mean); and • why history matters.
Skill objectives: By the end of the unit students will be able to: • identify map projections and worldviews; • know how they see the world (through mental mapping); • use their textbook effectively; • participate in class and small group discussions critiquing arguments and applying new information; • apply the AP Themes; and • utilize the AP Habits of Mind.
Materials • Textbook for each student (any one will do) • Blank paper, 11” x 17” • Colored pencils or pens (two colors for each student) • Access to the Web for students or a good quality printer to print out images • Handouts
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THE NEW WORLD HISTORY
Lesson 1
Deborah S. Johnston
Lesson 1. Perspective Objectives • To understand how perspective shapes one’s view of the world, beginning with our spatial perceptions of what the world looks like and what we know about it. • To look at map projections and begin to think about the underlying assumptions of diverse worldviews.
AP World History Course Description Connections Themes • Change and continuity • Cultural and intellectual developments
Habits of Mind • Seeing local and global patterns • Constructing and evaluating arguments
Major Developments • Applications to each course section, including: •1450 – 1750: Cultural and intellectual developments
Length: One 45- to 50-minute class period Materials: • 11” x 17” sheets of paper for students to draw their mental maps • Colored pencils or pens (two colors for each student) • Access to Web sites listed in procedures
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THE NEW WORLD HISTORY
Lesson 1
Deborah S. Johnston
Procedures 1. Students will draw their own mental map of the world. See Appendix A, “Mental Mapping,” for directions on using mental mapping in the classroom as well as a sample, before and after, of a student-drawn world map. At this point in the year, 20 to 25 minutes should be enough time for the next two steps. Cover any classroom maps or globes. 2. Tell students they will have 15 to 20 minutes to draw a map of the world on a blank piece of paper. 3. After drawing the rough outline of the world’s landmasses, they should try to label at least five physical features, five political (cities, countries, etc.) features, five economic features (natural resources, trade goods), five scientific/ technological features (inventions, ideas), five cultural features (works of art, literature, music, religions), and five world historical features (events, people, processes). Additionally, they should use at least five arrows to show movement across space (for example, the Mongols moving across the Eurasian steppe, smallpox moving to the Americas, movement of Indian technologies throughout the Indian Ocean world). (List these requirements on the board or overhead.) 4. Reassure students that this is a pre-test that does not count but should demonstrate effort and will be an indicator of the background they have in geography and history. 5. They will be assessed when they do the same thing again (with a few more requirements) at the end of the year, and improvement will be part of the grade then. 6. When students are done, ask them to place an “X” on each of the following features on their map: the Galapagos Islands, the Amazon River Basin, the Gulf of Guinea, Lake Victoria, and Borneo. They should then connect the “X’s” in a line. These are reference points for the equator so theoretically their maps should be split in half by a straight line.
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THE NEW WORLD HISTORY
Lesson 1
Deborah S. Johnston
7. Begin a discussion with students on their map projections. What does the way they drew their map say about how they see the world? Where are their “blank spaces” in terms of features — in terms of type of detail (technology versus physical or...), in terms of places (Africa, Southeast Asia, etc....), and in terms of time (ancient, medieval, modern)? 8. Show students a variety of map projections (see Web sites below). Their textbook may also have samples. What are the advantages and disadvantages of each of these projections? How do maps reveal bias and worldview? You may wish to discuss the Mercator projection here as well as the Peters projection controversy. http://www.petersmap.com http://www.archaeology.usyd.edu.au/VISTA/20-maps&projections/map_projections.htm http://mac.usgs.gov/isb/pubs/MapProjections/projections.html http://www.geography.hunter.cuny.edu/mp 9. Explain to students that a society’s worldview shapes many aspects of its culture, including religion, time, art, work, gender, political structure, and relationships with other peoples and places as well as with the environment. 10. Homework for Lesson 2. Pass out Handout 2A on worldviews. Students should complete the reading and questions for Lesson 2.
Extensions 11. Teachers may wish to use Gerald Danzer’s Mercator projection activity, in his “Discovering World History Through Maps,” available on the World History Network at http://chnm.gmu.edu/whm/analyzing/maps/mapsauthornf.html. Note that sometimes it is difficult to find an inexpensive Mercator map at your local drugstore or stationery store. 12. Also recommended is Peter Whitfield, The Image of the World: Twenty Centuries of World Maps (London, 1994). This book has beautiful color maps that tell the history of the world through cartography from a variety of perspectives. This source works well in the 1450-1750 section of the AP course as well. In addition, see John Man, Atlas of the Year 1000 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1999)
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THE NEW WORLD HISTORY
Lesson 2
Deborah S. Johnston
Lesson 2. Thinking Differently About the World Objectives • To understand the fluidity of spatial constructs and theories (why ideas like “Europe” and the Asiatic Mode of Production are of limited use in world history) • To understand the concept of periodization and how it influences world history narratives
AP World History Course Description Connections Themes • Cultural and intellectual developments • Interactions in economy and politics
Habits of Mind • Assessing claims of universal standards • Assessing diversity of interpretations
Major Developments • Applications to each course section, including: • 1750-1914: Rise of Western dominance
Length: One 45- to 50-minute class period Materials: • Large write-on maps (or sheets of 11” x 17” paper) • Handouts 2A-2D
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THE NEW WORLD HISTORY
Lesson 2
Deborah S. Johnston
Procedures 1. Homework for Lesson 2. Students should have completed the reading and questions for Lesson 2, on worldviews, using Handout 2A. 2. In class, students should take part in follow-up discussion on worldviews, based on Handout 2A. The class should brainstorm a list of factors that comprise worldview. 3. Students working in small groups should read excerpts from The Myth of Continents (Handout 2B). They should work together to answer the questions on Handout 2C. (Note to the teacher: This is a difficult reading. To a certain degree, it allows students to see the rigor and depth necessary for the course right off the bat. As an alternative, students could be assigned to read Handout 2B as homework for Lesson 2; in class they could then work in groups to answer the questions.) 4. The teacher reconvenes the class as a whole, and leads students in a brief discussion of the main ideas that students drew from The Myth of Continents, making sure vocabulary is clear. 5. The teacher passes out large write-on maps with erasable pens (Nystrom makes these, as do other companies) to pairs of students. The teacher should challenge students to conceive of organizing the world in a new way. As an example, give them the idea of circum-maritime regions — societies bordering the Mediterranean, Indian Ocean world, etc. (For a full discussion of “circum-maritime,” see the “Frequently Used Terms in World History,” in Patrick Manning and Deborah Smith Johnston, eds., AP World History Best Practices [New York: College Board, 2002], p. 139.) Other classifications might be religion, climate (students soon realize why these are unworkable), regions, etc. 6. Pairs of students present their group’s suggestions to the class, encouraging student debate on the validity of their newly divided worlds.
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THE NEW WORLD HISTORY
Lesson 2
Deborah S. Johnston
7. The teacher passes out Handout 2D on the Habits of Mind, and reviews the skills students utilized in the discussion and activity — most will have been directly addressed. 8. Homework for Lesson 3. Students should complete Handout 3A, “Making Local or National History Global.” Students choose an event with which they are familiar and brainstorm at least five questions that would help them see the world historical links associated with those events.
Extensions 9. To explore worldview further, the teacher may wish to have students read creation stories from different societies. (For a full lesson on worldview, see Teaching Unit C3, “The Encounters of 1492 and their Influence on the Wider World,” by Donald Johnson.) 10. The teacher may wish to provide students with a series of book reviews that show scholarly debate on The Myth of Continents. See James Blaut’s review in the Journal of World History 10 (Spring 1999). This is followed up by a reply from Lewis and Wigen, “Third Worldism or Globalism? Reply to James M. Blaut’s Review of The Myth of Continents,” Journal of World History 11 (2000), 81-92; and by James Blaut, “On Myths and Maps: A Rejoinder to Lewis and Wigen,” Journal of World History 11 (2000), 93-100. 11. Vocabulary: Many of the readings high school students will be doing for this course include difficult vocabulary, as with the Myth of Continents reading. Teachers may wish to have students keep track of unfamiliar words. Students then generate their own vocabulary quiz once per quarter using ten of the words that they think will come up repeatedly in life. The typed quizzes are evaluated based upon selection of words, identification of the reading from which they came, challenge level of the quiz (including the need to apply word usage to, as opposed to matching, multiple-choice definitions), and inclusion of an answer key. Quizzes are reviewed (some may be returned for revision) and then given to students a few days later, with the addition of a few teachergenerated words.
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THE NEW WORLD HISTORY
Lesson 2
Deborah S. Johnston
Handout 2A Worldview 1. What is meant by the term “Worldview”?
2. Read the passage below. It is from Donald James Johnson and Jean Elliott Johnson, The Human Drama: From the Beginning to 500 C.E. (Princeton: Markus Wiener Publisher, 2002), 3-4.
Change Over Time History is the story of change over time. But what is time? Does it move? If so, how? Cycles in nature — phases of the moon; the seasons; the growth, death, and rebirth of plants — suggest time moves in circles. Time that appears to move in circles is called cyclical time. Nature follows cyclical time, and agricultural communities usually follow the rhythms of the seasons. Myths from India tell of great cycles during which the world comes into being and dissolves, over and over again. The present universe has existed before and will come into being again. In these stories, there is no “In the beginning....” Where does a circle begin? Some communities in Africa have two kinds of time: One covers what a person has experienced or is about to experience, and the other encompasses a community’s past, most of which no one remembers very clearly any longer. Events move backward, away from memory, into the “graveyard of time.” Most people in the United States assume time moves forward in a straight line from a fixed beginning into the future. This is called linear time. The study of history assumes linear time because historians are interested in cause and effect and how things change. Some people who believe in linear time also assume that as things change they get better. They may study the past in order to see how things have improved and progressed, how our present way of life is superior to earlier times. To record events in linear time requires starting at some point. Logically, we should start with creation, but when did that take place? Events are often dated from the birth of some extremely important person or the
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THE NEW WORLD HISTORY
Lesson 2
Deborah S. Johnston
start of a ruler’s reign. The Greeks used the Olympics as the basis of their calendar. For Muslims, year one was when the first Muslim community fled from Mecca to Medina, and they use a lunar calendar with twelve 28day months. The birth of Jesus is at the center of the designations B.C. (before Christ) and A.D. (anno Domini, “in the year of the Lord”). We will follow this dating but use the more general terms B.C.E. (before the common era) and C.E. (of the common era).
Calendar
Year
New Year’s Day
Gregorian
2000 C.E.
January 1
Islamic
1420-1421
April 6
Hebrew
5761
September 29
Chinese
4697 (year of the rabbit)
February 5
4698 (year of the dragon)
3. How might time provide insight into a society’s worldview?
4. Does history have to be linear? What are the advantages of thinking about time as being in a straight line? What are the problems with this approach?
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THE NEW WORLD HISTORY
Lesson 2
Deborah S. Johnston
5. What other factors besides time help to define a society’s worldview?
6. Using one of the factors (for example, religion) from question 5, describe your own culture’s worldview using at least three pieces of evidence (one of which must be architecture or art). (For example, for time you might mention the linear timelines in our textbooks, the year-round schools that do not follow the agriculturally derived summer break, and the presence of clocks in town bell towers for all to see and hear.)
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THE NEW WORLD HISTORY
Lesson 2
Deborah S. Johnston
Handout 2B Excerpt: The Myth of Continents Source: Martin Lewis and Karen Wigen, The Myth of Continents: A Critique of Metageography (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), pp. 2, 3, 33-34, 35, 36, 4142, 43-45, 186, 188.
The myth of continents is the most elementary of our many geographical concepts. Continents, we are taught in elementary school, form the basic building blocks of world geography. These large, discrete landmasses can be easily discerned by a child on a map of the earth. One has simply to spin the globe and watch them pass by: the massive triangles of North and South America, tenuously linked by the Panamanian isthmus; the great arch of Africa, neatly sundered from Europe and Asia by the Mediterranean and Red Seas; the squat bulk of Australia, unambiguously disjoined from other lands; the icy wastes of Antarctica, set alone at the bottom of the world.
... Despite its ubiquity and commonsensical status, there are many reasons to believe that the standard seven-part continental scheme employed in the United States obscures more than it reveals. An obsolete formulation, this framework is now wholly inadequate for the load it is routinely asked to carry. Equally in the realms of natural history and human geography, the most important distributional patterns and structuring processes are not based on continental divisions. The Isthmus of Panama, separating North from South America, is of little importance for either social history or the animal and plant kingdoms; most of what is unique about Africa begins south of the Sahara Desert, not south of the Mediterranean Sea; and the division between Europe and Asia is entirely arbitrary. Only by discarding the commonplace notion that continents denote significant biological or cultural groupings can a sophisticated understanding of global geography be reached.
... When it comes to mapping global patterns, whether of physical or human phenomena, continents are most often simply irrelevant. In regard to the distribution of life-forms, for instance, most contemporary continental boundaries are trivial.
...
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THE NEW WORLD HISTORY
Lesson 2
Deborah S. Johnston
If continents are simply irrelevant for physical geography, however, they can be positively pernicious when applied to human geography. Pigeonholing historical and cultural data into a continental framework fundamentally distorts basic spatial patterns, leading to misapprehensions of cultural and social differentiation. Nowhere is such misrepresentation more clearly exemplified than in the supposed continental distinction between Europe and Asia.
... In current usage, continents are defined not as absolutely distinct bodies but as more or less discrete masses of land.
... The one glaring exception to this rule is the boundary between Asia and Europe. Since Europe is by no stretch of the imagination a discernible landmass, it can hardly be reckoned a continent according to the dictionary definitions of that term. The Ural and Caucasus ranges, which are said to form its eastern border, are separated by an embarrassing 600-mile gap. Moreover, the Urals themselves are hardly a major barrier. (The Cossacks managed to invade Siberia by carrying their riverboats over a brief portage “across the Urals’s crest.”) As a result, conscientious geographers sometimes group Europe and Asia together as the single continent of Eurasia, whittling down the list of major landmasses from seven to six.
... Europe’s continental status is intrinsic to the entire conceptual scheme. Viewing Europe and Asia as parts of a single continent would have been far more geographically accurate, but it would also have failed to grant Europe the priority that Europeans and their descendants overseas believed it deserved. By positing a continental division between Europe and Asia, Western scholars were able to reinforce the notion of a cultural dichotomy between these two areas — a dichotomy that was essential to modern Europe’s identity as a civilization. This does not change the fact, however, that the division was, and remains, misleading. Not only do Europe and Asia fail to form two continents, they are not even comparable portions of a greater Eurasian landmass. Europe is in actuality but one of half a dozen Eurasian subcontinents, better contrasted to a region such as South Asia than to the rest of the landmass as a whole. (It would be just as logical to call the Indian peninsula one continent while labeling the entire remainder of Eurasia — from Portugal to Korea — another.)
... What ultimately damns the continental system, however, is not its vagueness or its tendency to mislead us into making faulty associations among human cultural groupings. Most insidious in the long run is the way in which this metageographical framework perpetuates a covert form of environmental determinism.
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THE NEW WORLD HISTORY
Lesson 2
Deborah S. Johnston
Environmental (or geographical) determinism is the belief that social and cultural differences between human groups can ultimately be traced to differences in their physical environments. As this philosophy took definitive shape in the AngloAmerican academy at the turn of this century, it tended to support the self-serving notion that temperate climates alone produced vigorous minds, hardy bodies, and progressive societies, while tropical heat (and its associated botanical abundance) produced races marked by languor and stupefaction. Such overtly racialist claims disappeared several generations ago from respectable works. Yet we would argue that a more subtle and largely unrecognized variant of environmental determinism lurks behind the myth of continents. The reason for this is simple. In practice, the continental system continues to be applied in such a way as to suggest that continents are at once physically and culturally constituted — i.e., that natural and human features somehow correspond in space.
... As a result, contemporary geographers, while distancing themselves deliberately from the racialist thinking that once dominated the discipline, sometimes fall back into an environmentalist position simply by remaining faithful to continental categories. This may be seen, for instance, in the persistent idea that a distinctly “Asiatic Mode of Production” formerly prevailed all the way from the Ottoman Empire to China. Even in the 1990s, a prominent scholar can argue, following Karl Marx and Karl Wittfogel, that the need for large-scale irrigation — an imperative ultimately attributed to physical geography — was significantly responsible for the development of Asia’s “despotic” forms of rule. As will be demonstrated at greater length in chapter 5, careful scholarship has thoroughly discredited this thesis; just as there is no Asia, neither is there an Asiatic Mode of Production or a characteristically Asian form of despotic power.
... Proponents of geographical determinism have often construed the intensity of environmental influence as varying according to continental location — opening the way for exempting Europeans from the strict rule of nature. Since at least the time of Montesquieu, Europe has been pictured as a land of moderate climate and diverse landforms, allowing unusual scope for human freedom. In other words, Europe has been depicted as the arena of environmental possibilism. Asia and Africa, by contrast, have been often viewed as continents of climatic rigor and physiographic uniformity, whose people have been subject to a corresponding set of “iron physical laws.” In this view, the bonds of geographical concordance, especially those linking human developments with physiographic features, can be asserted to be much stronger in Asian countries than in those of Europe.
...
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THE NEW WORLD HISTORY
Lesson 2
Deborah S. Johnston
The idea that Europe alone escaped geographical determination persists to this day, albeit in more subtle forms. Europe’s physiographic and climatic diversity are now sometimes viewed merely as having prevented the consolidation of large empires and allowed scope for the development of a market-driven economy. Paul Kennedy, in his widely acclaimed book The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, expresses this view succinctly: For [its] political diversity Europe had largely to thank its geography. There were no enormous plains over which an empire of horsemen could impose its swift domination, nor were there broad and fertile river zones like those around the Ganges, Nile, Tigris and Euphrates, yellow and Yangtze, providing the food for masses of toiling and easily conquered peasants. Europe’s landscape was much more fractured, with mountain ranges and large forests separating the scattered population centers in the valleys; and its climate altered considerably from north to south and west to east.... Europe’s differentiated climate led to different products, suitable for exchange; and in time, as market relations were developed, they were transported along the rivers or the pathways which cut through the forest between one area of settlement and the next. . . . Here again geography played a crucial role, for water transport of these goods was so much more economical and Europe possessed so many navigable rivers. The many misconceptions in this brief passage betray the geographical myopia associated with the myth of continents. From Kennedy’s avowedly Eurocentric perspective, Europe’s geographical features are seen in fine detail, suggesting great diversity across the region. The rest of the world, by contrast, appears on the edges of his mental map as a vague blur, looking highly monotonous. The discrepancy becomes evident as soon as one looks carefully at a map of southern and eastern Eurasia, focusing on precisely the features Kennedy emphasizes. To begin with, both South and East Asia show at least as much topographic diversity as does Europe. While both subsume large expanses of flat land, neither the north Indian nor the north Chinese plain dwarfs the great European plain (which extends, after all, from Aquitaine to the Urals). Climatic variation is also comparable in all three regions; China’s climate, in fact, exhibits greater differentiation than does Europe’s, ranging as it does from truly tropical to subarctic. Similarly, all three areas feature navigable rivers, those of China in particular having been more highly developed for transportation than their counterparts in Europe in premodern times. And as for Kennedy’s claim that Europe’s forests served as an impediment to conquest, it is hard to image how this could have been true after the “great age of forest clearance” in the Middle Ages — a period of massive deforestation such as South Asia, at least, did not experience until modern times.
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THE NEW WORLD HISTORY
Lesson 2
Deborah S. Johnston
Clearly, the world regional system has some serious flaws. In most presentations, it is contaminated both by the myth of the nation-state and by geographical determinism. Similarly, though less Eurocentric than the standard continental scheme, it still bears traces of its origin within a self-centered European geographical tradition. More fundamentally, a world regional framework continues to grossly flatten the complexities of global geography. No less than the continental scheme, it implies that the map of the world is readily divisible into a small number of fundamentally comparable units. Nonetheless, we remain convinced that some form of baseline heuristic scheme is necessary for teaching and thinking about metageography, and that a refined version of the world regional framework is the most serviceable alternative available. The cartographic outlines of our own preferred regions are depicted in map 10. In its contours, this map does not differ dramatically from the standard depiction of world regions already employed in geography and other disciplines; with a few important qualifications, we endorse the global architecture that has emerged within the North American academic world. Where we part company from textbook geography is less in cartographic depiction than in conceptual procedure. Our methodological differences with textbook geography can be summed up in three main principles. First, we have avoided defining regions in terms of specific diagnostic traits, focusing instead on historical processes. Second, we have ignored both political and ecological boundaries, giving primacy instead to the spatial contours of assemblages of ideas, practices, and social institutions that give human communities their distinction and coherence. Finally, we have tried to conceptualize world regions not only in terms of their internal characteristics, but also in terms of their relations with one another. For one region’s identity has often coalesced only in confrontation with another. This last point deserves underscoring. As Patrick Manning and others have argued, sub-Saharan Africa emerged as a distinct region of the world in good part through the mechanism of the slave trade, an intrinsically interregional operation implicating Europe, the Americas, and North Africa and Southwest Asia. African unity was later enhanced by the common experiences of colonial rule and anticolonial resistance, and it is maintained today in part by the common yoke of global financial institutions. Southeast Asia, similarly, has coalesced in part through confrontations with the historically expansive civilizations of the Eurasian mainland. And it is emerging as a more coherent region today in part because the majority of its member states are developing a common pattern of economic relationships with East Asia, Europe, and North America. Now more than ever, relational issues are crucial to macroregional identity. So long as these methodological points are addressed, we believe that the world regional paradigm can be reformed and should be retained. But a number of caveats are still in order. First, as we have insisted throughout this critique, any
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THE NEW WORLD HISTORY
Lesson 2
Deborah S. Johnston
scheme of global geographical division is only a rough approximation, a convenient but crude device for making sense of particular patterns of human life. World regions are better approximations for most purposes than continents or civilizations, but they are no more naturally given. Second, we would emphasize that this scheme has evolved essentially as a pedagogical tool: a vehicle for talking and teaching about basic global patterns of sociocultural geography at the college level. We claim no authority for it beyond those uses. Third, we would note that while our map by necessity shows seemingly rigid boundaries separating world regions, many of those boundary zones themselves function almost like hybrid regions in their own right. Finally, we would ask the reader to see this scheme, like all similar efforts, as but one contribution to an ongoing dialogue. Our purpose is not to settle the many delicate issues of metageography, but to advance the discussion of those issues.
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THE NEW WORLD HISTORY
Lesson 2
Deborah S. Johnston
Handout 2C Analysis: The Myth of Continents This reading may challenge the foundation of your geographic knowledge. Recognizing that there are diverse interpretations in history (and geography), read the following passages critically. 1. What do the authors suggest are the biggest problems with using continents?
2. Explain their argument that giving Europe continental status provides it with a greater stature than it should have. Provide additional evidence that either supports this argument or refutes it.
3. What is environmental or geographical determinism?
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THE NEW WORLD HISTORY
Lesson 2
Deborah S. Johnston
4. The “Asiatic Mode of Production” is one idea that scholars have debated that claims empires or civilizations relying on irrigation end up with more entralized (and despotic or dictatorial) rule. We will refer to more specifics of this during the year, but for now comment on the value of and limitations to this type of idea.
5. Respond to the “debate” in the article about Europe’s possibilism as presented by Paul Kennedy and Lewis and Wigen. Whom do you agree with? Why? What additional information do you need to strengthen your argument?
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THE NEW WORLD HISTORY
Lesson 2
Deborah S. Johnston
Handout 2D AP World History Habits of Mind or Skills The AP World History course addresses Habits of Mind or skills in two categories: 1. those addressed by any rigorous history course; and 2. those addressed by a world history course.
Four Habits of Mind are in the first category: • Constructing and evaluating arguments: using evidence to make plausible arguments. • Using documents and other primary data: developing the skills necessary to analyze point of view, context, and bias, and to understand and interpret information. • Developing the ability to assess issues of change and continuity over time. • Enhancing the capacity to handle diversity of interpretations through analysis of context, bias, and frame of reference.
Three Habits of Mind are in the second category: • Seeing global patterns over time and space while also acquiring the ability to connect local developments to global ones and to move through levels of generalizations from the global to the particular. • Developing the ability to compare within and among societies, including comparing societies’ reactions to global processes. • Developing the ability to assess claims of universal standards yet remaining aware of human commonalities and differences; putting culturally diverse ideas and values in historical context, not suspending judgment but developing understanding.
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THE NEW WORLD HISTORY
Lesson 3
Deborah S. Johnston
Lesson 3. What Is World History? Objectives • To articulate what world history is • To understand diverse interpretations of what world history is • To see the validity of studying it
AP World History Course Description Connections Themes • Interactions in economy and politics • Changing functions of states Habits of Mind • Seeing local and global patterns • Comparing within and among societies Major Developments • Applications to each course section, including: • 600 – 1450: Interregional networks and contacts
Length: One 45- to 50-minute class period Materials: Handouts 3A and 3B Procedures 1. Homework for Lesson 3. Students should have completed Handout 3A , “Making Local or National History Global.” Students choose an event with which they are familiar and brainstorm at least five questions that would help them see the world historical links associated with that event. 2. In class, the teacher debriefs the local-to-global reading, Handout 3A. Beginning with an event of their choosing, students make connections between local and global history.
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THE NEW WORLD HISTORY
Lesson 3
Deborah S. Johnston
3. The teacher leads the class to brainstorm on the meaning of world history. The teacher should record answers on a Web site so that students can see all the responses. (The teacher may wish to refer to the Web on “Approaches to World History” at the beginning of this unit as a guide.) 4. Students read “What is World History?” (Handout 3B) in pairs during class. The handout includes various definitions of world history. The teacher may wish to have students read the quotes aloud in class and discuss the questions informally, or select one or two quotes and put them on the overhead for more detailed analysis. Students should answer the questions following the quotes. 5. “Why is world history a relatively new field?” Students should write briefly in their journals in response to this question. 6. The teacher introduces the concept of civilization. 7. Homework for Lesson 4. After students have received their textbook for the course, the teacher distributes Handout 4A, “Textbook Scavenger Hunt,” which students are to complete for homework.
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THE NEW WORLD HISTORY
Lesson 3
Deborah S. Johnston
Handout 3A Making Local or National History Global 1. Think about your own life. In what ways are you connected to the larger world? Think about economics and trade, the environment, cultural trends, fashion, travel, etc.
2. Historically, what events may have affected your family or ancestors?
3. Read the following passage about Niumi, an area about the size of Rhode Island, located in The Gambia. Source: Donald Wright, The World and a Very Small Place in Africa (Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, 1997), 252-254. On the way back across the river, lulled into drowsiness by the setting sun and the steady throb of the ferry’s diesels, I began thinking once more about Niumi’s long history. Darkest Africa? Remote? Isolated? Hardly, I thought. Niumi had been part of a larger world, of one or another fairly elaborate world system, for a thousand years and more. Its people had been relying on products from elsewhere, often a long way off; its leaders had been living off the long-distance trade of commodities, and its culture had been changing because of influences from afar, into the distant past. I did not know for how long people living on the lower Gambia’s north bank had been shipping products up and down the river and along the adjacent Atlantic coast, but I was certain Niumi’s political and cultural ties to the Mali Empire — the ones I had heard about so often in regional oral traditions — were no more important to its history than its ties into the Sudanic and trans-Saharan economy, which griots never mentioned. That 34 Copyright © 2003 by College Entrance Examination Board. All rights reserved. Available at apcentral.collegeboard.com
THE NEW WORLD HISTORY
Lesson 3
Deborah S. Johnston
was its link to the massive world system of the Old World. It was via traders across these routes that Niumi was connected to the cultural world system of Islam, one of the most influential factors in the daily lives of Niumi residents over recent centuries.
... Without severing its ties to the inland savannas, the desert, and the world system of the Old World with its shifting core so far away, Niumi became involved in the expanding Atlantic complex. Between the mid-fifteenth and the early nineteenth century, the commerce associated with the Atlantic plantation system wrapped all around the little Gambian state and made it a focal point — to varying degrees at different times — of connections between West Africa’s Sudanic economy and, via floating links, the European-managed, American-centered production system. Slaves were the commodity of much modern historical focus in the grand economic complex, but for Niumi the trade brought a host of necessary and optional commodities for the subsistence and pleasure of its people.
... The most important change in Niumi’s modern existence, the process of events that placed Niumi on the periphery of the modern world system, occurred in the first half of the nineteenth century. I was more and more convinced of this. It was then that relationships changed most completely: when Europeans quickly appeared much more powerful — not only by having more effective weapons, but by being able to marshal troops and resources from an increasingly broad area of the world; when Europeans became remarkably efficient producers of consumable merchandise at reasonable prices; and, most specifically, when Niumi’s population became producers of a staple commodity in demand in the system’s core and eager consumers of more of the inexpensive goods that Europeans could bring. Niumi’s peanut revolution was a revolution in its population’s relationship with the expanding world system. After midcentury, people in Niumi were fully engaged on the system’s periphery, and mired there, dependent on the relationship for much of what they needed and wanted. From then on, in terms of how they lived and their general level of well-being, who ruled them — whether it was one of the traditional ruling lineages, British colonial officials, Gambian politicians, or young military officers — mattered less than elements inherent in the world system — world commodity prices, interruptions of the international flow of goods, or political actions that affected these things. Through the colonial period and the time since Gambian independence in 1965, world economic fluctuations, global warring, epidemics, improved technologies, advances in health care — all would affect people’s lives in Niumi by degrees or alter conditions over the short run, but would not change the basis of their existence. And in this Niumi was not alone. It seemed to be a fact of life across about two-thirds of the globe.
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THE NEW WORLD HISTORY
Lesson 3
Deborah S. Johnston
Handout 3B What Is World History? These are statements about world history by leading teachers and scholars in the field. Read the statements, then answer the questions that follow them. “We don’t study the history of each separate state to understand American history. Nor do we study the state histories of California, Texas, and Alaska and presume that their population and/or geographic advantage gives us the complete picture. Rather we study national experiences and developments to understand the history of the US. Similarly, in world history, we do not study the national histories of the biggest countries or the developments of the largest civilizations. Rather, we explore the global processes and connections that have shaped the world through time.” - Heidi Roupp “World history is developing as a macrohistory — a history of the human experience [where] encounters with strangers are the main drive wheel of social change.” - William McNeill “World history is more general than traditional history and emphasizes trends that transcend cultural boundaries. World history stresses the treatment of interaction between societies. In eras where such interaction is limited, it compares different patterns of development around the world. Hence a world history study may involve cultures that actually had contact and influence on one another or cultures that went through various stages of development with little or no outside influence. World history tends to be more superficial and general than local or national histories. This is not meant in a negative way, but in the sense of a comprehensive view of history. The old cliché of not seeing the forest for the trees applies here. World history looks at the forest for the overall, global meaning of history.” - David Smith “A world history course should strive not to become a course in great civilizations, a study of various regions of the world, or a global issues course. What it should be is the study of human change and continuity over time.” - Marilynn Hitchens 36 Copyright © 2003 by College Entrance Examination Board. All rights reserved. Available at apcentral.collegeboard.com
THE NEW WORLD HISTORY
Lesson 3
Deborah S. Johnston
“World history in its contemporary connotation is not a synthesis of known fact or a juxtaposition of the histories of different continents or cultures, arranged in some sort of order of relative importance; rather it is a search for the links and connections across political and cultural frontiers. It is concerned not so much with development in time or with the goal and meaning of history — western preoccupations which non-western cultures for the mot part do not share — as with the perennial problems which have assailed mankind everywhere and with the different responses to them. It [world history] has turned them [world historians] away from linear development, from the thread allegedly running through history from its earliest beginnings to the present day, to the comparative study of the institutions, habits, ideas, and assumptions of men in all times and places.” - Geoffrey Barraclough “We cannot fully understand the past few millennia without understanding the far longer period of time in which all members of our own species lived as gatherers and hunters, and without understanding the changes that led to the emergence of the earliest agrarian communities and the first urban civilizations. Paleolithic society, in its turn, cannot be fully understood without some idea of the evolution of our own species over several million years. That however requires some grasp of the history of life on earth, and so on (‘big history’).” - David Christian “The new narrative of world history must have ecological process (instead of development) as its major theme. It must keep human events within the context where they really happen, and that is the ecosystem of the earth. The story of human history, if it is to be balanced and accurate, will inevitably consider the natural environment and the myriad ways in which it has both affected and been affected by human activities.” - Donald Hughes
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THE NEW WORLD HISTORY
Lesson 3
Deborah S. Johnston
“What Is World History” Questions: Answer on a separate sheet of paper. 1. How important are connections to the authors above? 2. What are some examples of global processes? Why do they matter in world history? 3. What creates change in history? 4. Does world history always involve people? 5. What role does the environment play in world history? 6. Can world history be local? 7. What differences of opinion do you see within these definitions? 8. Name one other observation you have after reading these quotes.
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THE NEW WORLD HISTORY
Lesson 4
Deborah S. Johnston
Lesson 4. Textbook Orientation and Periodization Objectives • To be able to utilize textbooks effectively • To explain the significance of periodization
AP World History Course Description Connections Themes • Change and continuity • Systems of social and gender structure
Habits of Mind • Constructing and evaluating arguments • Assessing change and continuity
Major Developments • Applications to each course section, including: • Foundations: Locating world history in the environment and time
Length:
One 45- to 50-minute class period
Materials: • Handouts 4A – 4C • Textbook for each student
Procedures 1. Homework for Lesson 4. Students have filled out Handout 4A, “Textbook Scavenger Hunt,” after having received their textbook for the course. 2. In class, the teacher begins the debriefing on handout by having students write a letter to the author(s) without using the book. Students should give their initial impression of what they like and don’t like about the text (10 minutes). Teachers may wish to look at Appendix B, “Textbook Strategies,” which provides several examples of how a textbook might be used.
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THE NEW WORLD HISTORY
Lesson 4
Deborah S. Johnston
3. Periodization. The class now turns to analysis of periodization in the textbook. The teacher organizes students into small groups to discuss the periodization questions (Handout 4B). It may be helpful to have one textbook available for each group. The teacher may need to model a critique of periodization in one section of the textbook before the students convene in small groups. 4. Next the teacher distributes copies of Handout 4C, and asks students to spend about ten minutes examining it. The teacher emphasizes that thesis statements in history include clear statements about time. Students are to write a thesis statement that is an improvement over that in Handout 4C, and then read the outline of an imaginary essay for comprehension. 5. Allow a brief amount of time for mini class presentations on periodization.
Extension 6. The teacher may wish to spend more time discussing the concept of civilization in a scored discussion — an inner-outer circle seminar. (For fuller descriptions of the process of inner-outer circle seminar, see Lesson 2 of Teaching Unit C3, “The Encounters of 1492 and their Influence on the Wider World,” by Donald Johnson; or Lesson 5 of Teaching Unit C3, “The Encounters of 1492 and their Influence on the Wider World,” by Linda Black.)
40 Copyright © 2003 by College Entrance Examination Board. All rights reserved. Available at apcentral.collegeboard.com
THE NEW WORLD HISTORY
Lesson 4
Deborah S. Johnston
Handout 4A Textbook Scavenger Hunt Complete the following by skimming through your world history textbook. Answer on a separate piece of paper. The Table of Contents The table of contents provides insight into how the author(s) have chosen to organize the textbook. Sometimes textbooks have a brief table of contents as well as a more detailed one. Use the detailed one to answer these questions. Periodization refers to how historical time is divided up. Sometimes certain periods are named (for example, “The Age of Exploration”) and sometimes periods begin or end with a turning point or event (for example, the voyages of Columbus). Other time periods overlap. 1. What is the periodization used in your textbook? (List the periods with their names and dates.) 2. Is the periodization determined by specific end dates or is it overlapping? Global Balance 3.
a. In looking through the topics of the table of contents, do certain places come up more often than others b. What places, if any, seem left out at particular times? c. Name two places mentioned in the table of contents about which you know very little, if anything.
The Text 4. Does the text include passages before or after sections, units or chapters that provide a big-picture explanation of the time period or topic? If yes, why might this be helpful to read (even if it is not assigned!)?
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THE NEW WORLD HISTORY
Lesson 4
Deborah S. Johnston
5. Choose one chapter and skim through it to answer the following question. How has the author(s) made the text more readable (font, side margin subheadings, use of color, bold, italics, visuals on every page, etc.)? List all the ways below. 6. As this is a college text, some of the vocabulary words may be difficult. Read one random paragraph and identify any words you do not know. In your reading for the course, how will you deal with these unfamiliar words? (Look all of them up in the dictionary? Use context clues? Look up ones that come up repeatedly?)
Visuals Textbook authors work hard to find a variety of images to complement the text. These images include photographs of contemporary places or artwork, drawings, paintings, pictures of artifacts, diagrams, charts, and maps. 7. Choose THREE different types of visuals in the text. Record the page number and a brief phrase describing each below. a. b. c. 8. Why did these images interest you?
Sidebars/Documents Textbooks often have inserts or sidebars at the beginning or end of chapters, or sometimes right in the chapter. These short pieces focus on a particular topic in more depth. They are often like feature stories in a newspaper, focusing on a human-interest topic. 9. Skimming through the book (or often these are listed in a separate table of contents), write down the titles of THREE sidebars that look interesting to you. a. b. c.
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THE NEW WORLD HISTORY
Lesson 4
Deborah S. Johnston
Extras Many texts have additional features at the end of the book. Sometimes these might include a pronunciation key, a glossary, index, timelines, or an atlas. Some texts might have these types of features throughout the book.
10. What is included at the end of your textbook? 11. Where would you go to find timelines? 12. Describe how you would look for a particular map in the book. The Big Picture 13. Just from this brief look at your textbook, do you get a sense of how the authors see world history? Is their world history one about dates, places, and names or about themes, processes, and concepts? Some combination of the two? Explain why you think this. 14. What do you like most about this textbook? 15. What do you expect the greatest challenge will be in reading this textbook? How will you try to overcome that?
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THE NEW WORLD HISTORY
Lesson 4
Deborah S. Johnston
Handout 4B Small Group Periodization Discussion 1. Review with your group how your textbook is organized.
2. Speculate on why the authors chose to break up time in this way? In what other ways could it have been done.
3. What hidden or implied assumptions are there in the periodization of this book? Might it have been different if the author was not western? (What would you need to know to really answer this question?)
4. Using this periodization, give examples of global processes that are affecting at least portions of the planet at different times.
5. Why does periodization matter? What does it help us to be aware of?
6. Are there other questions or comments that the group has?
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THE NEW WORLD HISTORY
Lesson 4
Deborah S. Johnston
Handout 4C Thesis Practice on Periodization Bad Thesis: “Thinking about periodization over time is important.” Rewrite so that the thesis says WHY and also introduces the organization of the essay.
Outline for an Imaginary Essay I. Periodization helps to organize time into manageable chunks. 1. Foundations 2. 600-1450 3. Twentieth century II. Debates arise over turning points when one considers what time demarcations to use. 1. Importance of agricultural and industrial revolutions 2. Importance of 1492 3. Importance of World War I or the end of World War II III. Examining the names of periods reveals hidden assumptions. 1. Axial Age 2. Age of Exploration (for whom?) 3. Industrialization and Western Global Hegemony 1750-1914 4. Latin America: Revolution and Reaction in the 20th Century
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THE NEW WORLD HISTORY
Lesson 5
Deborah S. Johnston
Lesson 5. The AP World History Themes and Visual Literacy Objectives • To become comfortable with the six themes of the course • To develop skills in visual analysis and an appreciation of the importance of material culture in understanding the past
AP World History Course Description Connections Themes • Change and continuity • Cultural and intellectual developments
Habits of Mind • Seeing local and global patterns • Constructing and evaluating arguments
Major Developments • Applications to each course section, including: • 1450 – 1750: Cultural and intellectual developments
Length:
One 45- to 50-minute class period in a computer lab
Materials: • Textbooks • Access to Web sites listed in procedures and handouts • Handouts 5A – 5D
Procedures: 1. In class, the teacher distributes Handout 5A to students. The teacher reviews the themes, having students briefly brainstorm (and record) topics for each. Students should know that by the end of the week they will be selecting one of the themes to focus on for the year. (It may be best to let them know the day before about selection of their theme, depending on the set-up of the computer lab.) 46 Copyright © 2003 by College Entrance Examination Board. All rights reserved. Available at apcentral.collegeboard.com
THE NEW WORLD HISTORY
Lesson 5
Deborah S. Johnston
2. The teacher distributes Handouts 5B, 5C, and 5D to enable students to identify themes. Handouts 5B and 5C give instructions and Web sources; Handout 5D is for recording the themes students identify. 3. Visual literacy and material culture. Students work in pairs (depending on the number of computers available) to complete as much of the chart (Handout 5D) as possible. The goal (especially since Web sites tend to be unpredictable) should be for them to have at least one example of each theme by the end of class. 4. Homework to complete Lesson 5. Students complete any unfinished parts of Handout 5D and prepare to discuss the chart in Lesson 6. 5. Homework for Lesson 6. Students should complete the reading on “Civilization: Analysis” (Handout 6A). They should write an interpretive essay on civilization, following the instructions in Handout 6B. (Note to the teacher: Because this assignment requires some reflection, you might prefer to have students begin on it a day earlier, at the end of Lesson 4.)
Extension — Alternatives to computer lab: 6. Students can look for images in their textbook, developing a similar chart. 7. The teacher could use old National Geographic issues to create a set of pictures that would illustrate one or more themes. For a class of 25, one might give each group of five, six (or more) pictures. These 30 (or more) pictures are easily laminated using clear contact paper and then reused again and again. The chart is not necessary as students could simply identify and discuss relevant themes seen in the images and move on. 8. Overhead transparencies could be used from textbook ancillaries for a class-wide brief discussion of the themes. 9. The teacher could print out the images from the Web sites in color, laminate them, and have students work in groups with a complete set of the materials.
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THE NEW WORLD HISTORY
Lesson 5
Deborah S. Johnston
Handout 5A AP World History Themes 1. Patterns and impacts of interaction among major societies: trade, war, diplomacy, and international organizations.
2. The relationship of change and continuity across the world history periods covered in this course.
3. Impact of technology and demography on people and the environment (population growth and decline, disease, manufacturing, migrations, agriculture, weaponry).
4. Systems of social structure and gender structure (comparing major features within and among societies and assessing change).
5. Cultural and intellectual developments and interactions among and within societies.
6. Changes in functions and structures of states and in attitudes toward states and political identities (political culture), including the emergence of the nation-state (types of political organization).
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THE NEW WORLD HISTORY
Lesson 5
Deborah S. Johnston
Handout 5B Visual Literacy and the AP World History Themes Directions • Review Handout 5A on the themes of the AP World History course. Becoming familiar with these themes will allow you to more easily organize and understand global processes in world history. This sheet should be kept at the front of your notebook all year. • Visit each of the Web sites listed in Handout 5C. You will be looking at examples of material culture. Material culture consists of the things people have made through history. All of the Web sites listed here contain images — art, artifacts, fashion, and architecture — from around the world over long spans of time. • As you view the images at each site, record on your chart the themes that are addressed by the image and description. In some cases, a single example might fit with multiple themes, in other cases only one.
Challenge Find two additional Web sites that have images for world history and identify themes.
Important Note: Think about what material culture says about a society. What has and has not been preserved? What groups of people in a society were responsible for the creation of these goods or structures? What groups of people are not represented? Speculate why not. What themes are hardest to pull out of images?
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THE NEW WORLD HISTORY
Lesson 5
Deborah S. Johnston
Handout 5C Web Sites on Material Culture http://www.sacredsites.com/1st30/angkorwa.html This site visits Angkor Wat. Think about what these images represent. http://www.archaeology.org/found.php?page=/online/features/mali/djenne.html This article in Archaeology Magazine focuses on Mali. Look specifically at the images of the city of Djenne and Djenne-Jeno. http://www.bahnhof.se/~secutor/ukiyo-e/cathis01.html Look at this site of Meiji Japan woodblock prints. Look especially at the series Mirror of Famous Commanders. http://www.raingod.com/angus/Gallery/Photos/SouthAmerica/Peru/IncaTrail/index.html This site is a virtual hike up the Andes to the Incan ruins of Machu Picchu. Be sure to look at all the images, as you will find many thematic connections here. http://www.sacredsites.com/africa/ethiopia.html This site focuses on the sacred places of Ethiopia. Look at the images only; think about the fact that Ethiopia (Axum) had been a Christian kingdom for more than 1,500 years. http://www.metmuseum.org/collections/ As you look at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s online collection, focus on images of gender. Look especially at the Female Dancer (#3) and A Lady Playing the Tanpura (#17) in the Asian art section, Fragment with Printed Lions (#9) and the Needlework framed Picture in the Textile Center (#21) and Seated Couple #1 (Dogon) and Aztec Water Goddess (#39) in the Art of Americas, Oceania, and Africa collection.
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THE NEW WORLD HISTORY
Lesson 5
Deborah S. Johnston
http://www.israel-mfa.gov.il/mfa/go.asp?MFAH00x50 There are more than 174 cities (and many other places around the world) that have been declared World Heritage Sites by UNESCO. Jerusalem is one such city declared to have numerous places that are said to be the cultural property of the world due to their historic significance. This site provides images of Jerusalem over time. http://www.ee.bilkent.edu.tr/~history/topkapi.html This site explores Topkapi Palace in Istanbul (formerly Constantinople). Check out the images of the Sultan’s robes as well as the Chinese and Japanese porcelain collection.
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THE NEW WORLD HISTORY
Lesson 5
Deborah S. Johnston
Handout 5D Chart: Themes in Material Culture Jerusalem
Machu Picchu Mali (Dogon) Angkor Wat
Ottomans Topkapi Palace
Meiji, Japan
Other Axum, Met, ...
Location and Timeframe
Interaction (trade, etc.)
Change and Continuity
Technology and Demography
Social and Gender Structure (including labor)
Cultural and Intellectual Development (including religion)
Politics (symbols of state power) 52 Copyright © 2003 by College Entrance Examination Board. All rights reserved. Available at apcentral.collegeboard.com
THE NEW WORLD HISTORY
Lesson 6
Deborah S. Johnston
Lesson 6. Civilization and the Habits of Mind Objectives • To grapple with the concept of civilization while thinking about the Habits of Mind • To use argumentation in their writing and in their peer editing
AP World History Course Description Connections Themes • Changing functions of states • Cultural and intellectual developments
Habits of Mind • Constructing and evaluating arguments • Assessing claims of universal standards
Major Developments • Applications to each course section, including: • 1914 – present: Globalization of science, technology, and culture
Length:
One 45- to 50-minute class period
Materials:
Handouts 6A and 6B
Procedures: 1. Homework to complete Lesson 5. Students complete any unfinished parts of Handout 5D, and prepare to discuss the chart in Lesson 6. 2. Homework for Lesson 6. Students complete the reading on “Civilization: Analysis” (Handout 6A). They write an interpretive essay on civilization, following the instructions in Handout 6B. (Note to the teacher: Because this assignment requires some reflection, you might prefer to have students begin on it a day earlier, at the end of Lesson 4.)
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THE NEW WORLD HISTORY
Lesson 6
Deborah S. Johnston
3. In class, the teacher conducts a brief discussion in which students use examples of material culture to identify each of the AP Themes, relying on their work on Handout 5D. 4. Civilization. The teacher asks some students (at least two, preferably more) to share their essays on civilization (Handout 6B). This can be done in small groups or as a class. After a student reads his or her narrative, ask the rest of the class what themes were most obvious. Then, have students critique or challenge any statements in the narrative using one of the Habits of Mind. 5. For example, a statement like “Societies that are democracies have a higher level of civilization” might cause someone to think about the Habit of Mind on universal claims. One might ask, “Are democracies the best way to govern? When might the efficiency of an authoritarian government work advantageously for a society?” 6. The teacher reminds students that, at the conclusion of this unit, the class will move to another unit, presumably centering on the Foundations section of the course. Students can brainstorm in their journals what they remember about Foundations from earlier history courses.
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THE NEW WORLD HISTORY
Lesson 6
Deborah S. Johnston
Handout 6A Civilization: Analysis Complete the reading below on the idea of civilization. Think about the questions at the end. Source: Peter N. Stearns, Michael Adas, and Stuart B. Schwartz, World Civilizations: The Global Experience, 2nd ed. (New York: Harper Collins 1996), vol. 1, pp. 6-7.
The Idea of Civilization in World Historical Perspective The perception that there are fundamental differences between civilized and “barbaric” or “savage” peoples is very ancient and widespread. For thousands of years the Chinese, the civilized inhabitants of the “Middle Kingdom,” set themselves off from neighboring peoples, including the pastoral or nomadic cattle- and sheep-herding peoples of the vast plains or steppes to the north and west of China proper, whom they regarded as barbarians. To the Chinese, being civilized was cultural, not biological or racial. If barbarians learned the Chinese language and adopted Chinese ways — from the clothes they wore to the food they ate — these outsiders were admitted into the exalted circle of the civilized. A similar pattern of demarcation and cultural absorption was found among the American Indian peoples of present-day Mexico. Those who settled in the valleys of the mountainous interior, where they built great civilizations, lived in fear of invasions by peoples they regarded as barbarous and referred to as chichimecs, meaning “sons of the dog.” The latter were nomadic hunters and gatherers who periodically moved down from the desert regions of North Mexico into the fertile central valleys in search of game and settlements to pillage. The Aztecs were simply the last, and perhaps the most fierce, of a long line of chichimec peoples who entered the valleys and either destroyed or conquered the urban-based empires that had developed there. But after the conquerors settled down in the mountain valleys, they adopted many of the religious beliefs and institutional patterns and much of the material culture of the vanquished peoples. The word civilization is derived from the Latin word civilis meaning “of the citizens.” The term was coined by the Romans to distinguish between themselves as citizens of a cosmopolitan, urban-focused civilization and the “inferior” peoples who lived in the forests and deserts on the fringes of their Mediterranean empire. Centuries earlier, the Greeks, who had contributed much to the rise of Roman civilization, made a similar distinction between themselves and outsiders. Because the languages that non-Greek
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THE NEW WORLD HISTORY
Lesson 6
Deborah S. Johnston
peoples to the north of the Greek heartlands spoke sounded like senseless blabber to the Greeks, they lumped all the outsiders together as barbarians, which meant literally “those who cannot speak Greek.” As in the case of the Chinese and Aztecs, the boundaries between civilized and barbarian for the Greeks and Romans were cultural, not biological. Regardless of the color of one’s skin or the shape of one’s nose, it was possible for free individuals to become members of a Greek polis — city-state — or to become Roman citizens by adopting Greek or Roman customs and swearing allegiance to the polis or the emperor. Until the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries C.E., the primacy of cultural attributes (language, dress, manners, etc.) as the means by which civilized peoples set themselves off from barbaric ones had been rarely challenged. But in those centuries, two major changes occurred among thinkers in western Europe. First, efforts were made not only to define systematically the differences between civilized and barbarian, but to identify a series of stages in human development that ranged from the lowest savagery to the highest civilization. Depending on the writer in question, candidates for civilization ranged from Greece and Rome to (not surprisingly) Europe of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Most of the other peoples of the globe, whose “discovery” since the fifteenth century had prompted the efforts to classify them in the first place, were ranked in increasingly complex hierarchies. Peoples like the Chinese and the Arabs, who had created great cities, monumental architecture, writing, advanced technology, and large empires, usually won a place along with the Europeans near the top of these ladders of human achievement. Nomadic, cattle-and sheep-herding peoples, such as the Mongols, were usually classified as barbarians. Civilized and barbarian peoples were in turn pitted against various sorts of savages. These ranged from the hunters and gatherers who inhabited much of North America and Australia before the arrival of the Europeans to the slash-and-burn or migratory cultivators in the hill and forest zones on most of the continents. The second major shift that European writers brought about in our ideas regarding civilization began at the end of the eighteenth century, but did not really take hold until a century later. In keeping with a growing emphasis in European thinking and social interaction on racial or biological differences, modes of human social organization and cultural expression were increasingly linked to what were alleged to be the innate capacities of each human race. Though no one could agree on what a race was or how many races there were, most European writers argued that some races were more inventive, more moral, more courageous, more artistic — thus more capable of building civilizations — than others. White, or Caucasian, Europeans were, of course, considered by white European authors to be the most capable of all. The hierarchy from savage to civilized took on a color dimension from white at the top, where the civilized peoples clustered, to yellow, red, brown, and black in descending order.
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THE NEW WORLD HISTORY
Lesson 6
Deborah S. Johnston
Some authors sought to reserve all the attainments of civilization for white, or as some preferred to call them, Aryans. Confronted with clear evidence of civilization in places such as China and the Middle East, these writers categorized Arabs as Caucasian and argued that Aryan migrants had carried the essence of civilization to places like India and China. As the evolutionary theories of thinkers such as Charles Darwin came into vogue, race and level of cultural development were seen in the perspective of thousands of years of human change and adaptation rather than as being fixed in time. Nevertheless, this new perspective had little effect on the rankings of different human groups. Civilized whites were simply seen as having evolved much further than backward and barbaric peoples. The perceived correspondence between race and level of development and the hardening of the boundaries between civilized and “inferior” peoples affected much more than intellectual discourse about the nature and history of human society. These beliefs were used to justify European imperialist expansion, which was seen as a “civilizing mission” aimed at uplifting barbaric and savage peoples across the globe. In the last half of the nineteenth century, virtually all non-Western peoples came to be dominated by the Europeans, who were confident that they, as representatives of the highest civilization ever created, were best equipped to govern lesser breeds of humans. In the twentieth century much of the intellectual baggage that once gave credibility to the racially embedded hierarchies of civilized and savage peoples has been jettisoned. Racist thinking has been discredited by twentieth-century developments, including the revolt of the colonized peoples and the persistent failure of racial supremacists to provide convincing proof for innate differences in mental and physical aptitudes between various human groups. These trends, as well as research that has resulted in a much more sophisticated understanding of the evolutionary process, have led to the abandonment of rigid and self-serving nineteenth-century ideas about civilization. Yet, even though non-European peoples such as the Indians and Chinese are increasingly given credit for their civilized attainments, much ethnocentrism remains in the ways social theorists determine who is civilized and who is not. Perhaps the best way to avoid the tendency to define the term with reference to one’s own society is to view civilization as one of several human approaches to social organization, rather than attempting to identify specific kinds of cultural achievement (writing, cities, monumental architecture, etc.). All peoples, from small bands of hunters and gatherers to farmers and factory workers, live in societies. All societies produce cultures: combinations of the ideas, objects, and patterns of behavior that result from human social interaction. But not all societies and cultures generate the surplus production that permits the levels of specialization, scale, and complexity that distinguish civilizations from the other modes of social organization. All peoples are intrinsically capable of building 57 Copyright © 2003 by College Entrance Examination Board. All rights reserved. Available at apcentral.collegeboard.com
THE NEW WORLD HISTORY
Lesson 6
Deborah S. Johnston
civilizations, but many have lacked the resource base, historical circumstances, or, quite simply, the motivation for doing so.
Questions Identify a society you consider to be civilized. What criteria did you use to determine that it is civilized? Can you apply those criteria to other societies? Can you think of societies that might not fit your criteria and yet be civilizations?
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THE NEW WORLD HISTORY
Lesson 6
Deborah S. Johnston
Handout 6B Civilization Interpretive Essay Assignment Answer the following question in no less than one to two pages typed, double-spaced. Be sure to use complete sentences and paragraphs. Proofread. World history is about connections. Standard high school textbooks sometimes argue that there are five criteria of a civilization: • Advanced cities • Specialized workers • Complex institutions • Record keeping • Advanced technology Should an additional criterion for civilization be “connection to a world system”? Use evidence from ninth grade world history (or the equivalent in your school system) to provide supporting detail. We have been discussing civilization in class. You should include in your response what criteria you think are appropriate for defining civilization, and whether civilization is a valid concept at all.
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THE NEW WORLD HISTORY
Lesson 7
Deborah S. Johnston
Lesson 7. Synthesis Objectives • To demonstrate comfort with the use of themes and habits of mind to interpret history • To make and explain choices in analyzing the past
AP World History Course Description Connections Themes • Change and continuity • Cultural and intellectual developments
Habits of Mind • Seeing local and global patterns • Constructing and evaluating arguments
Major Developments • Applications to each course section, including: • 1450 – 1750: Cultural and intellectual developments
Length:
15 minutes out of a class period for the quiz, plus time for any extensions
Materials:
Handout 7A
Procedures: 1. The teacher gives students a brief quiz (Handout 7A) that asks them to apply the Themes and the Habits of Mind.
Extensions 2. Where students have done summer reading, an assessment of that reading can be incorporated into this quiz (Handout 6A) by having students pull Habits of Mind out of a passage or discuss the predominant themes in a book they read.
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THE NEW WORLD HISTORY
Lesson 7
Deborah S. Johnston
3. The interpretive essays on civilization can be extended through peer editing and more extensive debate. 4. Students may be asked to choose a theme to follow through the year. See Appendix C, “Thematic Case Study.” 5. Students can write a list of historical topics, link each of them to a theme, and then write a paragraph in which they identify the habit of mind in question.
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THE NEW WORLD HISTORY
Lesson 7
Deborah S. Johnston
Handout 7A AP World History Themes and Habits of Mind Assessment You may use the list of AP World History Habits of Mind or Skills (Handout 2D) and AP World History Themes (Handout 5A) in completing this quiz. Identify which of the themes best matches each of the following topics. Choose the ONE that fits best.
1.
Forced labor systems in Brazil and Russia 1450 –1750
2.
Economic role of women 1000 –1914
3.
Comparison of international trading systems such as the Silk Road and the Trans-Saharan trade routes (before1000 C.E.)
4.
Twentieth century impacts of Western consumer society on two civilizations outside Europe (globalization)
5. 6.
Haitian revolution Spread of plague through Central Asia, East Africa, the Middle East, and Europe in the fourteenth century
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THE NEW WORLD HISTORY
Lesson 7
Deborah S. Johnston
Identify the Habit of Mind being used in each of the following statements, and write it in the bracket following the statement.
Visitors from outer space arrived outside the high school yesterday. In interviews with the local press, they claimed that this would be one of several societies that they were going to study. [7. __________________________] They asked for assistance in their study from several AP World History students. One of their requests was for documents on a variety of topics including conflict resolution, gender equality, and environmental regulations. [8. ____________________] They believed that it was through these three areas that they could assess a civilization’s worth. [9. _______________________] They wanted documentation that would show how these issues had changed (or stayed the same) over time. [10. _________________ ] They wanted to be sure to read a variety of perspectives so students made sure that the authors were people of color, women and men, poor and rich, all representing different occupations and religions. [11. ___________ ] By looking at how young people regard war, the environment, and gender relations in this one area, they believed they could see larger national and global trends. [12. _________________] Your classmates made the argument that indeed teenage consumers determined global markets as just one example. [13.________________________] Of course, the out of town visitors argued that global consumerism on Earth may be one of the culprits behind continued conflict and environmental degradation and poor gender relations!
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THE NEW WORLD HISTORY
Lesson 7
Deborah S. Johnston
Quiz Answers If students give an answer that is different from what the teacher believes is correct, the teacher should require students to argue their case for how their answer works well. The Themes and Habits of Mind certainly overlap. 1. Social/gender structure 2. Change and continuity (though this could also be social/ gender structure) 3. Interaction 4. Cultural and intellectual developments 5. Political culture/organization 6. Technology and demography — impact on environment, society. 7. Comparing within and among societies 8. Using documents 9. Claims of universal standards 10. Assessing change and continuity 11. Diverse interpretations 12. Seeing global and local patterns 13. Constructing and evaluating arguments
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THE NEW WORLD HISTORY
Highlighted Reading Deborah S. Johnston
Highlighted Reading Wright, Donald. The World and a Very Small Place in Africa, New York: M.E. Sharpe, 1997. This book will be helpful throughout the course in looking at global patterns and change over time through one place. One of the AP World History Habits of Mind asks students to connect local developments to global ones. This text provides an excellent example of how to do world history by looking at one location. Niumi is a small area in West Africa. The author shows how global events and world systems have influenced this area for almost a millennium. Topics that are covered include Trans-Saharan trade, European expansion, the rise of an Atlantic plantation complex, imperialism, colonialism, political independence, and economic dependence through cash crops.
Book Highlights • Particularly good maps. Examples that could be used as overheads: Atlantic plantation complex, trans-Saharan trade. • Atlantic plantation complex • Trans-Saharan trade • Document/ issue sidebars — examples (helpful though unusual in a monograph of this nature) • Problem of evidence for pre-colonial African history • The African Diaspora • Burungai Sonko • Women’s changing roles • Forced labor — twentieth century • Sexism — Prejudice across cultures • Debt peonage on both sides of the Atlantic • Niumi gets the flu • American policies and life in Niumi • Alex Haley and Niumi’s history • Chapter 3: Niumi between Two Systems: Waxing Atlantic trade, Continuing Sudanic trade, 1450 –1600 — particularly good discussions on the plantation complex and on trade diasporas • Discussions of colonialism in chapter 5 and 6, which address the spreading of Islam and the role of peanuts
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THE NEW WORLD HISTORY
Highlighted Reading Deborah S. Johnston
Summer Reading Potential The accessibility of this book does open it up to the possibility of assigning it to students for summer reading. The book does an excellent job of addressing all the themes as well as all of the Habits of Mind through its approach. By providing background historical context before each specific discussion of how Niumi connects to the bigger world, it also succeeds in summarizing world history from 1450 forward (and does include some background for pre-1450 as well).
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THE NEW WORLD HISTORY
Bibliography
Deborah S. Johnston
Bibliography Bentley, Jerry. “Shapes of World History in Twentieth Century Scholarship.” Essays in Global and Comparative History. Washington, D.C.: American Historical Association, 1996. A brief summary of the recent trends in world historical research. Provides a wonderful overview of how this “new world history” broadens what is included — environmental, technological, and social history being some of the emphases while looking at broad global processes. Bentley, Jerry. “Sea and Ocean Basins as Frameworks of Historical Analysis.” Geographical Review April 1999, Vol. 89 Issue 2, pp. 215 – 225. Specifically addresses the advantages and disadvantages of using water basins as units of analysis in world history. Includes interesting examples from Mediterranean, Indian, Atlantic, and Pacific history. Dunn, Ross. The New World History: A Teacher’s Companion. Boston: Bedford /St. Martin’s, 2000. An essential teacher background guide that includes brief essays by many of the preeminent world historians in the field. Topics include: the history of world history, why it should (and shouldn’t) be taught, defining world history, interregional and super-regional history, world systems and world history, teaching regions and civilizations in world context, periodizing world history, comparisons and themes, gender in world history, and constructing world history programs and curricula. Dunn, Ross and David Vigilante. Bring History Alive! A Sourcebook for Teaching World History. Los Angeles: National Center for History in the Schools, 1996. Classroom activities and essays which are linked to the National Standards for Teaching World History. A wonderful collection of best practice teaching suggestions as well as background information on the content of the course. Johnson, Don and Jean Johnson, Human Drama, World History: From the Beginning to 500 C.E. v. 1 (v. 2–4 forthcoming). Princeton: Markus Weiner, 2000. This text designed for high school students provides the ideal level of big picture conceptualization for Foundations — allowing for the exploration of broad themes that can then be elaborated upon using a selection of cases studies.
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THE NEW WORLD HISTORY
Bibliography
Deborah S. Johnston
Lewis, Martin and Karen Wigen. The Myth of Continents: A Critique of Metageography. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997. This text provides a summarization of why we need to have students question the assumptions underlying spatial constructs such as continents, Orient and Occident, East and West. Particularly interesting is the debate over Eurocentrism and Afrocentrism. Roupp, Heidi. Teaching World History: A Resource Book. New York: Armonk, 1997. Approaches, articles, and lessons on the teaching of world history. Focusing on both the big picture as well as on specific classroom ideas this volume provides assistance to both secondary and college teachers of world history. Roupp, Heidi. Jumpstart Manual. World History Association 2000. A collection of important essays on world history, which is wonderful background for any new world history teacher. Spickard, Paul, Kevin Cragg and James Spickard. World History by the World’s Historians. Boston: McGraw-Hill, 1998. An edited collection of global primary source documents from the past 3000 years by historians. The collection includes selections from diverse historical traditions — West African, Chinese, Aztec, Islamic, Classical, and contemporary. Whitfield, Peter. The Image of the World: Twenty Centuries of World Maps. London: Pomegranate, 1994. Reproductions and descriptions of world maps, especially from the British Library. Wright, Donald. The World and a Very Small Place in Africa. New York: M.E. Sharpe, 1997. One of the AP World History Habits of Mind asks students to connect local developments to global ones. This text provides an excellent example of how to study world history by looking at one location. Niumi is a small area in West Africa. The author shows how global events and world systems have influenced this area for almost a millennium. Topics that are covered include Trans-Saharan trade, European expansion, the rise of an Atlantic plantation complex, imperialism, colonialism, political independence and economic dependence/cash crops.
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THE NEW WORLD HISTORY
Appendices
Deborah S. Johnston
Appendices A. Mental Mapping B. Textbook Strategies C. Thematic Case Study
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THE NEW WORLD HISTORY
Appendices
Deborah S. Johnston
Appendix A Mental Mapping Using Mental Maps for Evaluation, Assessment, Review, Notes, and Thematic Study Deborah Smith Johnston
Rationale As the world becomes an increasingly interconnected place, students need to have a visual image of the world that can be flexible as the world changes and the types of interactions become increasingly complex. When students study history, it is often difficult for them to perceive changing political boundaries and allegiances. When we discuss current events of the twenty-first century, students do not always understand the significance and speed of the changes occurring across the world. When considering the future, they need to combine the historical models of the past with the rapidly changing world of today and balance what they believe should evolve and what they believe can be predicted.
Application My belief is that mental maps can be an effective way of teaching any subject. I have not only used them as a pre- and post-world history and world geography evaluator (beginning and end of year) but also as a means by which students can brainstorm information spatially, take notes, and do essay tests. The key part of this is not necessarily individual facts, but the ability of students to visualize the information and portray it in a way that demonstrates connections. Arrows, I tell them, are the most important demonstration to me of their knowledge that historical ideas flow in and out of places through time. I find that teaching students these visualization skills early in the year leads to more critical thinking, greater memory retention, and increased mental and physical interaction with the material. The following are just a few examples of this: • Students brainstorm their knowledge about a particular theme on a regional or world map. For example, technology/communication in history — students record on their maps where inventions occurred, the effects of inventions in other places, the adaptations other places made to innovations, the effect those technologies had on local environments, railroads lines. For example: names of inventors, technology transfer (paper/printing from China, etc.). • Students complete a unit exam by writing an essay that documents the journey of a traveler such as Ibn Battuta or Zheng He with an accompanying map showing their journey, as well as significant ports, weather conditions, trade goods, religious customs encountered, etc.
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• In an introductory unit on imperialism, students use a global timeline of nineteenth century events to place on a hand-drawn map symbols, arrows, and facts to demonstrate the worldwide influence of colonialism. Or when studying imperialism in Asia, students take notes on a map instead of in outline form. • Students draw the Atlantic Ocean trade system, adding to it prior knowledge and then taking notes on additional historic, economic, cultural, political, and economic ideas. • Students read a chapter in their textbooks and use a map to illustrate the main ideas. • Students complete weekly current event journal entries where part of the entry is a world map. On this hand-drawn world map, students label their hometown and then place an arrow from there to the current event location(s). They additionally label five to ten additional new pieces of information each week. They are encouraged to use historical facts from the current week of study but they also place some economic, political and physical information on it.
Process It is the beginning and end of the year maps that are the most telling. During the course of the year, I use Marti Owens Symbolic Imaging clues with some adaptations to teach my students ways of drawing the world. (David Smith, Mapping the World by Heart is an alternative technique.) I am not attempting to make them cartographers so I do not try for perfect renditions. This method requires relatively little time in class (for example, I introduce Eurasia on a day when I want them to draw a Eurasia map in class for notes). Over the course of the year, they continually practice their maps in ways mentioned above. The last week of school, they spend 45 minutes drawing a map from memory and labeling onto it approximately 100 facts of their own choosing. These facts/arrows include mostly historical information, arrows showing connections, physical features, political features, and some economic features. Maps are assessed based on the inclusion of these facts in a global manner (Africa should not be blank), on shape, and on improvement since the first map. Ninety-nine percent of students feel a tremendous sense of accomplishment and demonstrate real — not memorized — learning.
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MENTAL MAP (PRE-TEST)
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MENTAL MAP (POST-TEST)
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Appendix B Textbook Strategies Traditionally textbooks have been used as the motor to drive a course where a chapter is read and questions are assigned. But a textbook can provide much more in an interactive way for students. Here is a start in thinking about other options. 1. Have students keep their textbooks at home as a reference source. 2. Ideally, have a class set of textbooks to be used for in-class activities. 3. Encourage students to explore visuals in the book. The first assignment for a new topic might be to look at five different images, answering questions about what the illustrations say about the topic. 4. Daily textbook readings. 5. Daily text quizzes. 6. Students might create a “photo” essay using ten images from the text with short captions to narrate a particular topic in world history. (Depending on the text, this works especially well with change-over-time topics.) 7. Vocabulary self help — have students keep a running list in their notebooks of words that they are unfamiliar with — particularly ones that come up repeatedly. They might turn in a list of ten words that are new to them twice each term. Each student might be required to write sentences, illustrated definitions, or narratives using their own words. (Use visualization.) 8. Have students analyze maps, writing their own news stories to go with them. 9. Students can produce a thematic supplement to the text, a listing of topics for each chapter that follow under certain themes, or a five-page narrative of world history — a condensed version of the text that identifies one of the themes as the thread. 10. Have students rewrite a chapter or section as a children’s book. They would need to write the text as well as identify (or draw) visuals that could be used. 11. Imagine the textbook to be an artifact found in the future. What does it say about twenty-first century education?
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Appendix C Thematic Case Study This is an independent project for the student to conduct during the year of an AP World History course. In encourages the development of a consistent thematic outlook on the varying topics and times in world history.
Directions for students: • Choose one of the six AP World History Themes to follow for the year. (Theme 1 and 2 are very broad and perhaps not as limiting. Theme 3 and 4 might best be broken apart, but along with themes 5 and 6 would work well.) • In your journal at least two times per quarter, write a thematic entry that reacts to a current event, a specific section you came across in the text, or something on the Web that addresses this theme. • Develop a graphic organizer that will allow you to track various aspects of your theme throughout the year in order to assess change and continuity. Regularly update this. (See the Change Analysis chart in the Best Practices guide.) • Each quarter you will be responsible for a product (see list below) that demonstrates your understanding of this theme for the current content. • This could provide the basis for a History Day project. • Be prepared at any time to be called upon to give a thematic explanation or connection to the class lesson. • After the AP Exam, you will be asked to lead a seminar on a topic of current relevance that fits within your theme.
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Possible Products A letter Advertisement Bulletin board Chart Collage Comic strip Crossword puzzle Detailed illustration Dairy entry Display Game Graphic Organizer/transparencies Illustrated Story Journal Map (thematic) Model Museum exhibit Newspaper story Painting Pamphlet Photo essay Press Conference Puppet show Radio spot (3 to 5 minutes) Skit Song TV Program Travel brochure Travel article Video Others
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