Semester exam - essay questions

A good, thoughtful, analytical essay will supply many details

(names, dates, types of governments, kinds of art, etc.). 

I encourage you to outline your essay ahead of time. 

In doing so, you will not only be preparing a well-written essay,

you will be studying for the exam.  Clever, eh?

Is it worth it to go to all the trouble of outlining? 

A wise man once said, "If I had six hours to chop down a tree,

I would spend the first hour sharpening the axe." 

Do an outline. 

Sharpen your axe, and you'll ace this test and write two terrific essays.

You will be asked to write on two of the following topics:

Compare and contrast the government of ancient Athens with the government of
the United States in the year 2018.

Three important leaders we studied this semester were Socrates, Julius Caesar, and
Martin Luther.  Discuss what these men had in common, and how they differed,
especially in relation to their teachings, how the establishment reacted to them, and
how they lived their life.

What brought about the decline and fall of the Roman Empire?

Detail the evolution of culture, entertainment, and the arts from ancient Greece
and Rome, through the Middle Ages, ending with the Reformation and the Renaissance.

Describe the effects of the Crusades on the Middle Ages, and their long-lasting
historical impact on the present day.

Discuss how Europe moved from a loose collection of kingdoms to one united empire
under Charlemagne.

What are some of the factors that contributed to the change from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance)?

classwork for Wednesday, May 30

I will not be in class with you today. Your assignment is to cover the material in my GoogleSlide "Luther and the Reformation" combined with the material on p. 488-490 in the textbook. Perhaps it would be helpful to have Kelsey put her brilliant color-coded notes on the front board as a visual aid. You decide what will work best for you. Thank you, and I hope to be back soon.

new study information now available

Three Google SlideShows on the European Middle Ages have been posted and are now available for your viewing pleasure.

• Charlemagne Unites Germanic Kingdoms
• What's So Great About Charlemagne?
• The Crusades

These can be found in the sidebar to the right of this blog.

new resources on Ancient Rome

Not one, not two, but THREE Google Slides have been posted and are accessible through the extremely handy Land of Linkin' sidebar.

They are:

• Christianity in the Pax Romana
• The Empire Strikes Out
• After Rome (500-700)

Study and enjoy!

test on Ancient Greece

Pro tip for those of you studying for Monday's test: after consulting with you, the essay question has been removed, and there are 50 objective questions. The test will cover the entire chapter (p. 123-149), from Culture of the Mountains and the Sea, right up to (and including) The Spread of Hellenistic Culture.

Plato's Allegory of the Cave

Plato's Allegory of the Cave is a fascinating look at ancient Greek philosophy, but also a critique of modern life, with our dependence on television, mass media, and especially the Internet. The perceptive student will see how the flickering images on the cave wall correspond to the images to be found on our electronic devices. I think this allegory qualifies as true wisdom, as the lessons of 2400 years ago are still applicable to life in the twenty-first century.

optional viewing for ambitious students

So, you have our big GoogleSlides presentation, and our trusty textbook. If you are interested, here is another source of information about the ancient Greeks. This video (narrated by the amazing Liam Neeson) is called The Greeks: Crucible of Civilization, and you might be surprised at how closely it follows what we have been covering in class. Check it out if you want to be super prepared for the test this Friday!

i have a cool job

writing your own textbook

Both sections have had a couple class sessions to collaborate on this project. Since the final result is due on Tuesday at the start of class, that means that you still have tonight (Monday night) to make any last minute additions or revisions. Ultimately, your goal is to produce material that could be a part of a chapter on Ancient Greece, just like you would find in a good high school Western Civilization textbook. As you can see on Veracross, the project is worth 100 points, and as you can see in the adjoining "Land of Linkin'" sidebar, I have posted a rubric for this assignment. This rubric will clarify exactly how your grade will be determined. Please let me know if you have any questions. Have fun, and do good work!

taking notes by hand

Yesterday's discussion was a good opportunity to review our class note-taking/blogging policy, and the theory behind this policy (the method to my madness, you might say).

First, here is an article that explains why I insist that you take notes by hand. In short, the author says "...students learn less when they use computers or tablets during lectures. They also tend to earn worse grades." Since I want you guys to learn, and to succeed, I feel this approach is justified. Here is the article, titled "Laptops Are Great. But Not During a Lecture or a Meeting."

Transcribing your notes to your blog means you are "revisiting" the information you learned in that day's class. Hopefully, you remember certain things about that information, other than what was written on a particular slide (a story I told about ancient Greece, or a question asked by a student, for example).

Plus, you get points for doing the blog, and doing it well! We will have over seventy class periods this semester, meaning nearly 150 points worth of blogs. You have the ability to get an exceptionally high score on a significantly large portion of your grade, simply by blogging daily. Of course, you maximize your learning by revising your notes (rewording, adding a map, telling your own anecdote, or even putting in your own opinion).

guest reader

Many thanks to Sir Ian McKellen for appearing in our Honors class today. It's not every day we get to hear the voice of Gandalf and Dumbledore read from The Odyssey by Homer - and "In the One-Eyed Giant's Cave," no less. A little taste of what it might have been like to hear the bard himself telling stories in ancient Athens...

The Odyssey

“Poets recited and sang stories for audiences at the courts of city leaders and at festivals. A poet could actually improvise a tale in the six-beat rhythm of Greek verse if he knew the plot of his story.”

That helps explain how audiences would be so engaged by a man simply telling a story. 

No surround sound, no IMAX, not even any costumes or props. 

Just an amazing story.

Questions

A question for the brilliant minds in Section 201: What was it like to live on a mountainous peninsula at the "center of the world" thirty centuries ago?


Meanwhile, honors students are asking: Where do I stand on "the Homeric question"?

we're underway!

The Theatre and Temple of Apollo at Delphi

Kind of an unusual start to the second semester... no school Monday, snow day Wednesday, off day for Section 201 on Thursday. It's hard to get into any kind of rhythm when our schedule is so erratic.

In any case, here's the week in review.

Welcome to all the new students in 201! All of you got your blogs up and running, so the grading will begin. There are a couple new faces in Honors, too, and you are also up to speed in BlogWorld.

We're beginning with Ancient Greece. The in-class reading covered p. 118- 126, and you have been taking notes in your notebooks. I've just gotten started presenting a fairly comprehensive Google SlideShow on Greece, which you can access here and in the Land of Linkin' section of my blog. Feel free to preview this if you're curious, but it's not required.

Reminder: the notes you take in class should be entered into YOUR blog. You can edit them, transcribe them, transform them, just so they make sense to YOU. You blog every time the class meets, and the blog should be posted by midnight that night (deadline for Friday blogs is 11:59pm Saturday night).

That's it for now. Send questions or comments to rschick@johncarroll.org. See you Monday!