Global Histories
People, Processes, and the
Environment
79-104
Carnegie Mellon
University in Qatar
Fall 2017
Benjamin Reilly
(Professor) Office 1037 Office Hours: By
appointment, or whenever my door is open |
Aaron Jacobson (TA) Office 2192 Office Hours: before or after class, or by appointment |
Mohammed Zakzok (student course assistant) Office: ARC Hours: Mon and Tues 1:30-3:00 |
Course Web Address:
https://web2.qatar.cmu.edu/~breilly2/world/index.pdf
Assignments must be
submitted to www.turnitin.com
REILLY’S Section (W) Course name: Global histories Ben’s
Section Class ID: 15983855 Enrollment Password: history |
Jacobson’s Sections (X and
Y): Course name: Global histories Class ID: 15983838 Enrollment Password: history |
Make sure you sign up for
the right section (check your schedule)
Course Goals:
The overall goals of this class are to:
§ Assist the transition between high
school and college-level academic expectations
§ Introduce students to history as an
academic discipline
§ Introduce students with some of the
major milestones of world history
§ Improve student research and writing
skills
§ Introduce students to basic techniques
of documentary analysis
§ Increase student knowledge of historical
and contemporary environmental issues
Students
successfully completing the class will show proficiency in the following areas:
ü
Identifying,
explaining, and applying key concepts of the historical profession
ü
Breaking
arguments into evidence, conclusion and assumptions, as well as common logical
flaws
ü
Demonstrating
knowledge concerning important topics of world history, especially the impact
of natural and human-induced climate change on human history
ü
Distinguishing
between different type of documents and identify each document’s tone, bias,
intended audience, assumptions, and omissions
ü
Writing
analytical essays that pose an argument and defend it with relevant information
from primary or secondary source texts
In terms of subject matter, this
course will tackle the entirety of the human past, though with an extremely
wide lens, focusing primarily on long-term trends. Greater depth will be
provided by occasional comparative case studies, in which we will examine how
universal human needs (subsistence, identity, social order) are handled
differently in different environmental, cultural, and technological settings.
Readings
No paper books are assigned for this
class; all reading will be available either through this web site via
hyperlinks (if not copyright protected) or else on Blackboard (if copyright
protection applies).
Lectures, Workshops, and
Discussion Sections
Lecture classes will meet Sundays,
10:30-11:20, and are attended by the entire class. The lectures are designed to
introduce students to major milestones in World History, as well as to
introduce students to basic terms/concepts used in the historical profession.
They will also provide the bulk of the content tested in the quizzes and the
Final exam: click HERE for a list of all terms that
will be covered in the class, as well as the days the terms will be
introduced. Cell phone usage is prohibited during class, and laptops should
only be used for note taking and/or accessing online readings.
In the Workshop classes, which will
take place Tuesday mornings or afternoons (check your schedule for when), the
class will be broken down into smaller sections of about 20, and will meet with
either the professor or the teaching assistant. In the workshop classes,
students will work with the instructors on developing crucial course skills
like note taking, essay writing, proper citation of sources, and research
habits. The 3 course quizzes will take place during workshop classes, as well
as debates, in-class assignments, etc. In general, the workshop sessions focus
on team work, and more class participation points will be assigned to
successful teams.
Discussion sections will meet on
Thursday mornings or afternoons (check your schedule for when), the class will
again be broken down into smaller sections of about 20, and will meet with
either one of the main instructors or the teaching assistant. Discussion
sections will mainly revolve around class discussion of the assigned document.
Students are expected to read the documents- which are be accessed from links
on this web site- and to think over the assigned discussion questions before
coming to class. During discussion sections, students are expected to
demonstrate their critical thinking skills by participating actively engaging
in an analytical discussion of the assigned materials- students must be prepared
to answer questions posed to them, as well as ask informed questions and raise
relevant issues about the text. In particular, students are encouraged to
consider the content and style of the document: for example, what was goal of
the author, what are his/her biases, and what was the intended audience? Most
importantly, what does this document tell us about the culture which produced
it? Students who participate actively in the class discussion will earn class
participation points.
Students
who are absent will not earn class participation, nor will students who attend
but browse the internet on their phones or laptop during class!
Assignments and Grading
Grades will be assigned based on the
following schema:
1.
Short Assignments
There are two types of short
assignments in this class: 2 pass/fail
assignments and 6 short essays.
The pass/fail worksheets are due at
the times specified by the course calendar. These assignments will earn the
student an automatic 100% when completed to the instructor’s satisfaction; if
not, they will be returned to the students for revision, with comments.
In addition, students must turn in a
total of 6 short one-page essay assignments, at least 3 of which must be
submitted before the middle of the semester (see the course schedule below).
Each of these essays must answer one of the “discussion questions” listed at
the top of the week’s readings. Click on any of the “discussion” listings below
to see a sample list of questions. The
assignments must be submitted at the recitation sections that discuss the
assigned source. Students may only submit one question per week; this means
that students had better start early and submit at least one every other week
or else they will run out of time by the semester’s end. Students must answer
the questions in an essay format, with a clearly-articulated one-paragraph
introduction, several body paragraphs to support that introduction, and a brief
conclusion. The short assignments will be graded on your ability to formulate a
convincing argument, firmly based on evidence from the attached document, which
clearly addresses the question asked. Please do not hesitate to contact myself
or the Academic Resource Center (ARC) staff for help. For further assistance, click here for a sample essay. For the essay grading rubric, click here. NEW: Click here for a double-sided info sheet with strategies
for tackling primary and secondary sources!
2.
Research Paper
Students must complete one long
research paper of approximately 6-8 pages length and utilizing 3-5 academic
sources. In the term paper, students will be graded on clarity, style, and the
use of appropriate evidence to defend a clearly-articulated argument (click here for the rubric, which is the same as the
short assignments). Purely narrative papers- which tell a story rather than
analyzing an issue- will receive poor grades. Again, please do not hesitate to
contact myself or the Academic Resource Center for help. Click here for a sample term paper. Students
will learn more about collecting and assessing documents for their term paper
in the Carnegie Skills Workshop course, which is paired with this class.
Given the requirement for written
sources, students are expected to take initiative and order sources as soon as
possible in the semester through interlibrary loan.
The second pass-fail assignment is
designed to help students prepare for the term paper assignment, and we will
also spend some time doing term paper prep activities in the Workshop sessions
of the class.
PLAGIARISM: Plagiarism means to take
the ideas, writing, or arguments of others and pass them off as your own. It
includes:
·
Downloading a paper, wholly or partially, from the internet
·
Including another author’s words in your paper without proper
attribution
·
Sharing your own paper with another student
·
Using someone else’s ideas, which are their intellectual property,
without attribution.
·
Getting someone else to write your paper for you. This is a
SERIOUS offence – you may be asked to explain your ideas orally to the
instructor if we suspect an infraction has occurred.
Students who share their written materials with others are also
guilty of
All cases of plagiarism will be handled severely, and the most
common applied penalty will be failure in the course. Note that all assignments
must be submitted via turnitin.com. PLAGIARIZISM HAS HISTORICALLY BEEN THE
MAIN REASON STUDENTS FAIL THIS COURSE!
If you quote directly from a book, website, or other source, or if
you want to use the ideas/opinions/conclusions of another author in your
writings, you must enclose that material in quotation marks and indicate the
source using a footnote (click here for a guide on how
to include footnotes in a text).
Students are
required to refer to CMU's general policies on cheating and plagiarism:
http://www.cmu.edu/policies/documents/AcademicIntegrity.htm
3.
Quizzes
At three designated “workshop” days
during the semester, class will start with a short “term linking quiz”, where
students will be expected to show mastery of concepts taught in class up to
that point by making linkages between different concepts drawn from the Sunday
course lectures. During the quiz, students will be presented with pairs of these terms and asked to
describe, in no more than a paragraph, the relationship between the terms.
There is no set right or wrong answers on these quizzes, but to achieve high
marks, students must come up with a convincing link between the two terms and
defend it with a persuasive argument. Students who only define the two terms,
but do not link them, will receive no more than half marks. Click here for an example of possible answers to a
typical set of paired terms, and click here for a list of terms that will be covered in
this class. The quizzes are expected to take up only about half of
the workshop classes.
Note that all quizzes will be
cumulative- the second quiz, for example, might ask students to link a term
from week 2 with week 6, and the third quiz might ask students to link terms
from week 3 and 13!
If
you miss a quiz, then your quiz average will be the average of all quizzes you
did take, but with a -10 penalty for each missed quiz.
4.
Final Exam
The final exam will be given during
finals week at a time and location TBD and will cover material from the
lectures, reading, and discussion sections for the first half of the course.
All you need to bring to the exams are two pens; examination “bluebooks” will
be provided. Make-up examinations will only be given in the case of illness or
a serious family emergency, and notification must be given in writing. Each exam will consist of two parts, term
matching and essay. The term matching section will be identical to the term
matching quizzes, though it will cover material for the entire course. In the essay section, students will be
presented with a short document, either primary or secondary, and then students
must choose and answer one of a number of essay questions requiring them to
relate that document to materials covered in lecture and other documents we
have read in class. This portion of the exam is to test skills that students
should be developing during the recitation sections and short essays. Grading
will follow the grading rubric for essays (click here
for the rubric). Click
HERE for a list of all terms that will be covered in the class.
5.
Class Participation
Students are expected to participate
actively in both the workshop and the discussion sections; see above for more
details. Students can guarantee themselves full class participation marks if
they come to discussion sections well prepared (with the readings or other
assigned materials in hand) and are ready to speak, and listen, to other
students. It is not necessary to have brilliant insights every week to receive
high marks- regular attendance and active, informed participation will be
sufficient.
Class participation is grades as
follows. Attendance in lecture is not counted (but you will suffer in the
quizzes and exam if you skip). In workshops, attendance (with the class
materials) is worth 1 mark, while successful completion of a competition earns
all members of the winning team 1 mark. In recitation, attendance (with the
class materials) is worth1 mark, while meaningful participation in the
discussion will earn 2 or even 3 marks. At midterm and final each student’s
marks will be tallied and then located on a bell curve. Students who get an
average number of aggregate marks will get an average class participation grade
(“average” to be defined by the instructors at the time grades are assigned).
Those with higher than average and lower than average marks will earn higher or
lower class participation grades, and thus higher or lower fractions of the
20-points contributed by class participation to their overall grade.
LATE WORK POLICY: Papers that are received
after the due date are marked down 10% for the first day, 20% for the second
day, and 30% for the third. After the third day the student will receive a 0 on
the assignment. For the purposes of this policy, any work received on the day
of class but after the start time of the class is assessed the 10% penalty.
Course Calendar (note
S=Sunday, T=Tuesday, R=Thursday)
S Aug 20 Lecture Introduction to the course
T Aug 22 Workshop What is History? (no reading) Pass/Fail
Homework 1 Assigned
R Aug 24 Discussion The Code of
Hammurabi
S Aug 27 Lecture The Lessons of Sociobiology
T Aug 29 Workshop History Writing Workshop Pass/Fail Homework 1 Due – email to breilly2@qatar.cmu.edu
SAMPLE DIAGRAMS FOR PASS/FAIL MAPPING ASSIGNMENT |
R Aug 31 Discussion Jared
Diamond, Ch. 6 & 4 (in
Blackboard)
Sept
3-7 Eid
Al-Adha Break No Classes
S Sept 10 Lecture The First Great Transformation: The Rise of Agriculture
T Sept 12 Workshop Arguments
101 (in
Blackboard)
R Sept 14 Discussion The Seven Evils,
Hymn to the Nile, and the Rage of Hathor
S Sept 17 Lecture Agriculture and Environmental Change
T Sept 19 Workshop Quiz 1 Plagiarism (no reading)
R Sept 21 Discussion Lucretius and
Plato on the Environment
S Sept 24 Lecture Agriculture
and Civilization
T Sept
26 Workshop History Writing
Workshop II
R Sept 28 Discussion William McNeill, Plagues and Peoples [excerpts] (in
Blackboard)
S Oct 1 Lecture Discovery and Divergence
T Oct 3 Workshop Junk
as a Historical Source (no reading)
R Oct 5 Discussion William
McNeill, The Pursuit of Power [excerpt] (in Blackboard)
S
Oct 8 Lecture Cultural
Assimilation and Diffusion
T Oct 10 Workshop Quiz 2 Art
as a Historical Source Workshop (in
Blackboard)
R Oct 12 Discussion Ancient Chinese Philosophy [Excerpts]
Deadline
for first 3 short assignments
S Oct 15 Lecture Centralization and
Decentralization
T Oct 17 Workshop The Chinese
Civil Service Exam System (in
Blackboard)
R Oct 19 Discussion
The Taika Reforms Pass/Fail Homework 2 Due – email to your
recitation instructor
S Oct 22 Lecture Globalization 1.0: Asian Steppe
and Indian Ocean
T Oct 24 Workshop History Writing Workshop III
R Oct 26 Discussion Southernization (in Blackboard)
S Oct 29 Lecture Gunpowder Empires
T Oct 31 Workshop Maps as Historical Sources (in
Blackboard)
R Nov 2 Discussion Domat vs. Machiavelli
S Nov 5 Lecture Globalization 2.0: the Atlantic Economy
T Nov 7 Workshop Quiz 3 Early American Slavery
Workshop
R Nov 9 Discussion The Interesting
Narrative of Olaudah Equiano
S Nov 12 Lecture The Second Great Transformation
T Nov 14 Workshop Term Paper Workshop
R Nov 16 Discussion The Communist
Manifesto
S Nov 19 Lecture The Era of European Domination
T Nov 21 Workshop Source Analysis: Cromer on Egypt
R Nov 23 Discussion European
Imperialism Excerpts
S Nov 26 Lecture To the Present: Cold War
Globalization 3.0, and Global Warming
Dec 1st: Term Paper Due
T Nov 28 Workshop Progress
and Pitfalls Debate
R Nov 30 Discussion Diamond on China (in
Blackboard)
Final Exam: TBD