Course Syllabus

HIST 1500 Ancient World Civilizations

Course Description

This course explores the history of the world from the earliest times into the 15th century. Emphasis is placed on the cultural and intellectual aspects of both Western and non-Western civilizations, which established the foundations for their subsequent historical developments.

Justification

This course satisfies the Social and Behavioral Science (SS) General Education credit. It provides a foundation for understanding the history of ancient world civilizations. This course is designed to be equivalent to HIST 1500 at all USHE institutions.

General Education Outcomes

1. A student who completes the GE curriculum has a fundamental knowledge of human cultures and the natural world. After completing this course, students are able to recognize and appreciate the diversity of ideas that have resulted from ancient world cultures. Students read and discuss a variety of primary sources in order to understand these ideas from multiple perspectives. Class activities, written assignments, papers and projects, and exams will ask students to consider historical developments in a variety of contexts.
2. A student who completes the GE curriculum can read and research effectively within disciplines. After completing this course, students are prepared to work competently with a variety of media sources as they engage in research and analysis of ancient world civilizations. Students read, watch, and listen to a variety of media and are assessed, in discussion and written response, on content. Class activities, written assignments, projects, and exams are designed to elicit constructive and critical responses based on historical evidence.
3. A student who completes the GE curriculum can draw from multiple disciplines to address complex problems. After completing this course, students can explain social institutions, structures, and processes across a broad range of historical periods, cultures, economic, and political concerns of the ancient world. Class activities, written assignments, projects, and exams will allow students to demonstrate they can articulate ways in which scholars and critics have addressed these factors; they will also allow students to demonstrate they can participate in the conversation.
4. A student who completes the GE curriculum can reason analytically, critically, and creatively. Students must demonstrate an understanding of cultural and historical influence to some degree in every class activity, written assignment, project, and exam. Understanding early world history requires reasoning analytically, critically, and creatively about multiple factors.
5. A student who completes the GE curriculum can communicate effectively through writing and speaking. In this course, students will develop effective communication skills through reflective writing assignments, research projects and presentations, and small group discussions.

General Education Knowledge Area Outcomes

1. Class activities, written assignments, projects, and exams will allow students to demonstrate they can articulate ways in which scholars and critics have addressed these factors; they will also allow students to demonstrate they can participate in the conversation. Class activities, written assignments, projects, and exams will allow students to demonstrate they can articulate ways in which scholars and critics have addressed these factors; they will also allow students to demonstrate they can participate in the conversation.
2. Develop and communicate hypothetical explanations for individual human behavior within the large-scale historical or social context. Students will be asked to demonstrate their ability to use historically relevant information in forming their own explanations for human behavior in class activities, written assignments, projects, and exams.
3. Draw on the social and behavioral sciences to evaluate contemporary problems using social science research methodology. Students will reflect on how world history informs contemporary problems in written assignments, projects, and class discussions, with feedback provided by both instructor and/or peer comments.
4. Describe and analytically compare social, political, economic, cultural, geographical, and historical settings and processes other than one’s own. Through reading a range of sources, students will understand multiple viewpoints on the history of world civilizations. They will be able to discuss these viewpoints in historical context and articulate connections/diversions across cultures. Class discussions, written assignments, projects, and exams will allow students to make their own contribution to the dialogue about the history of world civilizations.
5. Explain and use the social-scientific method to test research questions and draw conclusions. Through reading diverse primary and secondary sources within this discipline, students will understand how to use such sources to draw conclusions on the history of world civilizations that reflect the diversity of viewpoints within historical scholarship. Students will be asked to demonstrate their ability to use social-scientific methods in the context of ancient world civilizations via written assignments, exams, projects, and classroom activities.
6. Write effectively within the social science discipline, using correct disciplinary guidelines, to analyze, interpret, and communicate about social science phenomena. Students will be evaluated on their ability to write within the guidelines and practices of historical scholarship through written assignments and research projects.

Course Content

The course traditionally follows a chronological path, analyzing how geography, politics, culture, and societal factors that shaped the ancient world. The course takes a broad purview of history, looking at larger transformations across time and cultures, while also more closely examining how individuals and groups caused and responded to these larger changes. Both primary and secondary source reading assignments are intended to present a more complete picture of ancient world history. This course addresses various civilizations and their issues. Students will engage in studying historical cultures from all over the world and from different times. While these cultures are historic, they permeate through modern cultures from all over the world.