World History I- Course Overview

TEXTBOOKS: (Title, Author, Publisher, Edition)

World History: Patterns of Interaction (CD-ROM) McDougal Littell

 

 

Goals: Students will be able to

  1. Understand key factors important to the development of civilization
  2. Trace the early development of global civilizations
  3. Give examples of the interaction of geography, environment, and history in the development of culture.
  4. Trace the development of Asian and Middle Eastern cultures in the Modern Era.
  5. Understand the impact of early cultural developments on modern Asian and Middle Eastern societies and how the past impacts the present.

 

CONTENT OF COURSE:

 First Quarter

 

UNIT 1: Early Civilizations

  1. Geography and History
  2. Five Themes of Geography
  3. The Agricultural Revolution 
  4. Characteristics of civilization
  5. Geography and environment in the Fertile Crescent.
  6. Sumerian city states and culture
  7. Geography and the development of Egypt
  8. Egyptian religion, social structure, and technology

 

Proficiencies: Students will be able to

  1. Explain the impacts of geography on history and articulate the five themes of geography
  2. Explain the importance of the Agricultural Revolution to the development of civilization and compare and contrast hunter gatherer societies with agricultural societies.
  3. List the characteristics of civilization, provide specific examples, and identify when and where civilization first arose.
  4. Explain the importance of written language and technology to the development of civilization.
  5. Explain how geography and environment affected cultural development in the Fertile Crescent.
  6. Explain significant advances of Sumer in the areas of technology, science, and law.
  7. Summarize how geography affected the development of Egyptian culture.
  8. Describe ancient Egyptian religion, social structure, and technology.

 

UNIT 2: Indian Civilization

  1. Indo-Europeans and their impact on world language
  2. Aryans
  3. The caste system
  4. Hinduism.
  5. Buddhism

 

Proficiencies: Students will be able to

  1. Explain who the Indo-Europeans were and their impact on world languages.
  2. Describe the cultural impact of the Aryans on India.
  3. Describe the emergence  and significance of the caste system.
  4. Know key terms; Indo-Europeans, migration, caste, Brahmins.
  5. Describe the origins, beliefs, and development of Hinduism.
  6. Understand how Hinduism strengthened the caste system.
  7. Explain the origin, beliefs, and practices of Buddhism.

 

UNIT 3: Rise of Chinese Civilization

  1. Geography and environment and early Chinese civilization
  2. Importance of family, social class, religion in early China
  3. Chinese  written language
  4. Mandate of heaven and dynastic cycles in Chinese culture and history
  5. Confucius and the impact of Confusianism on China

 

Proficiencies: Students will be able to

  1. Explain the significance of geography and environment to the development of early Chinese civilization.
  2. Discuss the importance to early Chinese culture of family, social class, religion
  3. Explain the advantages and disadvantages of Chinese written language.
  4. Describe the concepts of “mandate of heaven” and “dynastic cycles” in understanding Chinese culture and history.
  5. Explain the key teachings of Confucius and discuss how a civil service grew out of the teaching of Confucius.
  6. Describe the key teaching of Daoism.
  7. Describe how Legalism contrasted with Confucianism and Daoism.
  8. Explain how the Qin dynasty contributed to the creation of a strong China.
  9. Describe the achievements in technology and commerce during the Han dynasty.

 

 

Second Quarter

 Unit 4:  Ancient Greece and Rome

 

  1. Athens and the ideal of democracy
  2. Philosophy, art, and architecture
  3. Roman Republic and Roman law
  4. From Republic to Empire
  5. Fall of the Roman Empire

 

Unit 1 Proficiencies: Students will be able to

  1. Identify characteristics of democracy; contrast direct and representative democracies, and evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of Athenian democracy.
  2. Identify the three leading philosophers of ancient Greece and explain how the concepts of natural law and respect for human reason influenced the thinking of the philosophers and the ideal of democracy.
  3. Identify the characteristics of classicism and recognize these characteristics in examples of important works of sculpture and architecture.
  4. Describe the structure, strengths, and weaknesses of the Roman Republic; evaluate the influence of the Republican model on the U.S. political system.
  5. Identify and explain aspects of Roman law that influenced modern legal principles.
  6. Describe the transition of Rome from republic to empire and the role of Julius Caesar and Augustus in that transition.
  7. Evaluate the multiple causes of the fall of the Roman Empire in the West.

 

 UNIT 5: Rise of Islam

  1. Muhammad
  2. Beliefs and practices of Islam
  3. Spread Islam
  4. Sunni-Shia split
  5. Muslim empires
  6. Science, mathematics, and art

 

Proficiencies: Students will be able to

  1. Explain how Muhammad became the Prophet and how he unified the Arabian Peninsula under Islam.
  2. Identify the basic beliefs and practices of Islam.
  3. Describe how Muhammad’s successors spread Islam and trace its spread on a map.
  4. Discuss the Sunni-Shia split and its significance
  5. Explain how Muslim lands remained unified despite division of the empire.
  6. Explain how Muslims worked to preserve scientific learning.
  7. Give examples of Muslim advances in mathematics and science and explain the cultural origins of Muslim interest in astronomy.
  8. Describe Islamic art and explain the impact of religious ideas on Islamic art

 

 

Skills Proficiencies for World History I

 

By the end of 9th grade students will be able to

  1. Read a timeline and locate the rise of key Asian and Middle Eastern civilizations on a timeline; locate civilizations on a blank map.
  2. Use maps, visual evidence, and data presented in graphs, charts, or tables as evidence to support a conclusion.
  3. Produce organized and useful notes from classroom discussions and from reading assignments. 
  4. Read a historical text and identify the main idea of a section, support the main idea with evidence and examples, and reach a conclusion about the significance of the main idea.
  5. Write summaries that identify the main idea and summarize the significance of a topic.
  6. Analyze problems and evaluate the responses of societies to those problems.
  7. Compare and contrast different ideas, events, or individuals by identifying likenesses and differences to draw a conclusion.
  8. Use technology to access and present information from multiple media.

 

 

 

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