05 Jan Papers should contain

Week 1 discussion

GENERAL INSTRUCTIONS FOR DISCUSSIONS: Your contributions should be thoughtful and developed. Answer all parts of the question and use concepts from the course materials. Use a professional style of communication, with attention to grammar, spelling, and typos. Do not copy and paste information into discussions—write posts in your own words and cite all sources of information used. See the sample discussion post as a guideline.

To access the rubric for discussions, click on the discussion link for that week. The rubric is located towards the bottom of the discussion instructions.

Unless your instructor specifies otherwise, choose ONE of the following questions, and give a substantive response to at least two other students. A substantive response is not simply an agreement to your peer, but the response should add significance to the post and further the discussion.

Initial discussion posts are due by Thursday at 11:30PM ET and at least two responses to fellow classmates are expected by the end of the week on Sunday by 11:30PM ET.

Lynda Shaffer’s article is a ‘revisionist’ work. Having read this work, define revisionism. Provide examples from “Southernization” to show how her work challenged your view (or the dominant view as you understand it) of human history.

Is the History of Technology addressed thoroughly enough in teaching history as a whole? Is it addressed incorrectly? For example, should technology be seen as something that determines the course of a particular society, or is the development of a civilization and its values more complex than this?

Drawing on this week’s readings, explain this quote, “The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.” (L.P. Hartley, The Go-Between 1953, 17)

The underlying assumption for many modern people is that technology = progress. Is this true? What does progress mean? What are some of the many ways people define progress?

This class in entitled “Technological Transformations,” and the focus is on progress as a product of technology. Drawing on this week’s readings as an introduction to the topic, discuss what you expect to learn in this class. What is the importance of Aristotle, Archimedes, and the concept of southernization to the big picture?

Week 2 discussion

GENERAL INSTRUCTIONS FOR DISCUSSIONS: Your contributions should be thoughtful and developed. Answer all parts of the question and use concepts from the course materials. Use a professional style of communication, with attention to grammar, spelling, and typos. Do not copy and paste information into discussions—write posts in your own words and cite all sources of information used. See the sample discussion post as a guideline.

Unless your instructor specifies otherwise, choose ONE of the following questions, and give a substantive response to at least two other students. A substantive response is not simply an agreement to your peer, but the response should add significance to the post and further the discussion.

To access the rubric for discussions, click on the discussion link for that week. The rubric is located towards the bottom of the discussion instructions.

Initial discussion posts are due by Thursday at 11:30PM ET and at least two responses to fellow classmates are expected by the end of the week on Sunday by 11:30PM ET.

Discuss the impact of technology on Medieval society and culture and the impact of society and culture on the development of Medieval technology.

The concept of the Middle Ages or the medieval period comes from the Renaissance. The Renaissance saw a reaching back to the classical past of Greece and Rome, a rebirth of classical ideals. The Middle Ages were seen as dark and sterile, an age of ignorance and superstition when little to nothing new or of value was produced. Do you agree with this? Why or why not?

Discuss the nature of the Medieval university and the ways in which its structure influenced the reception of Aristotelianism in the Latin West.

The intellectual history of the later Middle Ages has traditionally been described as decadent, autumnal, waning. Yet recently a few scholars have asserted that the period between 1250-1450 was one of innovation, change, possibility. Which view is more accurate and why? Medievalists tend to dismiss this argument out of hand. Take a fresh look at this argument and consider the extent to which the Middle Ages was an sterile age, merely passing on diluted versions of the heritage of antiquity, and the extent to which it contributed new and vital elements to the European tradition.

Week 3 discussion

GENERAL INSTRUCTIONS FOR DISCUSSIONS: Your contributions should be thoughtful and developed. Answer all parts of the question and use concepts from the course materials. Use a professional style of communication, with attention to grammar, spelling, and typos. Do not copy and paste information into discussions—write posts in your own words and cite all sources of information used. See the sample discussion post as a guideline.

Unless your instructor specifies otherwise, choose ONE of the following questions, and give a substantive response to at least two other students. A substantive response is not simply an agreement to your peer, but the response should add significance to the post and further the discussion.

To access the rubric for discussions, click on the discussion link for that week. The rubric is located towards the bottom of the discussion instructions.

Initial discussion posts are due by Thursday at 11:30PM ET and at least two responses to fellow classmates are expected by the end of the week on Sunday by 11:30PM ET.

How did the printing press transform human knowledge? How do you see the necessary simplicity of oral communication affecting the depth of understanding that people had about the news, so to speak? How would the fact that most information about the world, most news, came from the pulpit affect the transmission of this information to villagers and townspeople? How did the printing press change this?

Compare the map of 1374 with Ptolemy’s map. What does Ptolemy’s map allow that the 1374 map does not? Why was the discovery of Ptolemy’s map so important? How did it change the way people saw the universe? Likewise, compare memory and print in terms of how they changed the meaning of knowledge and how people saw their universe.

How do the following quotations illustrate the tension between science and religion in the Renaissance? How did new cosmological discoveries contribute to the establishment of the Church?

“The Bible shows the way to go to heaven, not the way the heavens go.” – Galileo Galilei

“In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual.” – Galileo Galilei

Discuss the concept of the Renaissance Artist-Scientist. Explain the several Renaissance concepts of perspective. What are these artist-scientists attempting to accomplish? Discuss the works of Masaccio and Leonardo da Vinci among others.

Week 4 discussion

GENERAL INSTRUCTIONS FOR DISCUSSIONS: Your contributions should be thoughtful and developed. Answer all parts of the question and use concepts from the course materials. Use a professional style of communication, with attention to grammar, spelling, and typos. Do not copy and paste information into discussions—write posts in your own words and cite all sources of information used. See the sample discussion post as a guideline.

Unless your instructor specifies otherwise, choose ONE of the following questions, and give a substantive response to at least two other students. A substantive response is not simply an agreement to your peer, but the response should add significance to the post and further the discussion.

To access the rubric for discussions, click on the discussion link for that week. The rubric is located towards the bottom of the discussion instructions.

Initial discussion posts are due by Thursday at 11:30PM ET and at least two responses to fellow classmates are expected by the end of the week on Sunday by 11:30PM ET.

The progress of logic and knowledge of the physical world during the Scientific Revolution was constantly at odds with the oppositional force of religion and mysticism. How were average Europeans, and the scientists themselves, affected by the dilemma created by these forces?

What were the conditions necessary to advance astronomical knowledge from Copernicus to Newton? How did they develop during the seventeenth century?

One of our themes this semester is that before several transformations, people looked to the past in order to make sense of their universe; people lived in a world with little change; people were not particularly optimistic. All of this changed, however, over the course of several centuries. In the readings so far this semester, where do you see people beginning to look to other sources than an authority from the past; beginning to experience and expect more and more change in their lives; and beginning to expect the future to be better than the present? This question will appear again in Week 8.

Drawing on the readings, describe a day in the life of one of the following 16th-19th century people. You may use your historical imagination to prepare your post, but make sure you use the readings to provide evidence for the details you include in your account. You may cite from credible outside sources in addition to the required readings.

Ruler

Church Authority – Protestant or Catholic – This can include a monk or nun, for anyone in the Church was seen as an authority by many in society.

Intellectual – Scientist, Philosopher, Scholar, Writer, Musician, etc.

Merchant

Peasant / Farmer (The transition occurs in this period for most.)

Week 5 discussion

GENERAL INSTRUCTIONS FOR DISCUSSIONS: Your contributions should be thoughtful and developed. Answer all parts of the question and use concepts from the course materials. Use a professional style of communication, with attention to grammar, spelling, and typos. Do not copy and paste information into discussions—write posts in your own words and cite all sources of information used. See the sample discussion post as a guideline.

Unless your instructor specifies otherwise, choose ONE of the following questions, and give a substantive response to at least two other students. A substantive response is not simply an agreement to your peer, but the response should add significance to the post and further the discussion.

To access the rubric for discussions, click on the discussion link for that week. The rubric is located towards the bottom of the discussion instructions.

Initial discussion posts are due by Thursday at 11:30PM ET and at least two responses to fellow classmates are expected by the end of the week on Sunday by 11:30PM ET.

How did the Industrial Revolution transform people’s daily lives? Be sure to include sanitation and labor.

How do Burke and Hare illustrate the changes brought about by the Industrial Revolution?

The following quote from Jaques Barzun’s From Dawn to Decadence addresses the railroad. Discuss the impact of the railroad on daily lives or on the Industrial Revolution. In what ways did locomotion create a technological transformation for humanity as a whole – at least in the areas where it existed?

“At first, machinery affected only those who organized its use and the men and women who worked in factories. But by 1830 a different type of machine came into being that changed the life and the minds of all peoples. The memory of it is nearly gone, but it was the completest change in human experience since the nomadic tribes became rooted in one spot to grow grain and raise cattle; it was in effect a reversal of that settling down. Locomotion by the force of steam, the railroad, uprooted mankind and made of it individual nomads again.” (Jacques Barzun, From Dawn to Decadence: 1500 to the Present: 500 Years of Western Cultural Life (New York: HarperCollins, 2000), 539)

Week 6 discussion

GENERAL INSTRUCTIONS FOR DISCUSSIONS: Your contributions should be thoughtful and developed. Answer all parts of the question and use concepts from the course materials. Use a professional style of communication, with attention to grammar, spelling, and typos. Do not copy and paste information into discussions—write posts in your own words and cite all sources of information used. See the sample discussion post as a guideline.

Unless your instructor specifies otherwise, choose ONE of the following questions, and give a substantive response to at least two other students. A substantive response is not simply an agreement to your peer, but the response should add significance to the post and further the discussion.

To access the rubric for discussions, click on the discussion link for that week. The rubric is located towards the bottom of the discussion instructions.

In addition to your regular discussion this week, post another thread with your Multimedia Presentation in it for the class to view. Then, respond to at least one of your peers’ presentations with additional thoughts or questions.

Initial discussion posts are due by Thursday at 11:30PM ET and at least two responses to fellow classmates are expected by the end of the week on Sunday by 11:30PM ET.

How does the attempt to control and codify plants and animals lead to eugenics? How are both of these views optimistic? Pessimistic?

How does the attempt to control and codify plants and animals lead to Spencer’s extreme model of total non-interference? As with the above question, both are optimistic views but seem so very different. In what ways are they related?

Historians and scientists alike are admonished not to set out in their research to prove something. Rather they should set out to answer questions. How do the Holocaust and compulsory sterilization in the U.S. serve as a warning to researchers to follow this advice?

Choose one of the following. Assuming that all things except worldview are equal (scientific know-how, medical ability, economic structure), explain why one of the following would or would not have been possible in the year 1200. In other words how do these ideas fit or not fit with the worldview of the period?

The codification of plants and animals (including any or all of the researchers from the beginning of the chapter)

Spencer’s philosophy

Week 7 discussion

GENERAL INSTRUCTIONS FOR DISCUSSIONS: Your contributions should be thoughtful and developed. Answer all parts of the question and use concepts from the course materials. Use a professional style of communication, with attention to grammar, spelling, and typos. Do not copy and paste information into discussions—write posts in your own words and cite all sources of information used. See the sample discussion post as a guideline.

Unless your instructor specifies otherwise, choose ONE of the following questions, and give a substantive response to at least two other students. A substantive response is not simply an agreement to your peer, but the response should add significance to the post and further the discussion.

To access the rubric for discussions, click on the discussion link for that week. The rubric is located towards the bottom of the discussion instructions.

Initial discussion posts are due by Thursday at 11:30PM ET and at least two responses to fellow classmates are expected by the end of the week on Sunday by 11:30PM ET.

Who was the better inventor, Edison or Tesla, and why?

How might one relate Einstein’s theory of relativity to mathematical perspective in art?

Select one invention or innovation from the period under discussion this week. How did it transform the daily lives and the worldview of lower class, middle class, and upper class people, if at all?

Week 8 discussion

GENERAL INSTRUCTIONS FOR DISCUSSIONS: Your contributions should be thoughtful and developed. Answer all parts of the question and use concepts from the course materials. Use a professional style of communication, with attention to grammar, spelling, and typos. Do not copy and paste information into discussions—write posts in your own words and cite all sources of information used. See the sample discussion post as a guideline.

Unless your instructor specifies otherwise, choose ONE of the following questions, and give a substantive response to at least two other students. A substantive response is not simply an agreement to your peer, but the response should add significance to the post and further the discussion.

To access the rubric for discussions, click on the discussion link for that week. The rubric is located towards the bottom of the discussion instructions.

Initial discussion posts are due by Thursday at 11:30PM ET and at least two responses to fellow classmates are expected by the end of the week on Sunday by 11:30PM ET.

One of our themes this semester is that before several transformations, people looked to the past in order to make sense of their universe; people lived in a world with little change; people were not particularly optimistic. All of this changed, however, over the course of several centuries. In the readings this semester, where do you see people beginning to look to other sources than an authority from the past; beginning to experience and expect more and more change in their lives; and beginning to expect the future to be better than the present? This question appeared in Week 4. You may gain insight by looking at your own or your classmates’ responses there.

Compare the strengths and weaknesses of these two worldviews:

Western, experimental, scientific

Religious, mythical, or magical

While most historians believe that neither futurecasting (predicting what will happen, based on what happened in the past) nor writing “what if?” histories are appropriate approaches to professional historical research, these activities can be useful thought exercises that help us analyze the past from a different perspective and thus help us understand what happened and why in a new way. How do you predict that technology will transform human lives and worldview and over the next century?

If there is some area of the text that you have been burning to discuss all semester and have not had the chance, here is your opportunity. You may address any area of Burke that struck you as particularly important or with which you disagreed. Support your assertion of importance or disagreement with evidence.

Assignment 1

Thesis Statement and Annotated Bibliography

Instructions

The thesis statement should be one or two sentences that summarize the key argument of the research paper. In other words, the thesis statement is the main idea of the entire paper. Students should also submit an annotated bibliography of at least five (5) scholarly sources that will provide support for the thesis of the paper. Research for sources should be done through the UMUC Library. Sources should be peer-reviewed and academically credible. Wikipedia, Answers.com, Yahoo Answers, About.com, Infoplease, and other non-scholarly websites and blogs are not acceptable. The annotated bibliography should list the proper citation for the source and include the annotated paragraph beneath it. For more information on writing thesis statements and annotated bibliographies, students should visit the websites below. A list of approved topics is found in the Syllabus.

Thesis Statements

Annotated Bibliographies

To access the rubric for assignments, click on the assignment link for that week. The rubric is located towards the bottom of the assignment instructions.

Due: Sunday by 11:30PM ET in Week 3

Assignment 2

Multimedia Presentation

Instructions

The multimedia presentation should be a PowerPoint, YouTube, Google Slides, Prezi, or similar presentation of the student’s research that will be turned in for grading and shared with classmates online. The presentation should give an overview of the student’s research in an engaging way. This part of the project allows students to share key points of the research with peers in a way that is fun and stimulates interest in the material. While students are encouraged to approach this part of the project in a less formal manner, information should still be paraphrased into the student’s own words and all sources should be properly cited, including graphics, videos, music, etc.

To access the rubric for assignments, click on the assignment link for that week. The rubric is located towards the bottom of the assignment instructions.

Assignment 3

Submission Folder

Research Paper

Instructions

The research paper should demonstrate the student’s ability to write a developed and coherent argument about the assigned topic. The paper should introduce the topic to the reader and include a strong thesis statement. The body of the paper should include more detailed research that supports the overall thesis of the paper, and the end of the paper should summarize the student’s conclusion(s). Papers should be approximately 1500–2000 words in length, 12-point Times New Roman font, double-spaced, and one-inch margins on all sides. Papers should include a title page and a references page. For more help on writing research papers, students should visit the UMUC Writing Center or visit the websites below.

Research Papers

Historical Research

Papers should contain a minimum of five (5) scholarly sources. Wikipedia, Answers.com, Yahoo Answers, About.com, Infoplease, New World Encyclopedia, History Channel, and other non-scholarly websites and blogs are not acceptable for college-level papers. Students should be able to demonstrate that they can read, understand, and synthesize academic material that may apply to their research. Information should be paraphrased into the student’s own words, and all sources must be properly cited with both in-text citations and full references listed at the end of the paper. Direct quotations should be quoted properly and used at an absolute minimum, with no more than 10% of the final paper containing directly quoted material. All student papers will be checked for originality using plagiarism software. Students should refer to the UMUC Academic Integrity policy or visit the websites below for more help on citing sources and avoiding plagiarism.

Citing Sources

Academic Integrity

To access the rubric for assignments, click on the assignment link for that week. The rubric is located towards the bottom of the assignment instructions.