Purpose: Learners will create a travel journal or log about an imaginary trip they take back in time to a period, region, and culture studied during this course to assess students’ ability to describe the significance of cultural achievements of World Civilizations.
Description: Students will create a travel journal about their travels back to one of the cultures or societies studied in the course and write about the sites and events that they visited. The journal can be presented in a digital format such as a website, blog, social media posting series, or storyboard.
Details: Select at least five specific geographic sites or events to discuss. These can be specific buildings or monuments, neighborhoods, dwellings, shops, taverns, battles, revolutions, speeches, spectacles, festivals, ceremonies, etc.
You should craft a written narrative in which you visit each of the sites in turn, describing what you witness at stop along your journey. Make sure to mention what you see, hear, small, taste, do, etc. The idea is to provide as vivid, interesting, and historically accurate portrayal as possible. It is up to you whether you adopt the persona of a traveler from the time period in question, or travel back in time in some manner. You’ve got a lot of leeway here– be creative!
Descriptions of the 5 sites or events should be at least 300-500 words for each site or event presented.
Remember you should base your project on as much high quality source evidence as possible. You should find at least 5 primary sources (documents written by people who lived at the time and in the place you are researching) and 5 scholarly secondary sources (sources written by modern scholars and historians. Avoid low quality secondary sources such as encyclopedia articles, textbooks, and anonymous websites). Your sources do not necessarily need to deal with the specific sites or events themselves, but can be about the past societies which produced them.
Your finished product should be in the form of a website which is posted online, and which is viewable by anyone. The website should be a visually interesting as possible, and should include a variety of (correctly sourced and cited) images and/or maps.
Important stuff that you shouldn’t forget:
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Your Travel Log website should advance a clear, specific argument or thesis about what the sites visited and/or events witnessed reveal about the nature of life at that particular place and time in history.
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You also should include a list of all of your sources somewhere in the website.
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The website should be publicly viewable, and should not require a password to access.