Modern World History

1
Basics ReviewWhat Is History?

• Modern World History
• Unit 1
• Scott McLetchie
• McGehee School

2
History of the World in 7 Minutes
Click picture to start video (must be connected
to Internet!)
3
History

• World History is NOT the history of the world
• Study of the human past
• Requires interpretation depends upon
  perspective
• Asking questions about the past and its evidence
• Have to ask the right questions in order to get
  the meaningful answers
• World History relatively young as a discipline
• Examine patterns that affect the development of
  humanity as a whole not just adding up a bunch
  of national histories

4
Basic Questions

• WHAT happened? (factual level)
• WHY or HOW did it happen? (analytic level)
• WHY do we care about it? WHY is it IMPORTANT?
  (interpretive level)
• Cant reach the interpretive level without
  passing through the other two

5
Perspective

• Where you stand determines what you can see
• Google Earth
• Panorama
• Landscape
• Detail

6
Primary Sources

• How we know what we know about the past
• List and discuss types
• Traditionally, DOCUMENTS are the type historians
  use most
• But any human ARTIFACT can be a primary source
• Just have to ask the right QUESTIONS

7
The BIG Question

• How do you change your world?
• For ordinary people not kings, emperors,
  religious leaders, philosophers, etc. this
  question really only becomes relevant around
  1750, for reasons we will examine, as the concept
  of mass politics becomes relevant and the
  Industrial Revolution takes off
• Today we take it for granted that individuals
  have the power to affect or shape or change their
  world
• So what kind of world do you want?

8
Three Essential Questions

• Humans and the Environment
• How has the changing relationship between humans
  and the physical and natural environment affected
  human life from early times to the present?
• Humans and Other Humans
• Why have relations among humans become so complex
  since early times?
• Humans and Ideas
• How have human views of the world, nature and the
  cosmos changed over time?

9
Seven Key Themes

• Tools for organizing your data and guiding your
  questions
• 1 Patterns of Population
• 2 Economic Networks and Exchanges
• 3 Uses and Abuses of Power
• 4 Haves and Have-Nots
• 5 Expressing Identity
• 6 Science, Technology and the Environment
• 7 Spiritual Life and Moral Codes

10
Metacognition

• Thinking about thinking
• Gives you a better understanding of the thought
  process
• Helps you categorize questions by complexity
• LOTS, MOTS, HOTS

11
LOTS

• Lower-order Thinking Skills
• Easiest and Most Basic
• Fill in the blank, definitions, some multiple
  choice
• KNOW recall basic information and data
• COMPREHEND Understand meaning and interpretation
  of problems and instructions state a problem in
  your own words

12
MOTS

• Middle-order Thinking Skills
• More complex thought processes involved
• Based on LOTS
• Most multiple choice, short answer questions
• APPLY Use a concept in a new situation
  unprompted use of an abstraction
• ANALYZE Separate material or concepts into
  component parts to see how it works distinguish
  between fact and inference

13
HOTS

• Higher-order Thinking Skills
• Most complex
• Essays, large projects
• SYNTHESIZE Build original structure or pattern
  from diverse elements put parts together to form
  whole, with emphasis on creating new meaning
• EVALUATE Make judgments about the value of ideas
  or information