World History 1–HIST 1101

Syllabus – Assignments – Schedule– D2L – Home – Book it!

2020-12-21, 11:23: Grades Updated on D2L- preparing to submit final grades

I’ve updated Reflection grades and added Good Citizenship grades. You final grade is now accurate. Please remember that Normandale uses straight 4,3,2,1 GPA, with not pluses or minuses. So, your grade will be an A, B, C, D, or F, earning 4, 3, 2, 1, or 0 GPA points respectively.

I am coming through grades with my email open to noted errors and bug bounties. Of particular note for me are people that are within .5 of the next grade. If you are safely in a particular grade, you can email for clarification or to correct an error, and I’ll do it, but most of my energy is going to double checking close grades.

I’ll submit final grades this afternoon, and please remember to read the note below about final grades before emailing.

I’ll post once more after I’ve submitted grades.
2020-12-17, 16:31: Continued grading update

I continue to grade. My apologies for the delay. There have been a couple instances of plagiarism across my courses and it is vital that I address those issues in a timely, respectful, clear – and to the extent that I can- supportive way.I’ll finish up this class’s Experiment 16 tonight.

2020-12-16, 20:17: Consultations and Quizzes Batch Completed

I’ve finished grading the last Consultations and Quiz 16. Thank you for all your advice to future students: I incorporate it into the next iteration of the course.

I’m in the process of grading Experiment 16 and assigning Citizenship grades.

Good luck with any remaining finals. I will continue to update grading progress here as I go.

2020-12-11, 09:05: Experiment 15

Fascinating array of annotations. Stronger annotations interrogated the source text and placed pictures in a specific historical context. Weaker annotations took the text literally and asked questions that left me confused if students believed what they were writing (children never grow here, the devil leads people astray) rather than what the source’s author believed.

Not including tags or only doing one annotation were the biggest challenges.

Kudos to those who linked to outside sources to support their annotations: superlative!

I will be holding an open office hour on Monday, with my Zoom room. Look for login information later today in your email. Also in the email will be a link to evaluate this course, and thank you in advance for filling it out.

2020-12-10, 14:23: Experiment 14

Lots of folks focused their social media analysis on COVID and yersinia pestis, or the Black Death. Stronger analysis focused on the facts of the Black Death as it relates to COVID. Weaker analysis made simple comprarisons between the conditions, without noting the bacterial/viral or cultural context responses.

We had an instance of plagiarism in this assignment. Most students plagiarize because they run out of time, not out of spite. If you get stuck for time, just turn in your own work, half finished. I promise it’ll be better than the zero you get for plagiarized work and I’ll always award fair points for the work done, not penalize the work undone. Also, in an open system like our discussions, everyone can see that you plagiarized, so it’s not just me that catches these issues.

2020-12-09, 10:30: Reflections grades updated

I’ve reviewed Reflections. The maximum points available are 70, so if you are at 100%, then you may have a post without a grade. For those who are not at 100%, there is one last week to complete a Reflection post.

2020-12-08, 22:03: Responding to students

Lots of responding to students today, on Zoom, email and in discussion boards. Keep the questions coming.

2020-12-07, 13:23: Final Weeks FAQ

As we approach the final weeks of the semester, please consider the following answers to frequently asked questions.

I will switch from D2L showing ungraded items as null values to showing ungraded items as zeroes after I have completed all but your final experiment and good citizenship grades.
I own all the grades so I can change your grade anytime. That is to say, please do not call in the middle of the night fearing a grade will be permanently on your record. Once grades are in I must fill out a digital form to change it, and I can change it 5 minutes, 5 weeks, or 5 years after it’s been submitted.
Data errors (as in, "I submitted that assignment and can see it in the discussion folder, how come there’s no grade?") are easy to fix and I welcome your emails.
Technical errors (as in, "I know I submitted that to the Submission folder, but it’s not there now") will involve a longer discussion that goes beyond when grades are due. I have never had a technical error reveal a failure of D2L that resulted in a grade change.
Your class citizenship grades are based on your participation in consultations, reflections, and respectful behavior towards other students. I also look at attendance for asynchronous.
I am willing to discuss individual assignments, but not the final course grade. Please consider your communication carefully when asking for regrading.
I round at .56. So, a 79.56 is a B and a 79.55 is a C.
Grades are a measure of your performance on a set number of tasks over the course of four months. Grades are not a measure of intelligence, effort, ability, or my afinity for you. Grades reflect what you turned in, and only that.
The final Experiemnt is your culminating grade. It asks you to use the historical thinking, credibility sorting, and digital humanities skills you’ve learned in this course. There is no other final exam. Please note that your final experiment is due next week, on Tuesday.

2020-12-04, 15:45- Consultation 15

One week to go. Staying focused on the material, the history, will help mitigate stress. Final Experiment ~~coming soon~~ posted.**

2020-12-4, 10:19: Experiment 13

The correct answers on the statistics questions both accurately complete the arithmetic and paid attention to the explanatory notes in the spreadsheet. Multiple students did not include the necessary additional zeroes for population or GDP necessary to generate correct answers. For example, the GDP of Western European countries in 1000 was not $10,925, or less than our current minimum wage.

As a gentle reminder, all historical numbers need labels. So, a $467 is acceptable and $467 in 1990 international Geary-Khamis dollars is superlative (well done!). 467 is an integer, and a damn fine one I’m sure, but it needs a label to be a historical statistic.

2020-12-3, 13:10- Working through it

I’m trying to catch up on grading, but to be honest I’m struggling a bit. MN State blocked hypothes.is on my work laptop, which is aggravating but only forces me to switch to my less-than ideal personal computer. More frustrating is some work I have to do as department chair and a faculty member, which is outside of this class, but makes me feel terrible even when I do it well.

I did respond to many comments last night on the Consultation board, so check that out for tips on this week’s experiment.

2020-12-1, 20:33 Reflections and Quizzes up to date

Continued good work on the Reflections. Amazing work on last week’s closing quiz 🙂

2020-11-30, 16:10- Consultations graded

Welcome back. Keep up the good work.

2020-11-24, 16:16: Closing 13 and Opening 14 quizzes

I’m seeing an increasing divergence in answers, with some students continuing to write and analyze well and some writing short.

Closing 13 asked about the a map that showed a travel route. Many students correctly found that it was Ibn Battuta in the 14th century. Around 1/3 of the students wrote something like "I did a SIFT analysis and this is a trade route: people traded lots of things on this route." That is both wrong and not a SIFT analysis. I assume students were just too flooded with things to do when taking this test, because past SIFT analyses have been universally strong.

Opening 14 asked about Mansa Musa and wealth. Strong answers referenced specific sources, either in the body "As the BBC website argued. . . " or with citations. Weaker answers did not reference sources or give citations.

History is a bit like the law: we both use evidence. Just as lawyers can’t say to a judge "trust me, my clients have a great alibi" without including the alibi, historians need evidence to evaluate each other’s thinking. Help me out: show your work.

NOTE: Due dates are pushed to Friday this week for the Experiment and Consultation.

2020-11-23, 13:43: Scholarship Opportunity

For those who plan to have a STEM major, even if you will start as a liberal arts major, consider applying for the PRISM scholarship. It’s really good money, and Normandale only.

2020-11-20, 15:25- Consults 12 and 13 graded

I will offer more conversational prompts for Consult 14.

With the exception of what you turned in last night and today, grades are up to date. I’m going to start sweeping the gradebook and my email for incomplete data, such as individual quizzes with a Question 6 un-graded. If you’ve emailed about one of these incomplete grades, I’ve your flagged email and will email you back when I can have answers about what’s going on in the gradebook for your issue.

2020-11-19, 20:33

Good questions and follow-ups on the discussion board this week.

Please be safe, stay home when you can and mask when you are out, and plan for household-only Thanksgivings next week. I’ll try to keep the assignment short,so you can finish it and enjoy break.

2020-11-17, 15:13: Closing 12 and Opening 13 Quizzes

Opening 13, question 6 asked about a map. Stronger answer highlighted multiple cites and tied your analysis to background reading.

Closing 12, question 6 vexed students. "Per capita" means each person. "Gross domestic product" means how much produced per year. So, how much value each person in Sri Lanka (which is an island) in 1300 CE. At a minimum, that amount would allow you to compare with today. Few questioned the validity of the data, such as how did we get this data.

There is an uptick of one sentence answers, which generally earn only a point. Please share your thinking on question 6 with me: even wrong answers, well explained, earn strong points.

2020-11-13, 09:57: Experiment 12- Mea Culpa

I was wondering why there was confusion about the spreadsheet earlier in the week, but thought I’d corrected the link. Turns out, the link to a spreadsheet in the Schedule for the week was correct, but the link in Experiment 12 was incorrect. As many times as I double-checked these links, I didn’t catch this, but Cadence did, so bug bounty to you and thank you.

The larger issue is that not having the appropriate data could compromise student learning. Amazingly, we had 99% assignment completion submissions using the correct data.

So, given that my error could have compromised your abilities to complete the assignment, yet you all did it correctly (I reviewed but did not individually grade all your work), I’m grading this week’s experiment as credit/no credit. My review showed > 95% of you answered the statistics questions correctly and found reputable historical articles. Well done finding credible sources.

My apologies for not seeing the error that was right there, and my thanks for your persistence and self-advocacy.

2020-11-12, 14:27- Experiment 11 (ugh)

I found this assignment difficult to grade and the overall quality of analysis to be poor. I’ll try to be as brief as I can.

Students may have been reading each other’s experiments and copying each other’s analysis. Three assignments started with the exact sentence: "The Bible is a very old text." Many students rehashed the same, and poorly argued analysis about heaven, hell, sacrifice, and offering, in the exact same paragraph structure.
This history class is focused on what sources can tell us about people who lived in the past. Strong analysis connected ideas and messages in the texts to actual people. Focusing just on ideas in a religion, devoid of historical context, is for philosophy courses. Some of students’ failures on this point are on me, as I may need to make a clearer distinction in your preparatory readings and instructions.
When writing about religion for history, do not assume you reader believes as you do. To be honest, no-one but Christian students ever make this mistake, and I don’t think it is done with ill intent. The main problem with including your belief in analysis is that you live now, and you’re trying to analyze what someone in the past believed. So you understand, it is offensive to assume others practice your beliefs (or lack of beliefs) and can cause significant disruption in your school or workplace.
Judaism is normally considered older than Hinduism, which is older than Christianity. Dating Mayan belief systems is complicated.
Jesus and his family were Jewish. Christianity does not theologically start until Jesus dies. The major books of the Bible about the life of Jesus — Mark, Mathew, Luke, and John– were written approximately 35-100 years after the death of Jesus, and therefore are not first- person accounts of the action of Jesus’ life.
All of the holy texts, people, and names of the religions are proper nouns and capitalized. So, Jesus, Allah, Buddha, Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism.
I don’t know why there were so many short, similar, and poorly argued assignments. There were strong assignments, which you can review. See Chan, Christine, Isabella’s work: well done. These three students attended to actual people and societies of the past, as did several others.

Invitation: Something was off about this assignment and I have to take a hard look at how I set it up. This class produces pretty uniformly strong work. It may be that I need to tweak instructions, or eliminate the Bible as a source text. Please feel free to email me or Book a chat if you have any insight: I’m stumped.

2020-11-11, 14:08: Closing Quiz 11 and Opening Quiz 6

Question 6 on Closing 11 related to three words associated with food and religion. The strongest answers attended to the W’s as well as the context of the production of the text (authorship, credibility, audience) and the possible symbolism of the words.

Opening 12 befuddled many students, who tried to evaluate the map "Tabula Rogeriana" by looking at the map. Horizontal reading is one of the the most important skills you’ll learn in college. You cannot evaluate a source based on the source itself. A google reverse image search, web-search for Tabula Rogeriana, or investigation into decolonial atlas the site all yielded easily findable and correct answers.

I realize that when someone asks "what is this" you want to to look at "this," but information literacy doesn’t work in that way. Just as you had to learn object permanence as a child, so too do you need to learn that what you see is not always going to tell you what it is.

2020-11-10, 09:45- Veteran’s Day

Tomorrow is Veterans Day. I recognition of this holiday, the Consultation due date is moved to Thursday.

If you know a veteran, please thank them for their service. Please note that active duty personnel are not veterans.

2020-11-09, 13:39- Reflections Grade

Continued excellence across all students. We have now turned the corner in our student culture that math has become popular, based on your Reflections. I used to get more than 50% of my students writing that "they hate math," but now I have more than 50% of my students say "thank goodness we are doing math this week, I enjoy and am good at it." I don’t know what caused this this math-happy switch, but it’s such a joy to read.

Several of you mentioned the stress of the election, and I share that. With the election concluded candidates looking to take up their terms in January, I hope you reflect on all the skills you are learning this semester that could be deployed in politics. Think of all the numbers and projections (statistics), the maps (GIS), and the reporting (research and communication) that has gone into the past week. And, this week in the midst of a massive misinformation campaign that is primarily on social media, let’s not forget the usefulness of the SIFT process in evaluating the credibility of sources.

I just wanted to point out that the skills of history are the skills of an informed citizenry.

2020-11-06, 15:47: Experiment 10

Overall, a decent bunch of Experiments. The strongest analysis showed how word counts, word density, or word placement helped explain and idea in an article. Several students read their articles and then tried to use Voyant to confirm a thesis that was clearly based on close reading, which doesn’t often work. Mass analysis blinds us to some information in order to open us to other conclusions. For example looking at the ratio of replies and retweets to likes on a single tweet can tell you how well received a tweet was, but just looking at the numbers doesn’t tell you what people are tweeting about.

I’m really tired, so as soon as I post next week’s assignment, I’m done until Sunday 🙂

2020-11-06, 10:46: Consultations Graded Week 11

It’s been a a rough week for many students. So, if you showed up, wrote anything as a consultation, this week only I’m giving full credit for just that. Ordinarily if I read "This assignment is neat, and I have no questions" I give a participation point and encourage more robust engagement with the work. But just doing the work given all the other demands on student attention is commendable and I’m grateful to you for your perserverance. I also like to thank those of you who respond to your fellow students with suggestions, examples of your work, and re-directions back to things I’ve posted.

Constructive comments not only help your fellow students’ work, they demonstrate care for other human beings. As a historian, I study the darkest and brightest chapters in human history and all the in between. Caring for others defines where we are on that spectrum, so thank you sharing your time and talents with others.

2020-11-05, 11:29: Experiment 9

Continued excellence from this class. A couple of minor stumbles in the final questions. The strongest paragraphs related to the Augustan Rome map noted the metadata, described the place, and (most importantly) explicitly answered "how do your GIS points help, hinder, confuse or clarify the story of Augustus and the city of Rome?" Students displayed a impressive mastery of the Orbis tool stronger than I’ve seen in other classes. In the midst of a pandemic, social unrest, and a national election, this class is turning in some of the strongest work I’ve seen since I started teaching at Normandale. Well done, and I look forward to what else you have to offer.

2020-11-04, 13:22: Discussion Boards and Processing

I’ve answered lots of questions on the Consultation board, so as you have questions, please consider those.

If you are like me and still processing what’s going on in this country, please talk to trusted friends, family, and colleagues. As well, Normandale Counselors are available. From the Counseling web page:

This is a challenging time and many of us are feeling stress or anxiety, and Normandale counselors are here to offer support. You can book an appointment online, email advising@normandale.edu or call 952-358-8261. In addition, United Healthcare is offering a free emotional support help line for all students through Optum. This 24/7 helpline, 866-342-6892, is free of charge and open to any student.

2020-11-3, Before 8 p.m.

2020-11-02, 16:35- Opening 11, Closing 10 quizzes.

Overall, strong answers. Answering the "W" questions is fundamental to any history (who, what, where, when, why, and how). Beyond the "w’s," placing historical sources in their context, whether that’s linguistic or historic, helps us explain why a historical piece of evidence matters.

Keep breathing, whatever happens, keep breathing.

2020-10-30, 15:36- Experiment 11 Note

Experiment 11 asks you to do historical distant reading. This includes dealing with one text (the Popol Vuh) that has a dual English/Mayan translation. Please give yourself time to work through the questions as you will be dealing with much larger and complicated texts than you have before.

2020-10-29, 09:33- Consultation 10

I reviewed all the consultations. There’s a concerning increase in posts that don’t reflect thinking about the work to be done, but do reflect preliminary exposure to a subject. Consultations are a place to comment, question, and share work, though not before you’ve actually done some work. For example, a post that does not reflect thinking or work might read: "Wow, I didn’t know anything about this. I can see how it might be useful in my future career. I wonder what I’ll learn from my analysis. Have any of you used this before? I have no questions."

Now, the writer of this post may have worked with the historical tool/skill/content for the week, but I can’t see that in their writing. It’s expected, even desired, that you haven’t been exposed to much of what and how we are studying the past, but unless you pair that statement with a second one related to your actual work, you are stating the obvious. An actionable statement might be "I’ve never considered using GIS maps in history, and I’m struggling with how I think about maps as a way to get places and the way history treats everything as an argument. How is a map an "argument" or "thesis?," it just shows where you go." With this statement, ignorance–which is a valuable and important perspective– serves as a beginning point for learning.

In short, please get into the work for the week and put your thinking about the work for week in your Consultations, as many are, before posting. I know that stress is high, and not every week will be brilliant expositions of your thinking, but this class has a demonstrated history of strong analysis at every level, which is why the content-light Consultations prompted this response.

There are plenty of content and skill-engaged Consultations as well, which makes me feel bad I spend 100 words on what can be stronger and 10 words on what is already strong .

2020-10-27, 10:38- Experiment 7 8 Graded and a note on finishing.

Overall, continued strong analysis from this class. The best answers noted that the second map on the Silk Road lacked an author and seemed to cite a mix of credible and unverifiable or non-expert sources. It’s important to note the difference between credible and non-expert. For example, Khan Academy is a credible source, but you should not use it for college-level work or in your work world because it is not expert-written and avoids some topics that are controversial in the K-12 system. For example, it tackles how race is portrayed in ancient Greek art, but avoids most mentions of sexuality. Many students noted the failures of the second map, even if it did use industry-standard GIS software from ESRI.

NOTE: I run marathons, and there’s this point just past the halfway point (13.1 miles) that your feel a mix of accomplishment and anxiety. We are now just past that point in our semester, and while we are still doing the same type of work you’ve already done (mile after mile if you will), it may start to feel harder. Reach out, share the load with your fellow students and me. There’s a reason spectators line Summit Avenue in St. Paul to cheer the last 5 miles of the marathon: we get there together or we don’t get there at all.

2020-10-26, 13:59- Reflections Reviewed

I’ve reviewed your Reflections today and continue to find them fascinating. I’m particularly struck at how many of you are reviewing your previous Reflections and building on, tearing down, or experimenting with new forms of expression. Deep breath. All gas, no brake- keep going.

2020-10-25, 20:41

Sorry for the later-than-average posting of the assignment. Some weekends I’m regular dad/husband, and some weekends I need to be more, like this weekend.

Looking forward to your explorations of distant reading.

2020-10-23, 15:26: Like a boss

Students sometimes wonder what you can do with a history degree. Well, apparently history majors can moderate a debate like a boss, because that’s what Kristen Welker did last night.

I’m catching up on emails and hope to do some grading this afternoon. Stay warm, stay safe.

2020-10-22, 11:06- Consultations and Election 2020

Consultations for this week are graded. This week’s consultations were especially productive for asking questions of me and others: well done.

If you are interested in elections, historical or this years, the Department of History and Political Science is hosting a webinar on three historic elections (1824, 1876, and 1968) along with an election primer. The invitation is below. It starts at noon today.

When: Oct 22, 2020 12:00 Central Time (US and Canada)
Topic: Election Lunch and Learn

Please click the link below to join the webinar:
https://minnstate.zoom.us/j/98592756325

Or Telephone:
Dial(for higher quality, dial a number based on your current location):
US: +1 929 205 6099 or +1 301 715 8592 or +1 312 626 6799 or +1 669 900 6833 or +1 253 215 8782 or +1 346 248 7799
Webinar ID: 985 9275 6325

2020-10-21, 09:21: Orbis Update- It’s working!
From Stanford:

"Dear Jack — I just wanted to let you know that I’ve performed the digital equivalent of thumping it hard in the right place, and I think (I hope!) you’ll find that more-or-less everything is working again now, for the short-term at least, while I come up with a better long-term solution."

Thank you for your patience.

2020-10-20, 20:56: Orbis Update

The People at Orbis responded to my email:

Dear Jack,

Thanks for your email. I’ve confirmed the problem, and diagnosed the source. Unfortunately it’s not a trivial fix, and it may take a few days or even longer before Orbis will be fully operational again. Thank you for bringing this to my attention — I’ll update you when I have some news.

With best wishes,
simon

So, unless the fix comes quickly, I’ll only grade your distance-between questions, none of the flow or network questions. Augustan Rome is working, so that part of the assignment continues.

Sorry for the error: life in the world of digital humanities.
"
2020-10-20, 15:17- Closing 8 and Opening 9 quizzes grade

Question 6 on Opening 9 was a bit feast or famine. Lots of folks reviewed the methods sections of Orbis in the introduciton, and answered that Orbis was based on modern knowledge of transportation combined with historical knowledge from primary sources about travel. A small group of students answers with a sentence, or less, which is not a good faith effort. I hope students answered shortly only because they had other priorities, not because there was a problem.

Speaking of problems, Orbis is not returning the Flow or Networking maps correctly right now. I have several requests in to Stanford to fix the issue, and they’ve been responsive in the past, so here’s hoping.

2020-10-19, 16:24: Healthy Relationships Seminary

No grade updates today, but you may be interested in a healthy relationships seminar held this Thursday on "healthy relationships, consent, and sexual violence prevention"

2020-10-16, 09:44: Experiment 7 Graded

A wide range of answers. The strongest answers included specific examples, especially for question 1 that asked about historical context. I graded in five point bumps for this assignment, with 85 being the most common grade. With a full two months of this class as experience, you should now understand my expectations. Thus, you can expect that answering questions competently will earn you a B. Exceptional answers will earn you an A. For example, noting that the sculptures were produced in the Hellenistic era after Alexander’s death is a historical detail I would expect in every answer. Expanding on that historical fact for what the dissolution of Alexander’s empire meant for the art world or why we know the period as the Hellenistic era would be an exceptional answer.

Continued strong writing and editing: a real joy to read without worrying about sloppy editing. Thank you!

2020-10-15, 14:54: Timeline Assignment (Experiment 6) graded

Lots of hard work on display, though grades can’t measure effort. Many smart arguments as well. The strongest paragraphs tied the evidence on the timelines to a common theme in a clear way.

Around half of the students didn’t include minus signs to make their dates BCE. Blessedly, almost all students published successful timelines, which is a first! Well done.

I’m seeing a little bit of borrowing words and ideas (not full sentences) from secondary sources. Your words are more powerful and coherent than others’ words. If you need a quotation, then put it in quotation marks and use the citation. Borrowing others ideas without attribution(known as plagiarism) generally makes for halting and confusing writing.

A couple students did deep dives into their subjects and the resulting prose was glorious.

2020-10-15, 09:36: Reflections and Consultations Updated

I enjoyed reading your Reflections yesterday afternoon and the Consultations this morning.

The best part of reading these assignments are the displays of authentic curiosity, joy, and frustration, going beyond "this is interesting" to "I love Japanese art prints and wondered what else I could find at the MIA?" Alternatively, I also read "I struggled with this assignment as I don’t find the subject interesting, and the directions confused me, but after a lot of effort I’m pleased I figured out how to make it work." Students taking their intellectual selves seriously is one of the great joys of this work- so keep it up.

2020-10-13, 15:07: Closing 7 and Opening 8 quizzes

Both question 6s for these quizzes asked you to combine research strategies, combing what you know about history with your SIFT training. The strongest answers got outside the object itself to investigate other sources. With the horse, this meant a quick web search with the piece title and dates. For the Greek sculpture, strong answers included reviewing what the museum supplied (a plaque or other material), and doing some sort of digital search. Answers that focused only on the style of the art or the materials were not able to paint as full a picture of the historical objects.

Quiz answers are getting much better in terms of writing with far greater thought, and attention to editing. Well done.

2020-10-09, 15:56- Consultations and Reflections Updated

Continued excellence in both assignments. I particularly enjoy the examples students offer. For example, a student might write that while ideas of race in ancient Greece were different than today, asking ourselves to view art through a racial lens can help us understand it better, such as looking at Greek ideas about African bodies.

Please note that while the college has more limited service next week, our class proceeds normally. You are welcome to turn in assignments early, and I will respond earlier in the week to consultation questions.

2020-10-07, 12:14: Closing 6 and Opening 7

The strongest answers to Closing 6, question 6 regarding the sculpture paired knowledge of the Guptan empire from the reading, such as major religions, with cogent analytical questions about symbolism. For the Opening 7 quiz, the Lysistrata answers were alll over the place. The strongest answers used last-week’s reading to ground their answers, with particular attention to the fact that this was a play, not real people.
2020-10-2, 20:36: Closing 5 and Opening 6 Quiz Graded

Question 6 about the box lid was largely well-answered. Question 6 on Closing Quiz 5 about historical contexts had all sorts of answers, from unedited, one-line fragments to robust considerations of how governmental policy, geography, gender norms, or social context might shape laws.

This week’s assignment is the opposite of last week’s: it’s technically easy but requires robust historical thinking. Enjoy.

2020-10-02, 11:41- Consultation 6 and Reflections Graded

Both were largely great. I remain concerned about those of you who aren’t doing Reflections. Thinking about how you are learning reinforces your learning, and this assignment is the easiest way to earn points towards your final grade of all the assignments.

If you want to feel good about humanity, look back at the consultations. There were several students who responded multiple times to others’ questions, often at length. What a great joy it is to teach such generous students.

2020-10-01, 22:23: Trouble shooting and a bug

I spent lots of time with students today trouble shooting timelines: that was great. It’s incredibly satisfying to get tools to operate properly and then see the cool history we can build with them.

The company that makes D2L has acknowledged a bug in our grade book that has been causing the Reflections grades to revert to zero. I’ve been advised on a procedure that should allow me to continue adding to your points without tripping the zero bug.

2020-09-30, 21:30- Long day

Evening. I spent 7 hours on Zoom meetings unrelated to our course today. So, I’ve answered lots of your emails and your questions in the Consultation, but not updated any grades. Tomorrow looks good so look for updates tomorrow. Keep going folks. We get there together or not at all.

2020-09-29: Experiment 6

I’ve updated the broken link in Experiment 6. Lots of good questions and answers in the Consultation discussion thus far keep it up.

2020-09-28: Experiment 4

Strong writing and editing, with hints of strong historical thinking for the class on this assignment. The strongest assignments clearly tied their object to their credible map in an argument that explained how geography shaped a specific history of a place. There was an odd smattering of non-credible maps and some very smartly written paragraphs that did not tie the object, map, and geography to the history of the place. Overall, the class’s metadata usage is top notch.

2020-09-25, 15:24: Conultation 5

Most of these were fantastic question and answer posts, with terrific, and specific questions posed, and keen advice offered.

A few folks, perhaps unkowingly, asked huge questions, such as "Is this any good? Let me know," which was impossible for people reply to. Asking specific questions, such as "Should I keep this source or find one that better aligns with our period?" will yield stronger and more actionable answers.

Special thanks to those of you super-poster who responded to multiple questions. You generosity is noted and appreciated.

— A privacy thought.

For those of you who wonder why I run this website outside D2L, consider the following privacy reports from my website and from Normandale’s homepage.

Normandale is in the midst of redoing our website. You can politely register any thoughts you have on tracking by sending an email to newwebsite@normandale.edu .

2020-09-24, 11:38: Closing Quiz 4 and Opening Quiz 5

Closing Quiz 4, question 6 had outstanding analysis from most students. Students made good use of the image and the metadata at the British Museum and advanced well-grounded arguments about what the seal might tell us about Harappa.

Opening Quiz 6, question 6 was oddly answered. Some students held forth on their opinion on the US death penalty. Some students argued that a law against murder 3500 years ago in Syria clearly showed something about US legal culture (not a strong argument). Several students wrote one sentence, and got a "1" for a grade. Expressing skepticism about tying to laws together was warranted, and one student nailed it when she wrote something on the order of "Other than these are two laws against murder, I don’t see how there’s any connection." Gold star to you!

2020-09-23: Reflections and Stress

I’ve graded the Reflections to date. D2L seems to have an error that periodically wipes out all my Reflection grades, causing me to have to regrade all the Reflections.

As you can imagine, this causes me stress. You likely exprience stress as well, perhaps over this class, or college in general, or some combination of family, life, work, and our world.

Please reach out to others to help manage your stress. That can be me for a chat about whatever you’d like, or the Normandale counseling team or friends and family. Our conselors can offer a quick mental health tuneup, or provide multi-session personal counseling or referrals.

This morning I experienced stress related to our national elections, this afternoon I experienced stress related to the Breonna Taylor case, and then D2L ate my students Reflections grades. What history does teach me is that the sun will rise and I’ll keep going. Let’s do that together.

2020-09-22, 15:01: Experiment 3

A good effort for most. The best assignments choose metadata that connected the two articles and then explicitly showed why they chose that metadata. Less clear to me was the inclusion of metadata that was neither well-understood or explained, such as "editors," "publisher," "DOI," or "Gale Document Number." These could be useful structural metadata, but without comment, it appeared students were just copying from the website without considering if it was useful. Some students did include obscure metadata, and explain its inclusion, and that was great! As with all historical writing, examples show me your historical thinking.

2020-09-21, 21:41: ArcGIS

Your work this week will challenge you, technically and analytically. To the extent that you can, give yourself time to work, pause, and then come back to your work.

2020-09-17, 13:09: Closing Quiz 3, Opening Quiz 4 Graded

Answers for Question 6 on Closing Quiz 3 were all over the place. The best answers referred to the different types of sources we could use (genetic studies, oral histories, archeological evidence, seed and animal presence) to evaluate migration across the Pacific. Less strong answers focused on fact-checking the textbook entry I asked you to read.

The best answers to question 4 made specific references to the Vedas as the origin of the vaste system, the ties between the caste system, jobs, and governance, and noted the specific history of the caste system. Many students wrote single sentences without reference to actual history, or wrote multiple sentences without any historical examples.

2020-09-16, 10:32: Experiment 2 Graded

Overall I was impressed by the SIFT analyses evidenced in you Experiment 2 assignments. Especially impressive were analyses that showed multiple lateral readings, opening more tabs in searches for better sources.

Many students referenced history.com. That website does have factual information on it. It is NOT credible however because it does not published its authors, nor does it distinguish its entertainment material, such as a history of the fictional city of Atlantis, from its legitimate history. The lack of signed authors is huge. If someone handed you a note saying you had a fatal disease, but it was unsigned, would you trust it? It could be true. Still, in most of our work lives, we rely on experts, whether that’s the stocker at Target who knows where the toothpaste is located, or the historians, who knows the language of the originating culture.

Britannica is fine, as I may have mentioned before. That said, it’s not strong as it is written at an 8th-grade level. Getting off the open web, as many students have done in their subsequent work, is important. Our Normandale Library databases make research much easier.

2020-09-14: Lots of emails and a few calls.

I"ve been answering lots of emails and had a few Zoom calls today. Please use the Book it! link to schedule time with me, if just to check in. We don’t need to do video: audio is fine.

2020-09-11: Remembering

I was teaching at the University of Minnesota on September 11, 2001. I brought a radio into class, turned it on, and we listened for 20 or so minutes before I told students we couldn’t proceed.

I now have students who volunteered for armed service and sacrificed their physical and mental health for the wars that the US government pursued after 9/11.

If you have a professor over 40, they were likely teaching on that day, and have similar experiences with veteran students.

2020-09-10, 10:52: Consultation 2

Your consultation grades are up. I loved the way in which students documented their process for finding credibility. You are starting to realize that simply because a website has information that you believe is accurate, that does not mean it is a credible website. History.com is a classic example. There is accurate information there, but the lack of sources and authors make it all but impossible to verify. It’s the equivalent of getting a medical diagnosis from a person on a bus "you’d best get the cough looked at, I think you’ve got pneumonia," which might turn out to be accurate, but without a way to authenticate it. The larger issue with history.com is that they host information known to be false. My friend got paid good money to write an article of the history of Atlantis, a fictional underwater city.

Several students investigated Britanica.com. General purpose encyclopedia generally pass the credibility test, but aren’t high quality scholarship. There is much stronger, more nuanced, and closer to the primary sources scholarship in Normandale Library Databases that address specific regions. Commendably, many students recognized the difference between credible and strong sources as the difference between edible and delicious.

2020-09-08, 15:46: Experiment 1 Graded

Overall, a decent start to the semester. A small group did not get my email or check the website guidance and submitted incorrect work, which will just have to be one of the two Experiment grades that are dropped. I appreciated the variety of experiences students shared with combating conspiracy theories.I sympathize that some of you face challenging conversations with relatives that that have little relation to the evidence-based discussion you have at college. Historical analysis is much like the law, we have to follow the evidence. Unlike the law, if we have no evidence, we do not need to draw a conclusion: we can just say we don’t know.

2020-09-08, 10:45: Quizzes update

I’ve updated all the quiz grades. Please continue to read laterally, that is to evaluate credibility of sites not based on the site itself, but what other sources tell you about that site. Everyone concluded that the Tree Octopus site was not credible, but many started by evaluating if they thought the site "looked professional." Site appearance is not part of the SIFT process: we need confirmation from other sources. As I like to say, you can’t tell a liar is lying by asking them if they are lying.

Today is a big grading day, so I’ll likely have other grade updates later today as well.
2020-09-04, 15:41: Reflections

Your Reflection assignment is submitted in the Reflections discussion board on D2L. Only you and I can see your Reflections, so you will not see other student posts. It is easiest if you respond to your first post, which allows you to see all your previous reflections in one thread as the semester progresses.

2020-09-03, 13:54: Reflections on your Week 2 Work

Overall I found the consultations to be useful, thoughtful, and occasionally witty working through your websites. Many students are finding credible websites that, nonetheless, do not provide high quality historical information. Encyclopedia Britannica, which comes up at least a half-dozen times, has information that is credible. That said, the Encyclodpedia is written at an 8th grade level and rarely recognizes the last ten years of research on a topic. So, my first reflection is to encourage you to think about the difference between credible and high quality. As a metaphor, it’s the difference between edible and delectable food.

2020-09-2: Move done

My family is back in our house (we were in an apartment for a while) and I am grateful for all the hard work y’all did today. I’m back at it tomorrow in the A.M.

2020-09-02 Moving

I am moving from one home to another today. I am officially not working (I took a personal day), but I will check in as I can to answer questions. I would appreciate it if you could hold any grade-related or D2L questions until Thursday, unless it impacts your ability to turn in work. Thank you!

2020-09-1: Reflections Graded

I’ve read and graded your reflections. I’m impressed by the thoughtfulness of most reflections. You will earn 5 points for each reflection. Over 16 weeks, that sums to 80, but I am going to drop the lowest two, so your total in the gradebook is out of 70 points. As of today, 2020-09-1, you should have 5 points for one week of reflections. You’re Reflections grade will look odd in the grade book as we are adding points to an eventual total. To calculate your % Reflections grade, take your earned points (5) / # of weeks x 5. So, in week one, 5/5 = 100%. Week 5 might be 23 / 25 = 92%

Here are some things to consider in your reflection:

This assignment is to reflect on your learning. Some weeks you may focus more on new knowledge you gained, other weeks you may focus on a new skill. I find it all fascinating and useful, just keep those groups (knowledge and skills) in mind so you aren’t writing exclusively on one.
Honesty works best for these. If you had a rough week, didn’t understand something, or struggled with motivation, it’s better to write that as you discuss your learning as it will shape my next week’s teaching. If you found something fit nicely with your existing knowledge, which let you take your learning beyond the expectations, that’ also great.
-Students did a great job copy editing their reflections. I found almost flawless capitalization, punctuation, and language usage: keep it up.

2020-08-31, 16:56

I have received at least 10 emails asking me to open a quiz or discussion board up again. Per the syllabus, except in the case of hospitalization or deployment, there is no late work. Please read the syllabus to review the grading guidelines.

There are basic issue of fairness at play in grading. I find it ethically impossible to weigh student difficulties against each other. I have had students give birth to children, lose friends to car accidents, break ankles, deploy overseas and in country, attend weddings, go to Vail for Spring break, take care of younger siblings, and oversleep. Rather than say "student A has an honest reason but student B is an untruthful slacker" I build two weeks of grade slack into the course. You don’t have to ask for it: it’s there. If you never need it: great. If you do need it, your grade benefits from the two drops and you can stay focused on moving forward in our course without other assignments hanging over your head.

2020-08-28, 10:58

A couple of notes on grading. Per the syllabus, your lowest two grades in each category are dropped. D2L only drops what it can see, so your first two grades are going to display as dropped or zeroes in every category. Once you have three grades in a category, D2L will drop the lowest two, even if those are high grades.

For question about 5/9 on quizzes, see my post of 2020-08-27, 10:05 below for an explanation.

Grading Criteria for Quizzes: I include grading feedback for the sixth question of all our quizzes. Such criteria will indicate your ability to demonstrate historical thinking at a proficient, developing, or basic level. I award 4, 3.7, and 3.5 points respectively for these levels, out of 4. If you answer in a single sentence or do not give a good faith effort in answering the question, you will earn a 1 out of four.

You’ll note that all three grades are "A" grades even though a 3.5 means you are not displaying the tested historical skill. I do this because I want to get a picture of where you are in your historical thinking, but I am not "testing" you in a final sense. Rather, the sixth question is what we call a formative assessment, a question designed to demonstrate knowledge without a high stakes grade.

2020-08-27, 11:24

Of my 105 students this semester, 60 have filled out the Get to know
‘ya form that helps me understand you as a learner. If you haven’t done so, please do fill it out. And thank you!

As well, we have around 60% of student who have added a picture or avatar to D2L. Having an image helps me an everyone using D2L think of you in a humane way, so please upload a picture of yourself or an avatar. Click on the grey figure in the upper-right of D2l to access your profile.

2020-08-27, 11:03

PLEASE READ: Experiment 1 being submitted incorrectly.

Almost all of you listed answers to the Fakeout section of Lesson 1 of Check, Please!. The questions I would like you to answer are on the page titled "Introducing the Notebook" and are called "Questions for Reflection."

Thank you and I’m sorry I didn’t catch this earlier in the week. I’ve had 200 students do this lesson and never had a class answers the rhetorical Fakeout questions in their experiment, so please help me understand why so many of you did so.

2020-08-27, 10:05

On the quizzes, you have 5 points for the multiple choice questions. The final question is worth 4 points, and I need to hand grade it. As a result, immediately after taking the quiz you will have a grade of a maximum of 5 out of 9. Once I’ve graded the last question, you will receive full credit for your answers.

2020-08-26, 15:36

Several students emailed about the gradebook on D2L. Your lowest two grades for each category are automatically dropped, so the term "dropped" will appear next to you lowest to grades. If you only have one grade, regardless of the grade, D2L will drop it. Once you have three grades in a category, say 76, 84, 98, D2L will drop the lowest two going forward.

I’m seeing some responses in Experiment one that are minimal. For example, "Do you know someone who believes in conspiracy theories." If you answered "Yes." that doesn’t help me understand what you’ve learned about the SIFT process. History is about using evidence to explain, so showing me more evidence enriches your explanation. There are many fully- explained answers as well. Please use the more robust answers as you models.

Stay cool, and stay safe.

2020-08-24, 20:14

Office hour zoom meetings will be held in my individual Zoom room. The meeting id is my phone number (952 358 8911) or you can join the room here.. The password will be mailed to your Normandale email.

Team meetings will be in Microsoft Teams, and phone calls I will initiate using the number you’ve given me.

2020-08-24, 13:19
An introduction to our course websites (captions available)

Welcome to World History 1

Please read this first before moving into the rest of our course.

Schedule a 15 minute chat with your professor, Jack Norton.
Schedule online

A terrible thing happened? Are we going to talk about it?

I’ve been teaching for 20 years, and this question comes up frequently. I am happy to discuss current events with students one on one. In face-to-face class or virtual class settings, the need to address a contemporary event varies. I taught on 9/11, and was the person from whom 19 students learned of that event. We talked about it a lot that semester. I’ve also taught through 18 years of the U.S. deployment to Afghanistan, the Syrian civil war, the Arab Spring, and now the 2nd civil rights movement following the killing of George Floyd.

There are two sometimes competing forces in a history course: the need to better your historical thinking skills as laid out in the syllabus and the need to help you make order of your right-now world. History can provide deep insight into why things happen, but not if we let contemporary events drive all our investigations. Whatever our feelings about a contemporary event or person, that feeling is not necessarily relevant to the study of a period at least 100 years ago (and all my courses end by 1914 at the latest).

So, will we talk about contemporary events? If students bring events up in office hours or virtual rooms, we may address modern events, briefly in group settings. As an employee of the state of MN, I do not advocate on behalf of any political candidates, although I do reaffirm the values of Normandale Community College and the MN State system if politicians speak against those values in ways that disrupt student learning. I am open to many viewpoints, but I am not neutral. I am for all my students, and therefore I am anti-racist, and feminist, and many other versions of anti-prejudice. Or, put another way, I’m pro-student. It is not my job to teach students what to think about historical or contemporary events. It is my job to give you the skills to draw evidence-based conclusions about why events happened.

So, "are we going to talk about it?" Maybe. If you want to talk about it, I’m here.