Syllabus – Weekly Schedule – Campus Resources – Home – D2L – Assignment Files
We’ll form teams around the semester projects over the first four weeks. Our first four weeks are to level up your skills so that you are ready to do college-level history.
Week 1, January 12th – How to College
Readings and Assignments:
- Fill out the Get to Know You form.
- Complete the Introduction to College Assignment
- As your read this assignment, you’ll record your answers in this form.. You’ll need to login with your Normandale email and password to enter your answers into the study guide form. I built the form to put all the questions in one place.
- Set up an Assignment Folder and Assignment File using these instruction.
Week 2, January 19 (Note: MLK Holiday on the 19th)- How to evaluate information
Reading:
Introduction to Verification Skills (read, watch, and take notes)
Assignment: 1. Upload a 1 minute video introducing yourself to your Assignment Folder. Microsoft Clipchamp is an easy way to record video, if you do not already have a good process for this.
Week 3, January 26 – Skills of the historian
Reading:
Assignment:
Preference for semester project team
Week 4, February 2- Expectations for your work
Reading:
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Writing a Good History Paper: Read the first 10 pages (they’re short as this is a pamphlet).
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Academic Integrity Toolkit: Read the sections "What is academic integrity?," "What does this mean for my academic writing?," and "What does this mean for other aspects of my studies at university?" Note, this source is from a British University, but the ideas apply to all higher education.
General Resources to help you write better and easier
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Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL): A useful source for all who are looking for help at any stage of their writing.
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Zotbib: A bibliography generating website that lets you quickly generate citations.
Assignment:
Responding to this week’s readings
Week 5, February 9th- GIS, or maps and history
Reading:
- Introduction to GIS
- How to Analyze Maps
- Read the introductions to the three GIS sites on Mohenjo-Daro, in Ancient South Asia; The Pleiades Project in Ancient Africa, Europe, and Asia; and the Orbis Map of the Ancient Roman World
Advanced reading opportunity
The following article, "Origins and spread of formal ceremonial complexes in the Olmec and Maya regions revealed by airborne lidar" may be used for Week 5’s assignment. It contains advanced vocabulary and maps
Assignment: Do not attempt the assignment until groups have been formed, thank you.
Week 6, February 16th (NOTE: Feb 16th is a holiday)- GIS part 2
Reading:
-Chapter 1- Arnold, Ellen F. “Water and Religion.” In Water in World History, 1st ed., 1–23. United Kingdom: Routledge, 2025. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003127390-1.
Assignment:
Week 7, February 23rd- Object analysis
Reading:
- "Analyzing Material Objects," in World History Commons, https://worldhistorycommons.org/analyzing-material-objects [accessed September 18, 2023]
- Gleick, Peter. Chapter 6 of The Three Ages of Water: Prehistoric Past, Imperiled Present, and a Hope for the Future. First edition. New York: PublicAffairs, 2023.
- Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker, "The Seated Scribe," in Smarthistory, November 25, 2015, accessed September 30, 2025, https://smarthistory.org/seated-scribe/.
Be prepared for a notes check on Monday for these three readings.
Assignment:
Objects in History
Week 8, March 2nd- Object analysis part 2
Reading:
Reading: Take notes
*Video Ancestral Maya Sustainability, Climate Change, and Insights for Today Segment from 6:35- 43:48
March 9th- SPRING BREAK
Week 9, March 16th- Numbers in history part 1
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Undergraduate reading level – Middleton, Nick, ‘Liquid histories’, Rivers: A Very Short Introduction, Very Short Introductions (Oxford, 2012; online edn, Oxford Academic, 24 Sept. 2013), https://doi-org.ndcproxy.mnpals.net/10.1093/actrade/9780199588671.003.0003, accessed 12 Oct. 2025.
Assignment:
Week 10, March 23rd, Numbers in History Part 2
Reading:
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Graduate reading level Chen Y, Syvitski JP, Gao S, Overeem I, Kettner AJ. Socio-economic impacts on flooding: a 4000-year history of the Yellow River, China. Ambio. 2012 Nov;41(7):682-98. doi: 10.1007/s13280-012-0290-5. Epub 2012 Jun 5. PMID: 22673799; PMCID: PMC3472015.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3472015/ -
PDF link for the same article
Assignment:
Week 11, March 30th- Understanding metadata (tags)
Reading:
- Video (5 mins): What is Metadata
- Understanding metadata through song and Normandale files
- Wells of Pompeii
- Machu Picchu Water Management
Assignment:
Week 12, April 6th- Understanding metadata part 2
Reading:
All Students:
The Water Cycle
In your Teams, read the article that directly relates to your team.
Understanding Historical Fiction: A Comprehensive Overview
How historians can leverage history in video games
Assignment:
–Social Media Warmup Assignment
–Metadata Image Analysis
Week 13, April 13th- Large language models
Reading:
Reading: Read in chunks of 30 minutes- it is 75 pages
-Wiesner-Hanks, Merry E. "Expanding Networks of Interaction, 500 CE-1500 CE." In A Concise History of the World, 135-209. Cambridge Concise Histories. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2015. Gale eBooks (accessed November 12, 2025). https://link-gale-com.ndcproxy.mnpals.net/apps/doc/CX7595200012/GVRL?u=mnanorman&sid=bookmark-GVRL&xid=5aa81c3b.
Assignment:
Week 14, April 20th- Large language models part 2
Reading:
- Black Death survivors gave their descendants a genetic advantage — but with a cost
- For Inca Road Builders, Extreme Terrain Was No Obstaclefor-inca-road-builders-extreme-terrain-was-no-obstacle
- Timbuktu’s ‘Badass Librarians’: Checking Out Books Under Al-Qaida’s Nose
For the Distant Reading 2 Assignment (read only if you wish, no note check)
Assignment:
Algorithms and History Part 2 UPDATED 2026-04-19
Exit: Week 14 UPDATED: 2026-04-19
Week 15, April 27th- Projects
Reading:
Assignment:
Assignment:
- Ganntt Chart Model for Program Managers
- Semester Project Additional Guidance
- Report Back Form(for all students)
Week 16, May 4th- Projects
Reading:
Assignment:
Finals Week, May 11
Reading:
Assignment:
