Final Project by choosing religion or political structures

In the last module, you took the first step toward finishing the Final Project by choosing religion or political structures as your organizing theme to help you approach your reading and research.

This week, you will begin to act on that by selecting one person, society, event, or idea from the first five chapters of your textbook that fits with your guiding theme.

• The theme of religion might include within it: large-scale organized religions, informal or localized religions, religious leaders, religious concepts and ideas, conflicts between religious groups, and more.
• The theme of political structures might include within it: organizing frameworks like states, cities, and empires, alliances between political entities, political leaders, political ideas and concepts like monarchy, democracy, republics, authoritarian rule, Confucian civil service, etc.

For example, if your organizing theme is religion, you could choose to write about Zoroastrianism for this Milestone. If your organizing theme is political structures, you could choose to write about Greek democracy.

There are many choices within each theme, so take your time and browse back through your readings for Modules 1-3 before deciding. If you’re unsure whether your topic is appropriate, message your instructor.

Write a 300-500 word paper (1-2 pages) that addresses the following two points using at least one primary source to support your paper. In addition to the primary source, you may also use your textbook and other secondary sources to support your points as needed.

1. Content and Context: Who or what are you writing about? What is their or its historical context (when and where did they exist)?
2. Significance: Why is it important to know about this person/society/event/idea for the greater purpose of understanding world history? How does this person/society/event/idea relate to your chosen organizing theme of religion or political structures?

Resources:

• To find a primary source related to your topic, you can use any of the following:
  • Primary source excerpts in your textbook or in the Online Reader for Chapters 1-5 (to get to the sources in the Online Reader go to the Student Site and then click Online Reader)
  • Fordham’s Internet Ancient History Sourcebook (Links to an external site.)
  • The Excelsior Library’s Global Primary Sources (Links to an external site.) resource list