Origins Course Guide
WORLD HISTORY PROJECT ORIGINS COURSE GUIDEWorld History Project (WHP), from OER Project, is a dynamic high-school history course. Easily aligned to your state’s social studies standards, WHP provides teachers with the tools to turn every student into a young historian. To learn more about the overall WHP course approach, structure, and materials, please visit the World History Project Guide. This guide provides specific information for the WHP—Origins course. What is World History Project Origins?If you’re looking for a course that covers prehuman history and aligns with standards that begin with that period, Origins is the right course for you. Starting with the formation of the Universe, this course covers key topics from early humans and societies, through global interconnections, revolutions and global conflicts, and continues right up to the world we live in today. Students will analyze history through the course’s three frames: communities, networks, and production and distribution.ContentsPeriodization Scheme .............................................................................................................................................1Standards Alignment ...............................................................................................................................................2WHP Origins Course Framework ...........................................................................................................................2WHP Origins Frames Narrative...............................................................................................................................5Periodization SchemeThis course uses a periodization scheme that mirrors one used by historians in the field. While some periods overlap— some aspects of history (urbanization, for example) don’t really have hard start and stop dates—we’ve done our best to break down our units in a way that reflects key period of history. We hope students will see the units as approximations—that’s why we’ve added “circa” to each unit starting and ending date.
2WHP Origins Course GuideStandards AlignmentThe Origins course is perfect if you need to cover world history beginning with early humans. This is the only World History Project course that covers topics prior to 1200 CE, such as ancient civilizations, the formation of belief systems, the rise and fall of empires, and the so-called Dark Ages. Click here to see our standards alignment documentation to help determine if Origins is the right course for you.WHP Origins Course FrameworkBelow is an overview of the course framework. Within each unit, you’ll find a series of lessons, each divided into sections. Most lessons will take one to three 50-minute class periods. For more detailed information, follow the links to unit guides.Unit 1: Origins of History (13.82 Billion Years Ago to the Future)Unit 1 Problem: How does changing perspectives change our understanding of history?1. Why begin a course in human history before humans existed?2. In what ways can using a “frame” help us develop a more meaningful understanding of history?3. How do scales such as time and space help you make sense of your world?Click here for the Unit 1 Guide, which includes direct links to all lessons. Unit 2: Early Humans (c. 250,000 Years Ago to 3000 BCE)Unit 2 Problem: What caused some humans to shift from foraging to farming and what were the effects of this change?1. How did our ancestors migrate across much of the Earth and figure out how to survive in new regions?2. In what ways were foraging cultures similar to each other despite differences in the environments in which they lived? 3. In what ways were farming cultures similar to each other despite differences in the environments in which they lived?4. Which way of living do you think was more desirable, foraging or farming—and why?5. What different interpretations and evidence are used to explain why farming developed?Click here for the Unit 2 Guide, which includes direct links to all lessons. Unit 3: Early Agrarian Societies (c. 6000 BCE to 100 CE)Unit 3 Problem: How did complex societies develop and how did they impact humans inside and outside these communities?1. What made life in cities and agrarian societies different from life in pastoral communities, nomadic communities, or Neolithic villages?
3WHP Origins Course Guide2. How did life differ between various cities and agrarian societies?3. Why did most complex societies develop differing social classes—aristocrats, merchants, artisans, peasants, and enslaved people—when these categories had never existed earlier?Click here for the Unit 3 Guide, which includes direct links to all lessons. Unit 4: Empires and Belief Systems (c. 600 BCE to 700 CE)Unit 4 Problem: How did the emergence of portable belief systems affect how people lived and support new types of networks among them?1. How did belief systems transform as they spread along networks?2. Why did some states grow into empires?3. How did the roles of women differ in ancient Rome and Han China?Click here for the Unit 4 Guide, which includes direct links to all lessons. Unit 5: Regional Webs (c. 200 to 1500 CE)Unit 5 Problem: How do human systems restructure themselves after catastrophe?1. How did societal collapse affect the lives of people in different instances?2. How and why did the interconnections among human societies grow and shrink at different times, and how did these changes affect both human lives and the environment?3. In what ways can the label of the medieval “Dark Ages” be both useful and inaccurate?Click here for the Unit 5 Guide, which includes direct links to all lessons. Unit 6: The First Global Age (c. 1200 to 1750 CE)Unit 6 Problem: How did the first ongoing connections between the hemispheres promote change both globally and regionally?1. To what extent can the Columbian Exchange be considered one of the most important turning points in history?2. What were the impacts of the Columbian Exchange for people living in different regions and social classes around the world? Why and how were the impacts similar and different?3. In what ways did societies across the world develop both similarities and differences during this period of increasing global interconnectivity?4. How did changes in the environment, demographic changes, and new forms of coerced labor affect some regions of the world more than others?Click here for the Unit 6 Guide, which includes direct links to all lessons.
4WHP Origins Course GuideUnit 7: The Long Nineteenth Century (c. 1750 to 1914 CE)Unit 7 Problem: What were the engines of change that created our “modern” world?1. What were the features of national and liberal revolutions in the Atlantic world and how widespread was their impact by 1914?2. How did the energy shift to fossil fuels accelerate the creation of a “modern” world?3. What were the short-term and longer-term impacts of the Industrial Revolution and how did these differ for different groups and communities?4. What demographic, economic, political, and intellectual factors help explain the long nineteenth century’s global movement to end legalized slavery and reform the way people worked?Click here for the Unit 7 Guide, which includes direct links to all lessons. Unit 8: Global Conflict (c. 1914 to 1991 CE)Unit 8 Problem: What caused the global conflicts from 1914 to 1991, and how did people experience this period of global war?1. To what extent were the First and Second World Wars both global and “total” wars?2. How were different groups of people (such as women, colonial subjects, religious minorities, ethnic groups, those with disabilities, and those with different sexual orientations) impacted by this era of global conflict?3. What can we learn when we study the Cold War and decolonization together?Click here for the Unit 8 Guide, which includes direct links to all lessons. Unit 9: Globalization (c. 1900 to the Future)Unit 9 Problem: How are our lives today similar and different, and how can history help explain these variations and commonalities?1. Globalization has made it possible for us to efficiently produce and distribute goods around the world. What are the pros and cons of this increase in industrial production?2. How has the more rapid movement of people and ideas through global networks changed our sense of identity, and how have people responded to these changes?3. The period from 1750 to today has been an era in which human rights and the rights of citizenship have been expanding. So why has genocide been so widespread during the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries?Click here for the Unit 9 Guide, which includes direct links to all lessons.
5WHP Origins Course GuideWHP Origins Frames NarrativeThis course asks you and your students to examine world history through three different lenses, or frames. The frames for this course are communities, networks, and production and distribution. The frames provide narratives that help students organize all the information they will encounter in this course, which will give them a way to make sense of the vastness of world history. For more information on the frames and how to teach them, please refer to the WHP Frames Guide. CommunitiesNetworksProduction and DistributionCommunities are the ways in which we organize the groups we live in, from families and neighborhoods to massive empires and religions. Throughout history, human communities have generally grown, and frequently changed.Students will encounter:• Forager bands• Early human migration• Farming villages • Urbanization and the development of social hierarchies• The first states• Empires and belief systems• Imperialist hierarchies • Revolutionary ideas about sovereignty• The nuclear family• Nationalism and the nation-state• The rise of fascism• International institutions• Globalization of culture• Digital communitiesNetworks are the connections linking people and their communities. They enable people to move and share ideas, goods, crops, animals, pathogens, and even people. In general, humans have built larger and larger networks over time. Students will encounter:• Early human networks • Village and regional networks• Long-distance trade routes • Portable beliefs connected people across political borders• Spread of the Black Death• The Columbian Exchange and the spread of plants and animals across networks• Revolutionary networks• Transnational reform movements • Industrial communication technology • Digital networks and globalizationProduction refers to how we make things. Distribution is how we share, sell, or trade the things we make. Production and distribution have changed dramatically over time, becoming increasingly larger and more complex. Students will encounter:• Foraging societies• The Agricultural Revolution• Agricultural surplus• Development of taxation and money• Colonialism and resource extraction• The Industrial Revolution• New economic systems like capitalism and socialism• Industrial transportation technology• Division of labor• Total war and global conflict• Digital systems of distribution