Unit OVerviews and OBjectives
Unit 1 - Themes of World History
Essential Question: How can a thematic approach help us make sense of world history?
Overview
In this Response Group activity, students sit in groups of three to analyze primary and secondary sources
found on a historian’s desk. They will look for evidence of the program’s five themes in each group of artifacts:
• Cultural Interaction • Political Structures • Economic Structures • Social Structures • Human-Environment Interaction
Objectives
In the course of reading this lesson and participating in the classroom activity, students will explain and
use key themes that world historians use to organize the past, including
• cultural interaction
• political structures
• economic structures
• social structures
• human-environment interaction
Essential Question: How can a thematic approach help us make sense of world history?
Overview
In this Response Group activity, students sit in groups of three to analyze primary and secondary sources
found on a historian’s desk. They will look for evidence of the program’s five themes in each group of artifacts:
• Cultural Interaction • Political Structures • Economic Structures • Social Structures • Human-Environment Interaction
Objectives
In the course of reading this lesson and participating in the classroom activity, students will explain and
use key themes that world historians use to organize the past, including
• cultural interaction
• political structures
• economic structures
• social structures
• human-environment interaction