Need Help with History assignment

Digital Timeline Instructions

This assignment asks you to create a timeline of a unified topic. As with the Day-in-the-life or

Digital Map assignments, you have a lot of choice in what you pick! The topic can be anything

discussed through the entire course but it has to tell a unified story in time with cause and

effect. In other words, TIME has matter. There has to be a reason why things happened when

they did. Here are a few examples of topics done by previous students (with the class in

parentheses):

• The rise and fall of Alexander’s empire

(101)

• Evolution of the Roman Republic and

Empire (101)

• The Crusades (101)

• The American Revolution (111)

• Westward expansion (111 and 112)

• Spread of a plague or disease like the

Plague of Athens, Black Death, or Spanish

flu (all courses).

• Spread of scientific ideas (102)

• American Imperialism (112)

• A campaign in WWI or WWII (102, 112)

• The evolution of the Civil Rights

Movement/Legislation (102, 112)

The sort of topics you don’t really see there are stories where a lot of things happen

independently. You need cause and effect. For example, something that would NOT work is a

list of rulers in Europe. You could make a timeline with several rulers, giving information about

each. But unless there was cause and effect (one ruler caused another one to take power), this

would NOT be a good topic. Make sure your story has an “X caused Y which caused Z” narrative.

If you aren’t sure if your topic will work, come to Chat or send me a BB message and

we can discuss it!

In Blackboard you will ALSO find a handout showing you how to use the digital timeline tool.

This may be Sutori or another site. Make sure to read that “How to” handout!

No matter what tool we use, your TIMELINE should contain:

• YOUR NAME included in the title to show that it is your creation.

• At least 2 headers (the event/short term consequences, then the long term

consequences). You may wish to sub-divide your story more, which is fine.

• 10 separate items not counting the headers (more is OK but not required). Since

each step requires 2 items, that’s really 5 steps in your timeline.

• EACH step in the event you are explaining must have these things:

o A text item with the DATE and a short description (2-3 sentences) for each step in

the event, explaining what it is, how it was caused by previous events (unless it’s

the first one), and its significance to your timeline story.

o A multi-media item with embedded picture, video, or map **OR** link to a

primary source of or relevant to the location. It’s a very good idea to make sure

your images are open source. See the “How to Use Sutori” instructions for how to

search for reusable images.

Citing:

• There is an area at the end of the timeline for your sources. You will need a citation to

the reference page where you learned about each of the 5 text items in your sources at

the end of the presentation. Your reference sites should be reliable and scholarly. Your

textbook does not count as a source – you need to dig deeper!

• If you use a picture, a link to its original site should also be provided in the references

section. But since YouTube videos contain the option to watch them on Youtube, you

don’t need to provide a link/citation for a video.

Your POST should contain:

• A share link or embedded code to your timeline (make sure you test this link!).

• A ¾-1 page (double spaced) description/analysis of the story your timeline is telling – i.e.

what should we learn by looking through all the locations, and why it’s temporal (why

things happened WHEN they did).

• No replies are necessary but they earn Classcraft XP (20 each)

Length: Timeline posts should be about ¾ to 1 page long in Word. The real emphasis is on the

timeline you create. Remember to always type into Word so that that you don’t lose your work

if Blackboard crashes. Upload ALL post Word documents to SafeAssign all at the same time at

the end of the Unit.

Timeline Post Checklist

 You created a digital timeline using one of the provided tools that has a unified, temporal topic and it contains at

least five (5) steps with 2 items – one text and one multimedia -- each for ten (10) total things on the timeline not

counting the headers. The timeline contains your real name or chosen pseudonym. 5 pts

 Each of the 5 steps has a text item with 2-3 sentence description with no typos AND a multimedia item (a picture,

video, map, or link to a reliable primary source. Your bibliography contains references for the sites where you learned

about the events and credits for any uploaded pictures. 12 pts.

 Your post includes a ¾ to 1 page analysis of your timeline (what you hope we will learn from exploring it and what

makes it “spatial”) as well as the link to it: 8 pts

 Replies are optional but are worth 20 Classcraft XP each.

Timeline Rubric