Discussion Posts
Discussion posts are mandatory. They represent 20% of your final grade. You are required to complete ten postings over the semester. When properly written, each is worth 2 points. Late postings will be counted for 1 point.
For more detail, see the Discussion Posts section.
Final Timeline Project
Timelines will be due by the last class of the term: Session 27.
To construct your timeline, proceed to Timeline at Knight Lab.
Create a timeline of a trend or topic in dynastic China with at least 15–20 key moments.
Consider the following example, which received a top mark in 2023: Historiography of Cao Cao.
Feel free to get creative. You could choose topics such as “Female Regents in Chinese History,” “Life of the Yongle Emperor,” “Life of Li Bai,” or “The Evolution of Fashion in Medieval China.” If there’s a particular place you’re interested in—like Hangzhou or Suzhou—you could do a timeline on the history of that place. Some of you may be interested in the history of Chinese currency, the evolution of the Three Kingdoms story over time, or the kinds of weapons used in warfare across time. Some of you may wish to delve into family histories of the places in China or Taiwan where your parents or grandparents were born. All of these could be excellent projects.
Keep the following in mind:
- Your timeline must include 15–20 individual entries/line items related to your chosen trend or topic.
- The timeline should not simply capture “when” things happened but also provide broader context/interpretation and insight into your thought process/criteria for inclusion.
- You should strive for thematic coherence; in general, each entry should link together with one preceding it and/or following it .
- Your final timeline entry—dated to the 20th or 21st century (as appropriate)—should be titled “Legacies,” with 4–5 sentences describing the impact of who/what you choose.
Note: Some topics may be better suited for slightly shorter timelines, while others might require more moments. Use your judgment depending on the topic. Bear in mind that it doesn’t take that much work to add a moment to a timeline, so if you’re unsure, it’s probably *safer* to do more and cover the essentials.
Grading Rubric
- Appropriate timeline topic: 1 point
- 12–15 moments: 2 points
- Picture or video and caption for each moment: 2 points
- Accuracy of timeline, including the “quality” of moments (Do your moments “make sense” for highlighting the point?): 5 points
- Legacy writeup: 3 points
- Works cited: 2 points
***Please remember that Wikipedia can be a nice starting point to sketch out a subject, but it is not a source to cite. Wikipedia can help you find and locate other appropriate sources (textbooks, university-published books, primary sources, etc.), but you should have at least some analysis on the timeline that we wouldn’t be able to find on a Wikipedia page, and if a timeline is too close to the exact content of a Wikipedia page, I will have to dock some points.
