Posts Tagged ‘timeline’

Before class, spend a few minutes reviewing the Breaking News timeline. This interactive timeline will introduce you to figures and events in the news during the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century. Taking notes as you read about the different monarchs and religious groups may help you keep the important names and dates straight. 

Breaking News Intro

Once you’ve viewed the Breaking News introductory film, explore the Flash timeline below.

Breaking New timeline

Breaking News transcript

Restoration Reading Exercise

Though new playwrights like Dryden and Congreve captivated new theater audiences after the Restoration and great poems like Milton’s Paradise Lost and Pope’s Rape of the Lock appeared in print over the next half century, the period’s most unexpected literary achievement was the rise of a new reading audience for prose. After the Restoration, the educated elite were joined by middle class readers and women who poured over a growing number of prose titles, including travel narratives and romances, political pamphlets and tracts, works of scientific or philosophical speculation, and–by far the best selling of the period–sermons and religious works. Popular prose titles appearing in the period reflect many of the new interests and tensions of the seventeenth century:
– John Milton, Areopagitica (1644)
– Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan (1651)
– Robert Hooke, Micrographia (1665)
– Isaac Newton, Principia (1687) or Optics (1704)
– John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690)
– John Toland, Christianity Not Mysterious (1696)
– Jeremy Collier, Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage (1698)

Spend 10-15 minutes researching one of these titles. You might begin with the Encyclopedia Britannica to put your author and work in context but may use any other sites or resources from the web. *Make sure to keep web addresses for sources providing unique information to cite at the end of your summary.

Encyclopedia Britannica Online

After you can answer the basic journalistic questions (Who? What? When? Where? Why?), write a short 1-2 paragraph introduction to the author and work that summarizes its main thesis or purpose. Then speculate on the title’s importance to the period or connection to events from the timeline.

Bring your summary to class to conclude our discussion of the Restoration period.

Before class, spend a few minutes reviewing the Exchanging Vows timeline. This interactive timeline will introduce you to important bonds that were formed or broken during the sixteenth century together with their lasting influence on England’s religious heritage. Taking notes as you review the reigns of each monarch may help you keep the important names and dates straight.

Exchanging Vows Intro

Once you’ve viewed the Exchanging Vows introductory film, explore the Dipity timeline below.

Exchanging Vows timeline

Exchanging Vows transcript

Before class, spend a few minutes reviewing the British Invasions timeline. This interactive timeline will introduce you to the Anglo Saxon period and give you a clearer sense of Britain’s place in the larger world. Taking notes as you go will help you keep the most important names and dates straight.    

British Invasions Intro

Once you’ve viewed the British Invasions introductory film, open the following Flash timeline covering the nations and tribes that influenced Britain over its first 1,000 years.

British Invasions timeline

British Invasions transcript

 
After 1066 Exercise

As we move into the Middle English period, review the timeline and then select one of the dates after 1066 to research on the web. Using the links provided as a starting point, spend 15 minutes learning as much as you can about this event. After you can answer the basic journalistic questions (Who? What? When? Where? Why?), write a short summary of your event. 

Once you’ve described the basics, consider whether your event served as a “cultural turning point.” In what ways might your date have had larger or longer range implications than can be explained by the basic facts. Add a short interpretation to your summary which speculates on the event’s broader political, religious, social, or economic significance. (See Student Example on the Crusades before you begin writing.)

1095 – First Crusade Begins – Student Example

Bring your summary and interpretation to our next class where we will discuss dates following 1066. The period after the Norman Invasion was one of significant change in almost every area of life, so be ready to discuss reasons for these changes and how they are reflected in works like Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales.