Reading and Note Taking Guide
Ch. 1-3
As part of your summer reading, you will need to pick up a copy of the text book from Mr. Hanft (Room 1013). As you read each of the first three chapters, answer the following questions thoroughly. Although this assignment will be turned in for a grade, it is designed to help you practice critical reading and note taking skills. Practice identifying key concepts and ideas as well as the specific historical evidence that supports these ideas. This is a skill that you will be using throughout the year, and you must learn to do it on your own. It is imperative that you do ALL of the reading. Tests will include material from the book that is not covered in class. With this in mind, Chapter 1 is very detailed and the guide is more and more broad in Chapters 2 and 3. This does NOT mean you should have fewer or less detailed notes.
Chapter 1
- List the traits of civilization.
- Where (generally and specifically) did the first civilizations arise? Why?
- *Take note of the guiding questions. Be sure you are able to answer them when you are finished reading.*
- Describe the lifestyle of a foraging society. Include details on Social and gender, Political, Interactions with the environment,
Cultural, and Economic activities (notice the SPICE acronym).
- How do historians know what these societies were like?
- Where did the Agricultural Revolution take place? When?
- How did agriculture change society?
- What is domestication? What plants and animals were domesticated in each agricultural center?
- How do historians know about early settled agriculture?
- What is pastoralism? How does it compare (similarities AND differences) with settled agriculture?
- Describe Neolithic Communities. Include details on SPICE activities.
- Describe the geography of Mesopotamia. What benefits and challenges did the geography provide?
- Describe Mesopotamian civilization. Include details on SPICE activities. Be sure to specifically describe changing political power,
the organization of city-states, Hammurabi’s Law Code, Mesopotamian religion, and writing.
- Describe the geography of Egypt. Compare it to Mesopotamia’s geography.
- Describe Egyptian civilization. Include details on SPICE activities. Be sure to specifically describe the relationship between religion
and politics, Egyptian religious and cultural practices, Egyptian writing, the Old and Middle Kingdoms.
- Describe Indus Valley civilization. Include as many details as possible on SPICE activities.
- Why is there so little information about the Indus Valley civilization?
Chapter 2
- Think about and be able to answer the chapter’s guiding questions.
- Describe early Chinese civilization. Include details on SPICE activities.
- Analyze the belief systems of Confucianism and Daoism.
- Describe the relationship between Egypt and the southern kingdoms of Nubia and Meroe.
- How does Egypt’s interactions with their neighbors change between the Old, Middle, and New Kingdom periods?
- Describe Olmec civilization. Include as many details as possible on SPICE activities.
- Describe Chavin civilization. Include as many details as possible on SPICE activities.
- Why is there such limited information about these two civilizations?
- Compare the civilizations of the Americas with those of Afroeurasia.
Chapter 3
- Think about and be able to answer the chapter’s guiding questions.
- What changes took place in the Mediterranean and Middle East during this period? Why is it called ‘cosmopolitan’?
- Describe the new civilizations in this chapter (New Kingdom Egypt, Minoan/Mycenaean, Assyria, Israel, and the Phoenicians).
Include details on SPICE activities.
- For civilizations that replaced older ones, compare the continuities and changes from one to the next.