Greek Civilization .
Our next unit is Ancient
Greek Civilization. In both this unit and the next one (Ancient Roman
Civilization) we will be concentrating on how these two peoples laid the
foundation for the rest of Western Civilization. We owe much to both of them.
The basic form of our government was created during this time. Live dramas were
performed for the first time. The concept of self-examination and contemplation
of our place in the world developed into philosophy. People's unexplainables
centered around human behavior and led to a belief system that gave mortal
characteristics to immortal beings. Our basic approach to the world of always
questioning our existing knowledge in order to constantly expand it was
formulated by the Greeks. Despite their many great accomplishments, the Greeks
were ultimately conquered by their "cousins" from the north, the Macedonians,
whom they had long considered backward. It has been said that the Greeks were a
people unlike any before or since. We will try to discover just how valid this
observation is during this unit.
We will continue to develop our reading and notemaking skills
during this unit while beginning to develop a new one — writing. We will talk
about paragraph structure and the proper development of topic sentences. We will
also do our first Four Sides Exercise. This is a writing exercise that breaks
the writing process in separate steps so that students will give each step more
thought, thereby producing a better developed essay. At the end of the unit we
will do a different type of review activity and talk some about test
preparation.
The pictures, descriptions and links below will give you both a sneak preview and a starting place for review.
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Because of its geography (What
geographic factors?) early Greek civilization was centered around
city-states rather than a single, united state. These city-states had many
characteristics in common, like the Agora which is pictured on the left.
However, as Greece emerged from its Dark Age (Do you know when it was? Or
what caused it?) there was also great variety among these city-states.
(Why?)
What is an Agora? When was the Dark Age? |
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Greek mythology has fascinated
other people since the time it was created. The Romans admired it so much
that they adopted it as their own religion simply renaming the gods with
Latin names. Zeus, pictured at left ruled over the sometimes hard to control
deities and the whole world. (How did he earn this privilege?) Each
city-state chose a patron god or goddess to protect it and athletes from the
city-states represented their god or goddess in the Olympic Games. (Where
were they held? How often? What events did they compete in?)
Who were the gods and goddesses of Greece? |
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The Greeks made many
contributions to western civilization. Among the most important were the
ones they made to our culture. The Greeks created philosophy (What is that
exactly?). The first plays in the western world were performed on Greek
stages. They were performed in amphitheaters like the one pictured at left
(Who was in them?). Ancient Greeks also made important contributions to math
and science. Euclid & Pythagoras formulized the study of geometry ( What was
that theorem again?). We wouldn't know about a lot of this without an area
of study near and dear to my heart (What might that be?). |
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| Assignments | Date Completed | Date Returned |
| CD-ROM Worksheet | 10/11 | 10/12 |
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Read Section 1 of Chapter 4 (Quiz) |
10/13 | |
| Read Section 2 of Chapter 4 (Quiz) | 10/17 | |
| Read Section 3 of Chapter 4 (Quiz) | 10/19 | |
| Greek Map Quiz-Athens/Sparta Quiz | 10/23 | |
| Outside Reading - The Ancient Olympics | 10/24 | NA |
| Read Section 4 of Chapter 4 (Outline) | 10/27 | |
| Read Section 5 of Chapter 4 (Quiz) | 10/30 | |
| 4 Sides Exercise | 11/06 | |
| Greek Civilization Test | 11/03 |
| World History | AP European History | |
| Department Home Page |
