History Detective: Fall of the Roman Empire!

How did the Roman Empire fall? This question has been on the minds of historians for hundreds of years. Hundreds of books have been written on the subject but still even today there is disagreement among even professional scholars. Now students will have a chance to participate in the debate as they think and write like historians an investigate how the Roman Empire, the super power of the ancient world, fell apart. 

In this six week course, students will read primary source documents written 1,500 years ago as well as more modern texts. They will  engage in scholarly discussions, write well reasoned responses to historical questions and write an essay that summarizes their conclusions. This class is designed to be a core academic class, meaning it will satisfy common core standards and course requirements as if it was a regular class in a public school. However, in this class students will learn the very important skills of analyzing primary source document, writing scholarly essays that cite primary source evidence, and critical thinking skills. In others, they will learn to think and write like historians. 

I will teach the class by using a combination of strategies that will engage the students in the aforementioned skills. Sometimes I will use google slides to show pictures of famous historic sites and famous historic figures. I will also use handouts that contain documents that students will read in class and outside of class. I will give writing homework assignments that will ask students to analyze a historical document for clues to scholarly questions. I will have class discussions where students discuss evidence found in a text or a related topic to a class lesson. I will have students watch a youtube video for homework about a related topic in class. The final assignment for this class will be a research paper (approximately 5 paragraphs long) that addresses the main question of this class: How did the Roman Empire fall. 

Here's a breakdown of all the lessons: 

Week 1: Introduction, 1st reading - The battle of Adrianople 
Week 2: Honorius, Alaric, and the Gothic Sack of Rome (Begnning of Essay) 
Week 3: Readings of Romans and Barbarians  
Week 4: Attilla the Hun 
Week 5: Reading Salvian of Marseille (Final Essay due) 
Week 6: Final thoughts and Conclusions 

Common Core Standards to be taught: 
Writing standards for literacy in history (WHST)  
10.2: Write informative, explanatory texts, including narration of historical events. 
10.4: Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization, and style are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience.                                                                                
Reading standards for literacy in history (RH)   
  10.1: Cite specific textual evidence to support analysis or primary and secondary sources. 
                                                                       
 10.2: Determine the main idea of a primary or secondary source.