journal activity

The purpose for these activities is to help you internalize the information you are
reading. The journal activity is a series of questions for you to consider and write a
response. Depending on the lesson, there can be anywhere between 1 and 3 journal
activities totaling 27 journal activities for the entire course. The journal activities are
pass/fail and are worth 5% of your grade.
Journal Activities Grading
In order to receive a pass on this part of the course, you will need to do 14 journal
activities (roughly half of them). Of those 14 journal activities, the instructor or TA will
randomly pick up to 8 journal activities and will grade them according to the following
rubric:
1. Does the comment relate to the “Journal Activity questions”?
2. Does the comment raise a point and/or provide a possible answer?
Read the following questions and write your answers in a Word document. See the
syllabus for how to complete the journal activities and how to submit them to
BrainHoney. Please make sure that you indicate the journal activity number at the
beginning of your answers. You will be keeping a running journal log so it is
important to label each section with the title of the journal activity. You will submit
the journal activities as one document at the end of the course. Do not submit
the journal activity at the end of each lesson.
Please include the questions in your journal entry.

1) Journal Activity 1.1

 Why do you think there might be similarities among these stories?
 Your textbook, Worlds Together, Worlds Apart, includes a Mesoamerican Creation Myth. How does it
compare to the ones provided in the supplemental readings?
 How can we account for points of divergence in all these creation stories?
 What kinds of themes are addressed by all these creation stories?

2) Journal Activity 1.2

 What kind of characteristic might we attribute to an agricultural society?
 Why would people give up the lifestyle of hunters and gatherers for the lifestyle of settled agriculture?

3) Journal Activity 2.1

 If what we have outlined above gives us markers for what constitutes civilization, how would you
characterize a society that has “lost” these characteristics?
 Can civilizations become “lost”? If so, how?
4) Journal Activity 2.2

 After having read the Epic of Gilgamesh, most students notice the similarity between the flood
narrative and the Noah’s flood story in the Bible. How might you account for this similar story
appearing in both books?
 What are the differences between the flood stories that you noticed?

5) Journal Activity 2.3

 Consider the image above from page 62 in your textbook. How can you know what these seals
represent?
 Why might it be difficult to understand a culture without written evidence?

6) Journal Activity 3.1

 After reading pages 104–5 in the textbook, consider the following questions:
o Why is language change a good way to trace migrations in the past?
o Do you think language change is a better way than looking at things like DNA to understand human
migration? Why, or why not?

7) Journal Activity 3.2

 Can you think of other law codes that operated on the same principle as Hammurabi’s?
 What do you think explains this similarity?