Mondays and Wednesdays at 🌄 **10 am Tuesdays and Thursdays at** ☀️ Noon

📢 Class announcements will be on our announcements page.

Welcome to World History 1

This course introduces historical thinking skills with digital tools, sometimes called the digital humanities, while covering the history of humanity from 4000 BCE to 1400 CE.

As a college-level history course in 2026, this course requires you navigate new digital environments, such as this web page. Please ask questions, on our discussion boards, during student office hours, by email, and phone.

The thematic question we’ll ask this semester is how did pre-1400 CE peoples access, use, and make meaning with fresh water?

🏗️ You’ll be part of one of five teams this semester, building a research report over the course of the semester. The five projects involve writing research reports for: a historical novel, a historical role playing video game, preparing a disaster response team, creating a shoe and clothing brand, or project managing one of these four projects.

Details and dates for assignments are on our schedule page.

Important Parts of our Course

Expectations

“True peace required the presence of justice, not just the absence of conflict.” ― N.K. Jemisin, The Killing Moon

“Learning is always rebellion . . . Every bit of new truth discovered is revolutionary to what was believed before.” Margaret Lee Rubneck

Introduction

There are no prerequisites for this course, and you do not need any specialized knowledge. The class will be taught in English, with occasional cheesy jokes and mild vulgarities in Spanish.

Studying history has changed dramatically in the last 20 years. People today publish more lies about the past than evidence-based history. For your parents, finding historical information was the challenge. For you, sorting credible from non-credible information will be the defining feature of your historical work, and indeed your information life.

I want you to learn about the past, learn new skills about how to analyze and present about the past, and learn new ways of how to learn (called metacognition). The learning goals, or outcomes, fit in these three groups. The goals for this course are below. I may sometimes call these learning outcomes, or the stuff I want you to be able to do by the end of this course.

Learning Goals 🥅

You will be able to:

1. Demonstrate a broad understanding of World History from pre-History through the early modern era (thirteenth through seventeenth centuries CE).
2. Make use of historical thinking.
3. Analyze historical sources, distinguishing primary from secondary sources;
4. Communicate effectively using historical evidence and methods.
5. Analyze and understand the diversity of peoples within their distinctive historical contexts.
6. Develop strategies for advancing your learning skills, such as effective reading, writing, acquiring new digital skills, and critically analyzing historical sources.
7. Demonstrate an understanding of the ethics of acquiring, using, and presenting historical sources, as articulated by both professional organizations and historical subjects.
8. Demonstrate effective digital history skills, including file management, GIS usage, podcast production, metadata usage, data literacy, and historical image analysis.

Required Resources

• Access to a computer that has multiple browsers and full access to the academic web. Tablets and smart phones will not work for most work we do in this course.
• High-speed internet connection. You do not need to have home access- you can use Normandale’s computers. See the link for how to find free wi-fi hotspots
• Critical Mind
• There is no textbook to buy for this course. All materials are free ($0) to Normandale students.
• 💡Questions about where to find resources at Normandale? See this Campus Resource Document, which includes food, tutoring, and counseling info.

Contact Information – Jack Norton

Email: jack.norton [at] normandale.edu

Email is the best way to reach me. I respond to emails and calls within 24-36 hours Monday-Friday (most of the time much faster). On weekends I respond by Sunday evening.

• Office Phone: 952-358-8911
• Google Voice Number for text: 612-208-3723 I cannot communicate about grades or personal information over text, but if you have a quick question or just want me to know something, please write using full words. I have a disability that makes texting language, for example, brb for "will be right back" almost impossible to understand. Text like I'm your grandpa and we'll be fine.

Student Help Hours: 🆘

Noon- 2 p.m., Mondays and Wednesdays 9:30-10 am, Tuesdays and Thursdays College Services 3150 and on Zoom

Additional phone and video chat times are available by scheduling an appointment with me.

Phone and Virtual Hours 📞

Student check ins are when I am available to chat, by phone or video. You can schedule a specific time to meet with me, or just call me. Book an appointment with me.

Course Policies

If you feel any illness symptoms, please do not come to campus.

The regular grading policies in this syllabus provide that a student could not turn in two weeks of assignments and suffer no grade penalty.

If you or a family member you care for are incapacitated by COVID or any other debilitating disease, we can work on a schedule to allow you make up an additional two weeks of material beyond the regular schedule. Missing more than four weeks of the course and passing the class is not realistic and we should talk about your options.

Effective 2026-02-11, headphones and earbuds are not allowed during class time, unless as an accommodation for disability.

BONUS: Bug hunt- If you find an error in any course materials that can affect learning (a broken link, an omitted word that changes the meaning of an assignment), please tell me about the bug by email. I save up the bug hunt bonuses and apply them to final grades that are very close to the next letter grade. Reporting minor bugs, such as a mis-formatted web page or non-learning related spelling error, earn my thanks.

E-Learning- What you need to know

• Please use your student email for all emails to me, as required by the Family Education and Rights Privacy Act.
• Please recognize that written communication requires more careful word choice than oral communication. For example, sarcastic comments do not work because you can not read sarcasm, only hear it.

If you need technology help, you may call our IT help desk at 952-358-8181. Even better, ask them a question on Normandale's “Ask Us” page, which will help track your request.

💡If you lose access to your Normandale account, you must contact me. Once you have contacted me, you have a 48 business hours to restore access to your account. Failure to contact me if you lose access to your Normandale account or to restore your account within 48 hours may result in missed assignments.

💡All group projects must be created inside Teams and not created by individual students. This practice is to ensure equitable access for all team members.

**Late Work-**There is no late work. Instead, I drop the equivalent of two weeks of work. If you have contributed to a project, you can revise that project individually for an updated grade.

Reading and Writing- This is a reading and writing-intensive course. You will read up to 75 pages a week and write at least 16 pages of typed, doubled-spaced pages of text (total, not all at once). Writing guidelines for each assignment will be discussed in course and included on the assignment.

Written work will be submitted to your own cloud-based (web backed-up) file using Office 365 or google docs. Instruction for setting up your own Assignment Files will be on our course page.

Assessment: Assessment means measuring your learning, I can do this by asking you questions, indicating if your answers are correct or not, and giving you a grade. Grades are the way I assess your learning. I can also assess your learning by teaching you the tools of historical thinking, having you build historical arguments, and then asking you to evaluate your work. Both grading and self evaluation will be key elements of assessing your learning.

Academic Standards

Students in this course will adhere to the rules of Normandale Community College’s Code of Conduct. Such rules prohibit plagiarizing another student's work (taking credit for someone else’s work or stealing work from the web) and creating a hostile academic environment for students or staff. Refer to your student handbook for the full Student Code of Conduct or see: here. We will work through how to properly cite material during the semester. Please be aware that the penalty for plagiarism is failure of the assignment, then possibly the course, and possibly dismissal from the College.

You are not allowed to use Generative Ai for this course unless I specifically allow it in an assignment. That means no co-pilot, chatgpt, grok, gemini, or grammarly for your coursework.

Useful Statements

American Disability Act (ADA) Statement

Normandale Community College is committed to equal access for students with disabilities through the services provided by the Office for Students with Disabilities (OSD). If you experience educational barriers because of a disability, please make an appointment for an intake/interview to discuss these barriers and to implement appropriate accommodations for your Normandale courses. Schedule an appointment by calling the OSD staff at 952-358-8625, emailing [email protected], online at normandale.edu/osd, or by stopping by the L2751 office. This syllabus is available in alternate formats upon request.

Title IX Statement

Normandale is committed to providing a safe and inclusive learning environment for all students. In response, the Title IX team is available if you experience sexual misconduct, sexual assault, or stalking, or if you are pregnant or breastfeeding and need course accommodations. For assistance, contact the Title IX staff at [email protected] or obtain specific information here: https://www.normandale.edu/current-students/tutoring-and-support/sexual-violence/index.html

Beena Cook, Director of Title IX, [email protected] 952-358-9187

Last Day of Attendance (LDA) Statement

Students are expected to attend all class sections or, for online and hybrid courses, participate starting the course begin date. If you don’t attend the first week of the course, you will be reported for non-attendance, which will assign a grade of NA. If you stop attending during the term for two weeks or more, you will be reported as no longer attending, and you will be assigned a grade of NW. When you are reported for attendance, you will no longer be eligible to attend or participate in the course, but you will remain obligated for tuition and fees. Financial aid may back off from classes you are not attending.

Satisfactory Academic Progress Statement

Normandale Community College, the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities, and Federal and State law require that a student makes satisfactory academic progress towards a degree or certificate to attend the College and remain eligible for financial aid. The standards, briefly described below, are cumulative and include all periods of enrollment.

Minimum Academic Standards:

Grade Point Average: cumulative GPA must be 2.00 or higher.

Completion Percentage: students are required to successfully complete a minimum of 66.66% of all courses attempted

Changes? Changes will be announced on our course website at https://jacknorton.org/courses

http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/pyramid_honey.png

I reserve the right to amend this syllabus to better facilitate students’ learning. Changes to the syllabus (if any) will be announced in the news section and an amended syllabus will be posted on the class website.

Assignments and Grades

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Assignment Descriptions

Most weeks you’ll do one of the following types of assignments, sometimes every assignment.

• Warmup question: On the board and on a paper will be a QR code that takes you to an open question to start the week. Fill out the form and receive credit. No makeup or late work, but your lowest two grades are dropped. 14% of the total grade
• Worksheets: Each week you’ll respond to questions on worksheets done in class. You’ll turn these worksheets in for credit/no credit. 40% of the total grade
• Project: In groups, you’ll work on your final project, demonstrating your learning of various historical skills. Discussion and work on these projects will be in and out of class sessions and the group will receive collective credit for your work.
• Exit questions: A QR code will direct you to another question to answer on Wednesdays before you leave class, asking you to reflect on your learning. No makeup or late work, but your lowest two grades are dropped. 14% of the total grade.
• Final project: Your final project will produce a recommendation report for your novel, movie, disaster response, brand creation, or project management team. Your individual contributions and the collective work of the group will be assessed. 8% of total grade.
• Good Citizenship: You, members of your group, and the project management team will all offer reflections on your contributions to the class, with attention to the degree of competence, honesty, and integrity you displayed over the semester and collectively this evaluation will be worth 4% of your final grade.

Overall Grades Weights

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Late assignments and grade drops.

Late work is not accepted nor are extensions offered except in the case of hospitalization or deployment.

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