[justicebeaver]

Mark Breakdown:

Essays (3-4 body paragraphs, intro and conclusion) – 15% each (total 45%) - Based on 3 different books

Short Writing Assignments (1/2 - 1 pg) - 5% each (total 10%) - Based on weekly readings

Library Test - 5% - Free Marks Basically

Final Exam - 40% - Two 'Essays', 5 Short Answers and Define/ Explain Terms and Concepts from the lectures



Overall the course was not difficult if you can write essays, even half decent essays. I gave it a 7 because it is just slightly harder since you do have to do a bunch of writing.



At the bottom of this post I will include how I wrote my essays (all one nighters, all 70+) for the sake of those who start their essays with their thesis as a first sentence.


The Course Outline's description of the course:

"
Through the lectures and readings, I aim to promote curiosity about many civilizations and to guide you in that pursuit by examining the history of empires. Empires have been commonplace and widespread. Lectures and readings explain the forces that assembled empires and brought them into violent or uneasy contact with one another. The lectures concentrate first on Eurasia but then follow European sea powers to Africa, America, Asia, the Pacific Islands, and Africa again.
To manage a course that covers more than a millennium, particular empires and organizing themes have been selected. I will call attention to patterns and differences among empires as they dealt with borderlands, control of trade, diverse subject peoples, and leadership succession. The subject material should encourage thinking about connections between past and present. For example, the lectures and required readings explain how the world became more or less integrated by 1900 partly through empires. They left their imprints on distant parts of the world through Diasporas, the movement of religious beliefs and secular ideas, resource extraction, trade linkages, control of chokepoints in trade, and the movement of plants, animals, and diseases. The legacies of exploitation and oppression plus the eruption of recent global tensions related to the legacies of empires will all be mentioned.


"



There are 2 lectures and 1 tutorial per week. Lecture is basically the professor talking and going through some slides with points or pictures. The slides don't have much details so its important to listen. The lectures were podcasted when I took it, and I basically went through them all a week before the exam to study. It is like a story really, if you are interested in history you should be able to sit back and just listen and most of the stuff is very easy to keep straight and remember( I personally prefer watching the podcasts on 1.5x speed because the professor does talk very slow ). Perhaps make a list of the key terms, major events and name to help you out a little. The tutorials were a waste of time really. Very few actually contributed to the discussion other than when directly asked by TA. The purpose of the tutorials was to discuss the lectures, and to hand in your weekly assignments (which was done at the end of the tutorials and why most people showed up). There is no midterm, but you have weekly assignments which you should do over the weekends since they do require some reading and planning if you're going to do well. Although one nighting the assignments will work, I do not recommend it, especially if you wish to get a 10+.


Writing Essays.
-Choose a topic, what your essay is concerning. It shouldn't be too narrow as to constrain your ability to get supporting quotes and material from the book and not too broad

-Pick 3 or 4 or X points from the book
-Summarize you essay by saying how your three points relate to your topic in a THESIS sentence. Your thesis sentence is your outline for the essay. It should be something like this:
The Second World War was responsible for the formation of Political Alliances that divided the world and created political tension, devastation of many countries and death of millions, and <enter third point here>.
This is just an example, a really crappy one, but it shows the basic structure of the sentence.

-Write a paragraph for each point
-Paragraphs should have the following format
+Intro sentence, what your point is and 3 subpoints to support it

+Subpoint 1 explanation and incorporation of quote in explanation.
+Subpoint 2 ..........
+Subpoint 3 ..........
+Conclusion, basically restate your intro sentence
-Do this for each point, so that you have 3 or 4 or X body paragraphs
-Write an Intro paragraph in the following format:
+Vague/ general statement that is interesting and is in someway related to your topic
+Narrow down the topic, but don't mention the book, characters, events, etc.
+Now you can continue narrowing down the topics, start introducing the book, characters, events etc.
+Now you're talking about your book, character, events...
+Slide in your thesis at the end of the intro paragraph
-Now flip and rehash your intro paragraph, so that it goes in the reverse order, thesis to general sentence. Thats its, you just wrote an essay.
-Use the internet if I have failed you, at least a few million pages exist on this very topic, maybe a few are actually decent.