Help me make decisions!

[brigdh]

This summer, I'm teaching the 'Introduction to Archaeology' course at my university. I am super excited! I've TA'd this class four times (TA'ing in the sense of actually lecturing, not just being a grader), so I'm excessively familiar with it, but this is the first time I've gotten to be completely in charge: picking out the textbook, deciding what topics to cover, writing the syllabus, everything! I LOVE IT.

However, the actual process of writing a syllabus has made me realize what an enormously broad topic "Introduction to Archaeology" is. It's basically four courses in one: 1) the entirety of human history, including pre-human ancestors (quite a broad topic by itself); 2) how to do archaeology (field techniques, dating methods, etc); 3) archaeological theories that can be used in interpretation (gender, Marxism, structuralism, environmental archaeology, etc); 4) the history of archaeology as a subject, including modern consequences of archaeology (topics like NAGPRA, for example). That is way too much for 24 sessions, especially once you subtract sessions for the midterm, final, and introduction. Thankfully, having TA'd this course with four different professors, I know that we're allowed to basically pick whatever we think is the most interesting and focus on that. But sometimes decisions are really hard to make! Which is why I come to you, o LJ. For reference, most of the students who take this course tend not to be archaeology majors, but come from all departments- music, acting, biology, math, law, pre-med- you name it, I've had a student in it. In addition, they're letting some pre-college (i.e., high school) students sign up for the summer semesters.


[Poll #1740795]

Also, yes, I know the problems with the term 'civilization', but LJ polls do not allow enough characters to get into the whole thing about urbanization vs increased political complexity vs population increase vs writing as information storage vs the possibility of heterarchy as deliberate resistance to hierarchy, ETC ETC ETC, so basically I just mean the 'big name' cultures people think of when they think of archaeology.

Comments

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

Also, I vote for Indus/Harappan and Shang China to be two of the three, on the basis that they are probably the least-known to your students (unless they're from India or China), so it will be the most educational. And possibly Egypt as the third, on the basis that it'll be the one they think they know best, so they'll have the mind-broadening experience of learning that much of what they thought they knew was simplistic/wrong/etc.

[chiasmus.livejournal.com]

Can you do the six civilizations briefly, then allow them to do a paper on whatever sounds most interesting to them/the one they'd most want to learn about? Or would that not work within the time framework? That was what I liked about the intro archeology class I took, that we covered a lot of shit and then got to research whatever most interested us for our final paper.

Random aside, what I thought was an eBook copy of the Eagle of the Ninth was actually just a five star review of the book; it was weird, but slightly amusing.

[hab318princess.livejournal.com]

gone for three in depth....


but what i really want is to be in these classes (my first career idea was archaeology - which would be wrong for me as I'm neither patient nor do I like being outside for any length of time...) but I would love to do this - instead I'll be sitting in an office in a hospital (which is a much better career choice)

[graene.livejournal.com]

That was really a hard choice to make. I went with one or two (two!) with paper/presentation on choice of the others, but I'm sort of assuming that means one or two lessons lost to super-quickie summaries of the list of others and/or overview readings on them. But doing two in greater depth would seem to give you more time to deal with the rest in more detail, including all the stuff about how as methods/theories/modern politics changed, our understanding of the data changed that I came to really quite late as a casual reader in the subject(s).

[stardragonca.livejournal.com]

Three cultures as different as possible, plus a general overview, would give the noobs first years the best grasp of what the field is about, so when they become corporate executives, they will have something to regret.

I would recommend Egypt(accept it thus,)Harappan, and what ever pre Colombian civilisation you were most comfy with.
If you spend a lot of time on The Flintstones cave people, you'll spend a lot of time talking about Europe, and they'll come away thinking that it's all about them, because Europe was what happened before there was a U.S.

[miep.livejournal.com]

ok. I chose cavemen, but I think that what would be really useful, if I were a burgeoning archeologist, is your using one or two civilizations to teach the science/art of archaeology, and then teaching another as "example of how all this shakes out", and then having them write a paper that demonstrates their understanding of methodology, theory, and problems with regards to one civilization. Does that make any kind of academic sense?

[pocketmouse]

I don't think my Intro to Archaeo class covered civilizations in that context at all. I wouldn't expect it to. I'd expect that only to come up in the context of articles and examples, not to learn about a given culture one day in class.

[p-zeitgeist.livejournal.com]

I vote for three in depth, because (1) in-depth allows you to present what's interesting about each one, while overviews are often too shallow by necessity to show what's really cool about the discipline and the subject; (2) I personally have always hated having to write papers with a passion for which I have no adequate words; and (3) doing in-depth looks gives you room to present the various analytical tools like Marxism in context, and with immediate illustrations of how they work in practice.

If I had a choice, I'd also vote for the civilizations being one American, one East Asian, and one West Asian/Northern African, but that's just me. I do realize you probably have no alternative to covering Egypt, even if Indus/Harappan might be more interesting.

[ladysisyphus.livejournal.com]

Reminiscent of the pain I'm facing in teaching Intro to World Religions next year. My general take, I think, is that we're going to learn about each of the Big Five, and then I'm going to require the final paper be on a religious movement that is either not a part of or considered a 'fringe' movement to the Big Five.

But you should TOTALLY do the Mesopotamians! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAMRTGv82Zo)

[rodlox.livejournal.com]

honestly, I'd be perfectly happy with any of the first three in that poll.

and I love the 6 you named - though I didn't know there was much known about the Shang Period)