Discussion Topic Your thesis statement should be one sentence that encapsulates

Discussion Topic
Your thesis statement should be one sentence that encapsulates

Discussion Topic
Your thesis statement should be one sentence that encapsulates the argument that will drive your paper. Your thesis needs to be arguable and specific. It cannot be a statement of fact. The thesis should be something that someone could reasonably disagree with but that you can strongly support in the rest of your paper. “The sun is hot” is a weak thesis because you cannot produce a whole paper on an undisputed fact. A better thesis would read, “The sun is responsible for the earth’s beauty,” even though some might disagree with that argument. You will get a better grade if you write something arguable and specific EVEN IF IT’S WEAK than you will without those traits. Make sure that you revisit which prompt you’re choosing as you craft your thesis statement; you want to make sure your thesis statement addresses what your prompt is asking for.

Once you reach your final paper, remember that your thesis statement should be the last sentence of your introduction paragraph. You can change your thesis statement later if your paper develops in a different direction, but I nonetheless want your best effort here.
Thesis Statement
Your thesis statement should be one sentence that encapsulates the argument that will drive your paper. Your thesis needs to be arguable and specific. It cannot be a statement of fact. The thesis should be something that someone could reasonably disagree with but that you can strongly support in the rest of your paper. “The sun is hot” is a weak thesis because you cannot produce a whole paper on an undisputed fact. A better thesis would read, “The sun is responsible for the earth’s beauty,” even though some might disagree with that argument. You will get a better grade if you write something arguable and specific, EVEN IF IT’S WEAK, than you will without those traits. Make sure that you revisit which prompt you’re choosing as you craft your thesis statement; you want to make sure your thesis statement addresses what your prompt is asking for.
Once you reach your final paper, remember that your thesis statement should be the last sentence of your introduction paragraph. You can change your thesis statement later if your paper develops in a different direction, but I nonetheless want your best effort here.
There are many interpretations of Islam within the wider Islamic community, but generally we are instructed to leave the world a better place than it was when we came into it.
~Aga Khan IV
Readings
Please read the following chapter(s) in your course textbook and view any other listed resources:
Chapter 11, Ways of the World: A Brief Global History with Sources
These optional PowerPoint slides are a handy way to see the main points as you read.
Videos
Wait For It…The Mongols!: Crash Course World History #17, YouTube (11:31 minutes)
YouTube Link 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szxPar0BcMo
The past, present and future of the bubonic plague—Sharon N. DeWitte, YouTube (0:15 minutes)
YouTube Link 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySClB6-OH-Q
Virtual Field Trip (Optional)
Do you have some spare time for Genghis Khan? If so, then check out this exhibit. This virtual field trip is optional, but you might find something to help your discussions this week.
Web Link 1:https://chinggismuseum.com/en
Chapter Overview
Chapter 11 Overview
Can a people be without history? What do we know about nomads and how we know it? As you read this chapter, you will need to reasonably infer about a culture by means of physical artifacts alone, without the benefit of written accounts. Also, you have to weigh evidence that comes from prejudiced outsiders, and you should consider the strengths and limitations of sources written by a culture, but well after the events described or mediated through another culture.
For physical artifacts, the Scythians offer extremely rich finds from their burial mounds, some of great beauty, which makes them particularly accessible to students. Some written evidence about Scythians, too, mostly from Herodotus, can help confirm theories based on physical remains. Artifacts can teach modern scholars many things. For example:
The sheer size and structure of royal tombs suggest an ability to organize labor to a high degree.
The complex tattooing found on several well-preserved bodies suggests that Scythians were marked to identify their clan and perhaps their rank.
Elaborate felt garments suggest the climate they confronted.
Elaborate Greek-made wine services, some depicting scenes of Scythian life, show interaction with the Greek world, Scythian fondness for wine, and at least one way in which members of the elite showed their status.
Hemp seeds and objects that fit Herodotus’s descriiption of small steam tents.
These types of artifacts and second-hand accounts of a culture raise interesting questions for students of history. Is everything in the account actually physically possible? What is the author’s relationship to the subject (e.g., neutral visitor, part of a society actively threatened by nomads, ambassador? What can the account tell about what the author valued from his own culture? What parts of the account can be confirmed by other means? Which parts of the account are least plausible? When was it written? What were the author’s possible sources of information? What was the author’s intention in writing?
The Middle East in 1200 was a complicated place, and then came the Mongol eruption into the Middle East in the early thirteenth century. To understand the Mongol invasion, we need to understand topics such as:
The reality of many Muslim-ruled states, rather than the centralized rule of the Abbasid caliph,
What it meant to be an Abbasid caliph in Baghdad ca. 1200,
The rise of the Ayyubid dynasty of Egypt and Syria,
Saladin’s conquest of most of the Crusader kingdom of Jerusalem and the Third Crusade,
The cultural divide between the Arabic-, Persian-, and Turkic-speaking parts of the Islamic world,
The conditions of ordinary people in the Islamic world, such as merchants and peasants, and
The potential for unified action against the Mongols.
Studies of history also provide opportunities to look back and consider the role of disease in the societies already studied, as well as to look forward to more modern cultures. We can consider the role of epidemic disease in history avoiding an overly simplistic understanding of that role. We should understand the spread of epidemic disease as an inevitable part of interaction between societies. We have two modern cases: the AIDS epidemic and fears about the spread of “bird flu.” Now that AIDS is, to a considerable extent, treatable with drugs in affluent societies, it has largely fallen out of U.S. news coverage. It is, of course, still an ongoing, catastrophic human tragedy in much of Africa. With this context, consider the Black Death in Eurasia. Think about the fear that can be generated when people don’t understand how a disease is spread, what means the society had to help those suffering from the Black Death, the actual effect on a population of one epidemic outbreak, as opposed to cyclic reoccurrences, and what a catastrophe such as the Black Death can mean in terms of spiritual crisis.