1450+Project+Assignment,+Part+1


 * The World in 1450: Assignment Part 1**

You and your group will be creating an article on the topic you have chosen. The topic must be on something having to do with the world as it was around 1450. Your topic must approved by me, your teacher.

Your article must educate the reader about your topic. You must provide the reader with the relevant information, organized so that the reader learns the important points. Accordingly, don't get bogged down in minute details about your topic. You want to educate, not bore to tears. You may need to provide information about your topic before 1450 in order to provide adequate context. Use your best judgement, or ask me or your classmates for help.

Before you begin researching, ask yourselves:
 * What does the class need to know about our topic around 1450?
 * How much of the history of our topic before 1450 do we need to include in our section?
 * How many different sections are we planning on making?
 * How are we going to organize our information: thematically, regionally, chronologically?
 * What pictures, audio files, movies, etc., do we plan on including?

Use encyclopedias, books in our library or the public library, your textbook, and appropriate web sites for your research. Keep good records of where you get your information, so that you can cite your sources appropriately.

Once you have your information, you will begin writing your article. Your article must be entirely original in content, which means no cutting and pasting from other websites. As you write, you may choose to insert links to relevant content elsewhere on the web or to insert pictures, sounds and videos in your article.

Your grade for this project will be based on the following guidelines:
 * 1) Content: How accurate is your article? How complete is it? Is everything in it relevant and important to the topic? Does it educate the reader without boring him or her?
 * 2) Conventions: How well written is your article? Is it generally free of grammatical and spelling errors? Is the layout easy to read?
 * 3) Whizzbang: How cool is the article? Did you include cool, yet appropriate widgets, files, pictures, links, charts, etc.?

This is worth 40 points in the assignments category of your grade. Assigned as follows, depending on how well you meet the criteria of the above guidelines:
 * 1) Content: 20 points possible. 20 points will be given if your article is reasonably complete, covering the major important points of the topic, and contains no major errors. Additionally, your article must be educational. Points will be deducted for incomplete sections, irrelevant passages, or errors that detract from the article's usefulness.
 * 2) Conventions: 10 points possible. 10 points will be given if your writing is free of misspellings, typos, and contains no serious grammatical errors. Also, you weill receive full credit if your layout is accessible to the reader. Misspellings, serious grammatical errors, and difficult layouts will result in deductions.
 * 3) Whizzbang: 10 points possible. 10 points will be given for articles that contain an appropriate level of cool widgets, files, etc. Too much or too little coolness will result in deductions.

Additionally, your grade will be based on how well your contributions were rated by your fellow group members and my observations of your work habits. If you do not contribute equally to the project you will lose points.


 * Your article is due Friday, September 2, at the beginning of class.** Good luck.

In the next step of the assignment, we will begin working on other groups' articles. As part of this step, you will be adding to other groups' articles, commenting on them, discussing them, etc. So, feel free to explore everyone else's pages. We'll talk more about this later, but for the time being, read other articles, and comment on them through the discussion tab at the top of the page.

Have fun.