Planet Money: Bloody, Miserable Medieval Economics

Here is the last extra credit opportunity for the quarter. Listen to the following podcast from NPR's "Planet Money". Scroll down to under the picture and start listening at 3:17.

For credit, you should answer the following questions in your notebook. This is due by Friday, June 4th.

• Who actually had local authority in the 12 and 13th centuries?
• What does the professor equate knights to? Do you agree with his analogy?
• What was the role of the peasant on the knight's land?
• What was the purpose of the guild system?
• Why did the guild system begin to breakdown in the 14th and 15th century?
• Why was specialization of labor frowned down upon by the guild?
• Why did the guilds limit the number of members?
• Why didn't guild members just mass produce their goods to gain wealth?

Life in a Monastery

Q4, Week 6: Weekly Calendar

WHI 5-24

Q4, Week 5: Weekly Calendar

WHI 5-18

The European Middle Ages: Unit Guide

Middle Ages Objectives and Questions

More from Ishmael Beah

For those interested, here is the interview from NPR's "Fresh Air with Ishmael Beah.

Q4, Week 4

Your Africa Unit Assessment will be this Friday! You will receive a study guide in class. Here is the calendar for this week. Mistakenly, I only copied one side of the study guide. Here it is in its two page glory.

Study Guide Ancient Africa

5-10

Extra Credit: Africa Unit

In 2007, former child-soldier Ishmael Beah published his memoir of his harrowing experience of being a child soldier in Sierra Leone. This excerpt, "The Making and Unmaking of a Child Soldier", published by the New York Times, is a small piece of the much larger book, "A Long Way Gone".

Need some extra credit? 1.) Read the article, and 2.) Type up a ONE PARAGRAPH summary. 3.) be prepared to share THIS week with the class.

What is your migration story?

For homework tonight, please think a bit about your family's own migration story. To complete this assignment you will need to talk to some family members. Some of your migration stories will go back generations and some people can write about their own personal story.

Please print out a map that works with the area of the world that your family migrated from/immigrated to. I want you to trace the route of your family (like on the BANTU migration story above. On the back of the map, or on a separate piece of paper, please write a journal entry (from the first person), detailing your migration story.

Be prepared to share with the class tomorrow!

Q4, Week 3,

WHI 5-3