Assignment 1: Directions: You are a game developer for Nintendo or Sega who has been tasked to create the plot for a video game that deals with an American and/or European Revolution that is discussed in Chapter 7. Students should have their video game focus on one of the following revolutions: American Revolution, French Revolution, and/or Haitian Revolution. If students want, they can focus on one, two, or all three revolutions in their video game idea; but only one revolution is required for this assignment. An example of this could be the Assassin’s Creed video game franchise, which has two games set during the American and French Revolutions.
You should include the following things in your video game assignment: characters (including a main character), levels, quests, collectibles, achievements, easter eggs, transportation, music, pre-order bonus and/or DLC content, boss battles/a final boss, and a post-game should also be included. If you want, your video game could even be open world!
What elements of these revolutions should you include? Think of famous revolutionary leaders, events, battles, politics/documents, artifacts, etc. How will your games be influenced by the Enlightenment, the Scientific Revolution, and other revolutions (if you decide on the French or Haitian ones)?
For examples of levels: You can create a level where you have a timed mission to storm and steal valuables from the Bastille Palace in Paris, or you have a social-friendship quest to convince enslaved Africans to rebel against the colonial French in Haiti, or you have an epic final boss battle where you play as General George Washington and defeat Lord Cornwallis at Yorktown, Virginia.
Students are encouraged and allowed to use AI to gather images for their hypothetical video game. Google Slides or a PDF might work the best.
Assignment 2: Native American & Aboriginal Australian History Museum Activity
Directions: Congratulations, you are now the owner and curator for a museum focusing on Native American History! You are tasked to find 28 different artifacts that exemplify each of the following seven Indigenous groups’ unique history, culture, religion, artwork, and geography. The seven cultures are: Aztec Empire, Inka Empire, Powhatan Confederacy, Iroquois Confederacy, Wampanoag Tribe, Inuit, and Aboriginal Australia. Therefore, students must have four uniqueartifacts from each Native American group. These artifacts can be from pre or post-European contact.
Be sure to include visuals (pictures) of your artifacts, along with written exhibit descriptions of your 28 artifacts and how they directly relate to your Indigenous American group. As a museum exhibit, your exhibitions should be flash to catch people’s attention from afar! Google Slides will be the easiest format to do this assignment, but you can produce your work however you want.
Key Questions to Consider:
1.) Most Indigenous American societies did NOT have written language, excluding some Mesoamerican cultures! Despite this, how did Native Americans (and Aboriginal Australians) record and preserve their historical identities, and how do historians/archaeologists learn about their cultures in contemporary times?
2.) What primary sources can we use to study the Native Americans/Aboriginal Australians?
3.) As predominantly oral cultures, were the Native Americans (and Australian Aboriginals) lesser, barbaric, or inferior compared to Western cultures & civilizations like the white Euro-Americans believed?