I. Creation to the Tower of Babel: Intro to Ancient History
II. Sumer and Babylonia: The Foundations of Civilization
III. Egypt: The Old, Middle, and New Kingdoms
IV. The Hittite Empire
V. The Minoans, Mycenaeans, and the Trojan War
VI. The Sea Peoples and the Bronze Age Collapse
VII. The Hebrews: The Exodus to the Priesthood of Samuel
VIII. The Assyrian Empire
IX. Israel: The Unified Kingdom
X. Israel: The Divided Kingdoms
XI. The Neo-Babylonian Empire
XII. The Achaemenid Persian Empire
XIII. Archaic Greece
XIV. The Roman Kingdom
XV. Classical Greece, Part One: Culture and the Greco-Persian Wars
XVI. Classical Greece, Part Two: The Greek Civil Wars and the Rise of Macedon
XVII. Philip the Conqueror and Alexander the Great
XVIII. The Diadochi and the Hellenistic World
XIX. The Roman Republic, Part One: Government and the Punic Wars
XX. The Roman Republic, Part Two: Culture and the Late Crises
XXI. The Jewish Diaspora
XXII. The Roman Empire, Part One: Augustus to Nerva
XXIII. The Roman Empire, Part Two: Trajan to Constantine I
XXIV. Christianity: Persecution and the Early Church
XXV. The Roman Empire, Part Three: The Fall of Rome and the Barbarian Tribes

A copy of the Bible, preferably in the New King James Version (NKJV) or New American Standard Bible (NASB 1995).

1. Email address

2. Computer and an internet connection capable of video conferencing

3. Headset with attached microphone

4. Internal or external webcam

 

Students will be given personal accounts to access their materials on the online platform moodle.com. An email will be sent by the teacher after enrollment with instructions on how to access this account and create a username and password to use for the duration of the course.

Students have five main assignment types:
1. Tests: Students will be tested on their information after every lesson, with quarterly reviews and a final exam to encourage long-term retention.
2. Essays: As key components for inculcating good writing skills and retaining knowledge, as well as encouraging personal incentive and learning, essays will be assigned once or more per lesson. The instructor will usually provide lists of topics from which students
may choose. Students will receive feedback on both the quality of their research and their writing.
3. Timeline: To help establish a sense of scale and chronology, students will construct an artistic depiction of a timeline, complete with information from each lesson and timelines showing temporal placement and overlap.
4. Participation: The ability to verbally ask and answer questions, join in discussions, and display a mentality that yearns for knowledge is key to the understanding of information and personal growth.
5. Orations: Once per quarter, students will present a brief memorized oration to the instructor and the rest of the class, drawn from a primary source within the time period of the quarter. The instructor will provide a list of passages from which orations will be
drawn. This will serve to hone students’ memory and concentration.

Conduct:  Students are expected to exhibit Christ-like behavior in their discussions and interactions.  While disagreements are permitted, disparaging comments or ad hominem attacks are not.

Attendance:  Students are required to view and participate in a live feed of class.  If a student misses a class session, it is the student’s responsibility to identify and complete assigned work by either contacting a classmate or the instructor. Refer to the school calendar for days off due to holidays or other circumstances.

Plagiarism:  Plagiarism is an act of theft and lying.  You must provide the source for any information posted in your assignments that is not a result of your own work or thinking, even if you paraphrase or summarize another author’s wording.  When three or more words are used from a source, quotation marks must also be supplied.  For more information, visit https://columbiacollege-ca.libguides.com/plagiarism/what_is_plagiarism or ask your instructor.

Late Assignments:  It is the responsibility of each CDA student to contact the course instructor in the event that an assignment will be turned in late.  Never assume that additional time will be granted based on your circumstances.  If you fail to contact your instructor, you may receive 0% for the assignment.

Artificial Intelligence: I am no Luddite, and can understand the many ways in which AI tools such as ChatGPT make learning and research easier. However, one of the key aspects of rhetoric (indeed, one of its core concepts) is “invention.” You are expected to provide your own work, unaided by any artificially intelligent interface, beyond those within common sense (such as a search engine). This is not to proclaim AI as harmful, but rather to prepare you to properly write, speak, and discover for yourself in today’s scholarly community. Use of AI or such tools while writing or answering questions will be considered stealing work from another and graded under the rules of plagiarism.
 

Contact Information:  Your instructor is available for questions and concerns via their email address.  Please use instructor phone numbers for emergencies.  Contact information for the course instructor will be emailed to the students after enrollment is complete.

Grades for Individual Assignments:

Percentage	Letter Grade
98-100%	A+
93-97%	A
90-92%	A-
88-89%	B+
83-87%	B
80-82%	B-
78-79%	C+
73-77%	C
70-72%	C-
69% or less	F

Course Grades

Percentage	Letter Grade	Grade Points
90-100%	A	4.0
80-89%	B	3.0
70-79%	C	2.0
69% or less	F	0.0

 

Grading Weights for this Course

Class Participation	10%
Discussion	20%
Essays	20%
Tests	50%