Ancient Civilization Paper due April 17

Today we started writing the "Ancient Civilization" paper.  This paper takes the place of a "book test" on Chapter 7 "History of Middle and South America".  This paper has involved several steps: taking notes, completing a paragraph diagram, and writing the paper.  The paper is actually very easy; 11 sentences about one of the ancient civilizations, and is the type of paragraph the kids have been asked to write in their ELA classes.

This paper is due Tuesday, April 17, at the beginning of class.  We had time in class today to write the paper, and I will give the kids "some time" on Monday to finish their paper. However, we will not spend the entire class period working on the paper as many kids turned in their paper today :-)

Below are the directions for the paper:

Ancient Civilization Paper

1.   You MUST skip lines when you write your paper!!  If you do not skip lines, I WILL NOT accept your paper!

2.   Spelling Counts!!  Take time to make sure your paper has no misspelled words.

3.   Your paper will be due Tuesday, April 17, when you walk in the door!!

4.   If you are going to type your paper, you will need to type at home.  There are no computer labs available! 

5.   If you type, you need to follow these directions :

Use “Comic Sans” font

Use 12 or 14 as your font size

Use 1.5  or 2 spacing

Use Spell Check!

This is also information we went over, twice, in class:

Ancient Civilization Paper

1.       Choose ONE group that you will write about in your paper.  Choose from the Maya, Aztec, or Inca

2.      Use your notes and/or your book; this is NOT a test from memory!  Use the information available to you J

3.  Start completing your paragraph diagram.  The first thing you will need is a good Topic Sentence.  The topic sentence lets the reader know what the paper will be about; you can probably use a General Topic Sentence.  This will let me know what group you selected for your paper.  Example:  “The Olmec were an ancient civilization that lived in what is now southern Mexico.”

4.  Think of the three major points of interest you will be writing about; these will be your three Lead Off Sentences.  On the Paragraph Diagram they are labeled as Lead -off #1, Lead-off #2, and Lead-off #3.  Example: “The Olmec carved heads out of stone.”

5.    For each Lead-off Sentence, you will need to write two supporting sentences.  These sentences will be more information about the lead-off sentence.  Example: “The heads the Olmec carved were of massive size.  Many of the stone heads were over six feet tall and the stones used to carve the heads weighed 10 to 40 tons.” (This is an example of two follow-up sentences.)