YOU WILL FOCUS ON THE Easter Rising 1916 (rebellion in Ireland) 

Use this textbook, mostly chapter 11, for references: Susan Kingsley Kent, A New History of Britain Since 1688: Four Nations and an Empire (Oxford University Press, 2016)

Assignment Overview

At the beginning of the class and at several points since then, I have used historical timelines to give you a sense of change (or continuity) over time and to help you see developments within Britain and its colonial and other activities abroad within the historical frame. The British Empire was so large and complex that it is impossible for me, as the instructor, to cover all of its part or to draw your attention to everything that was happening at any one point in time. The purpose of this assignment is to give us a macro view of the British Empire by creating a collaborative, student-driven digital history project throughout the quarter. Through your collective efforts, we are going to produce a crowd-sourced historical timeline of the British Empire with a spatial dimension. By conducting research for your individual and group contributions to the assignment, each of you will also gain more expertise in a particular part of the world that was once a part of or otherwise touched by the British Empire. By focusing on the experience of empire from the perspective of one region, my hope is that you will not only learn more about one of its component parts (and how it fit into the larger whole) but also gain more of an outside-in (or bottom-up) sense of the empire as a whole rather than viewing the imperial center or metropole (i.e. Britain or England) as the center of the story.

What is Timemapper?

Timemapper is a program powered by Google Sheets and Google Maps that produces a hybrid timeline and map in which one can navigate through a subject by location and time. See their website here: http://timemapper.okfnlabs.org/ (Links to an external site.)

The program has the ability to add images, text, dates/time period, and GPS coordinates. These are the four main components we will use for this project. 

Round 1: Begin at the beginning – For this first round of entries focus on the 150 years between 1650 and 1800 (or thereabouts). Start of the beginning of Britain’s relationship with your region. If Britain only developed a connection with your region at a later date, then start with the period early of contact, whenever that was.

Criteria and Rubric for Entries

Content: Does the entry demonstrate a thorough understanding and provide an adequate description of the topic?  

Context: Does the entry connect the topic to the broader British Empire? In other words, does the entry make connections to outside regions, whether Britain or other parts of the British Empire, and/or to larger developments with the empire?   

Style and Presentation: Does the entry follow the guidelines for encyclopedia-style entries? Is the entry free of grammatical and spelling errors? Is the presentation of material clear and understandable?

Content = 30 pts

Context = 20 pts

Style and Presentation = 20 pts