Sara Steinbauer Ben Franklin High School New Orleans, Louisiana
INTRODUCTION:
The Renaissance was a period of diversity and change in many areas - political, social, economic, and cultural. As a result, innovation took place in the way people viewed themselves and their world. Spurred by a reawakened interest in classical learning, especially the culture of ancient Greece and Rome, creative Renaissance minds set out to transform their own age. Their era, they felt, was a time of rebirth after the ecclesiastically prescribed order of the medieval world.
A major change ushered in by Renaissance thought was the belief
in the worth of the individual and of a temporal life not necessarily
focused on the spiritual realm. This view was to replace the medieval
principle that the life of the spirit and the afterworld was superior
to building and enjoying earthly culture.
It is the change within this principle that helped to create the
modern world and marked a move away from the medieval era.
This project, created for a 10th grade World History class, is designed to aid the student in comparing and contrasting the components of medieval and Renaissance culture as they occurred within a specific city-state or region of Europe.
TIME:
1-2 class periods to organize and begin the group research
4--5 class periods for group presentations
A general introduction to the late medieval -early Renaissance
period should precede the project so students have some idea of
the era.
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