Pedagogy
The authors of Medicine, Health, and Healing in the Ancient Mediterranean (500 BCE – 600 CE) have created an Instructors’ Guide linked here that provides helpful tools for instructors assigning the book in their courses. The guide is organized around scaffolded questions, exercises, and assignments that guide students from basic comprehension to more active, analytical engagement with the subject matter and materials found in each chapter.
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Pre-Reading Questions – Questions that require no prior knowledge, intended to incite students’ interest in the subject matter, and get students thinking about the topics they are going to study.
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Reading Comprehension Questions – Questions intended to ensure that students are understanding the material in the chapter before engaging in more analytic and synthetic types of thinking; they can also be used as the basis for in-class discussions or as short answer questions on tests.
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Analytic Questions – Questions that ask students to engage analytically with the material in the chapter; they can be used for reading responses, in-class discussions, writing assignment prompts, or short or long essay assignments/test prompts.
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Experiential Learning/Creative Exercises – Questions and activities that ask students to embody or apply material from the chapter. They are especially useful for students who prefer active, hands-on learning; they can be used as in-class activities or assignments.
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Questions That Connect With Other Chapters – Questions that ask students to think synthetically, to put together material across chapters, and to make larger connections; they can be used for reading responses, mid-term, or final essay prompts. Note: the same question will show up in all chapters where material from the question is referenced, but instructors may find them more helpful to use in one chapter versus the other.
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Important Terms/Concepts – A list of key terms and concepts from the chapter; instructors can ask students to define the terms/concepts on quizzes/tests to ensure comprehension.
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Further Readings – A list of the key primary and secondary sources we consulted in writing the headnotes for chapters. They can serve as additional resources for creating lectures, assigned as complementary readings to accompany the sourcebook chapter, or used for student research projects.
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Additionally, at the end of the guide are links to sample syllabi, which will be expanded over time.
If you are using the sourcebook in your class and are willing to share your own questions, exercises, assignments, and syllabi, please email one of the authors (hmarxwolf@gmail.com, upsonsaia@oxy.edu, or jared.secord@gmail.com).