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how science really comes to its conclusions, a process that involves a few hundred years of work.

I think you have started the year off great Mr. Burell, by making history actually fun and interesting. Also, I just thought history was facts, but actually it is one big story. You made me help understand this. It's all about the story not just the facts! I thought this is making history one of my most enjoyable subjects so far.

So far from what we've learned from the past couple weeks has given me new take on history. For the longest time, history has just been boring old facts that we memorize to get a good grade in school. But learning all of this information from Prehistory all the way to about year zero, it has made me realize how similar things are from the far ancient past, to our present day world. It shows us why a certain occurrence happened and the outcome of it. But there is always that question of the IF. If this had or didn't happen, what would be changed? This brings us the to fact that we constantly think of theories the IF. History is now interesting and has the affect of making me want to relate everything from the past to our current day. I find the IF so fascinating. The thought of how things could have been so entirely different if something hadn't happened or someone had done something different. Its always the question that people will ask. For instance, If Alexander hadn't decided to continue conquering and develop empire, how would things have been different today? Maybe Europe would have their countries completely rearranged, maybe certain countries might be larger and others wouldn't exist. We could go on and on and on thinking about the IF.

Before this year, I had always thought of history as confusing and at times boring; the first activity we did (the one where we had to chart civilization's various points on a timeline) did not help. However, after learning things through a story, my thoughts and opinions regarding history have changed. In such little time, history's various "progress checkpoints" have chronologically embedded themselves in my head. This could not have happened had I not learned it through a story. For example, I learned about evolution in 6th and 7th grade. Did I remember the years, discoveries and dates? Nope, but after these first 3 weeks of Western Civ, I think I might stand a chance. Basically, the year so far has simplified history, in turn allowing me to draw my own conclusions without taking up too much memory :) .

I think that the big picture helps because it brings you through how everything happened, without saying remembering it only by little facts and exact dates.

Last year we learned about a 100-300 year long time period. In 5 weeks we have already learned from about a 3.5 million years ago to almost 2000 years ago. The funny part is that we thought that last year we learned a ton of history. It is amazing to think that last year, and many years before we thought that Christopher Columbus was way far back, but really it isn't at all. We have learned that history is a huge time line and US history is at the very end of it. It just seems so weird that things that I always thought were really long ago weren't that far back when you look at the whole picture.

Over the course of my whole life and all the social studies courses that i have taken all I have learned is memorizing. For example in 8th grade we just memorized the different branches in the US government. We never really learned the purposes of them and what they did. Over the whole Pre-history to Greek unit I really fell like I have learned the stuff and really understood it through the process of connecting the story. Learning the history that we have learned in our class has not only been educational but it also has helped me learn about how life works today. How it all seems to connect. I am really interested in learning about how the rest of history from the year 0 connects with our world today. History is kind of like a never ending puzzle, it connects to parts that lead up to other parts and it keeps going on.

I used to think that history didn't effect me at all because it happened before I was born ,but I realized that the reason that the world is like this is because of history.I enjoy learning about history because I know someway somehow I will get an answer.I have always been the person in class who would say that "History is the way it is because it just is."I didn't want answers because I was afraid of challenging what I know and what I believe. But I realized that the only way for the world to progress is to ask questions and find answers.

I use to think history was boring.. and i kinda still do, but its starting to get less boring because instead of having to memorize the events and dates, we learn it as a "story". Im not really good with dates, in fact i have a very hard time remembering dates and the significant events that happened during that time, and i think that this "big picture" way is really helping me with seeing the all of this as a whole, and not just numbers.

Hey. I appreciate your thoughts and I was exactly like you at the beginning of ninth grade. I am realizing how important history is too all of us. Yes, the future is cooler but just think of how awesome history is and what it has done for us. HISTORY....................

At the beginning of the year, I thought history was a complete bore. I now am starting to realize how fascinating it is. I haven't yet come to the point where I really like it but... The whole big picture thing really helps and thinking of history like a story, which it is, helps me grasp information and remember it a lot better. Things like how a marathon started really interest me. To an extent, this is schoolwork but I think I like history a lot better than the beginning of the year.. It may be because I understand it a lot and know tons more than I did when I entered ninth grade. I would still rather learn about the future than the past, but knowing the past will help predict the future. I guess. :]