How do you choose which ancient civilizations to teach and what key points to focus on for each?

Thank you so much for these 5 amazing questions.  I am intrigued by placing them in the hands of my 8th grade gifted students to see how they might answer them. Of course, in order to answer those questions they would need a basic understanding of so many civilizations.  

And, I teach middle school.  You referenced (quite correctly) "probably covered in MS."  You are not wrong, but I, too, am more concerned with the big picture and the interconnectedness.  I don't want my students' first big exposure to Ancient World History to be one in which they see history as a compartmentalization of groups. I want them to see the big, interconnected picture.

And, I have the teacher "down the hall" who is not using WHP and had just completed "Mesopotamia" and is now moving on to "Egypt."  How do I reconcile this?  And how do I make sure my students have the basic understanding of the key components of the civilizations?  Is there a corollary to the "Big Five Religions" that would be the "Big 5 (or 6 or 4 or 7) Civilizations"?

Hi Drew Fortune ! I teach BHP, but also cover ancient civilizations in the Spring. My students do have WHP in the 9th grade before having BHP in the 10th grade, so there is some prior knowledge there. But- I let my students choose which civilization they would like to work on for a civilization project we work on as a class. I have 8 small groups in each of my classes, so we get to learn about 8 different civilizations through student presentations. I let students choose from the OER civilization options in BHP. 

Thanks for sharing—that’s so close to what I’m doing this semester, too! I have my students choose a civilization and work in small groups to dive into their research and presentations so we get this wonderful spread of ancient societies, just like you. After that, we loop back, and they pair up to do an “Autopsy of an Empire” based on one of their classmates' chosen civilizations. It’s been an amazing way for them to build on each other’s work and see how these societies connect and compare. Thanks again for the inspiration—your approach sounds fantastic!

In Selah at 9th grade for our BHP class, we do a two day infographic group project as a precursor to individual research and writing (and building websites).  Each team of 3-4 students is given a representative civilization from each continent.  Pick these for them.  These are the typical civilizations everyone knows.  The students are given the 8 elements of civilization and research something related to each of these 8 and draw out an infographic poster.  We present the posters to the class, and after that, we then open up the brainstorming.  We identify many other civilizations, beyond the Romans, Egyptians, or Chinese, but to places like Korea, or Indus River, or Olmec among others.  Struggling kids, or ones who just don't want to work very hard, will choose on of these major civilizations we did the infographics on for their individual inquiry projects.  Others relish in the fact they are the only ones who chose a unique civilization, like the city state of Ur or the Songhai.  There are always half a dozen doing Egypt, but kids picking their own goes further than me telling them what to do. 

I created a simple research Doc to jump start my students for a website build project investigating cililizations.  It's nothing majorly amazing, but making and manipulating a copy might save someone some hours.  My students can choose ANY early agricultural civilization, but it's natural for most students to pick one and go! 

docs.google.com/.../edit

Thank you for sharing this. I like the idea of the infographic. It sets a baseline and can be displayed for future reference. 

I assigned some of the major civilizations to small groups of students and had them submit their proposal to the "World Archaeological Conference."  Their proposal includes how they chose the site (we look into this as we study this discipline) and at least five significant artifacts located there.  As in your activity, the artifacts "found" have to fall under one of the components of a civilization.  They present their "findings" to the conference board, offer conclusions, and share where they are headed next based on their findings. I even have them indicate their findings on a grid (graph paper). For those in the group who need to use their hands/imaginations - one person shares how they happened upon this site (often an amazing story of combining research and luck) and others recreate the artifacts found. 

Drew Fortune there are so many good ideas here! In my case I teach Big History and covering all civilizations is a huge challenge. What I do is I introduce the main concepts through the reading of the articles that contain a similar framework of analysis and then I divide the class into groups where each one chooses an ancient civilization following the Museum Project format. I love this project because students have to transform the classroom into a museum. They have a lot of fun getting dressed as people in that civilization, bringing music, food, and their own artifacts to transport people back in time.

Another interesting option is to complete The Rise, Fall, and Collapse of Civilizations. OER offers many possibilities and it is extremely versatile and flexible.

 Drew Fortune , it's always a challenge. When I taught Origins, one thing that helped me was to decide on a focus. I'd use a compelling question for the unit and align everything we did in class to supporting it. Using a compelling question definitely helped the students make sense of what they were learning. Would the Unit Problem (How did complex societies develop and how did they impact humans inside and outside these communities?) help you decide what to include?

Just saw this post now, but I wanted to just share an activity that I do that might help.  In NY, I just follow the state framework on which civilizations/topics to cover but I definitely don't spend too much time on content on all these civilizations as I used to.  Instead, I give students/groups a bit more ownership of the information and have them create a real estate advertisement on the topic.  Even if you're going to teach it in class, it might work well as an informal assessment.  I let students use Google Slides, Canva, etc. - basically whatever they're comfortable with.  

These are the requirements: 

Imagine time travel exists and you are charged with promoting travel to different time periods/locations. Create a real estate advertisement for one of the four river valley civilizations we have examined. Your goal is to promote travel to your time period and location. Make sure your advertisement:

-describes the geography of the region
-describes all the reasons why your river valley allowed civilization to develop
-mentions all the benefits of living in the civilization you chose
-use images that complement your ideas
-be creative - do not make a list, make an advertisement with a persuasive message and the evidence to back it up

Todd Nussen This seems really fun.  Do the students like it?