Hello Everyone,

Good work this week. We had a lot to get through this week but you were able to take it in stride. This week we finished off chapter 1 and started to explore chapter 2. We saw the importance of trade, economy and looked at the events of the crusades. Overall we have looked at some of the foundation of the Renaissance and laid the ground work of understanding how and why changes are going to happen. We looked a little bit at monasteries and how they created manuscripts. We saw the importance of contact with a much more advanced Muslim civilization and what the Europeans learned from them. We looked at calligraphy and how much time and effort goes into making very deliberate texts. You also were assigned your calligraphy project that consists of writing one word on a piece of paper. The purpose of this is to get repeated feedback on how to improve, to apply design thinking and get used to the process of reflecting and improving rather than focusing on completing the product. We will continue this work next week and discuss the heart of the Renaissance, the Italian City States.

Have a great weekend.