WELCOME TO SOPHIE’S WORLD

Watch me then check out the template below!!!

Template: A guide to your philosophers’ pages

What is up with that template??

1st

As you read the book, you will follow this class’s video annotations to the text. You will be reminded of these annotations – like a video version of notes in the margin by your class’s –– “facilitator”.

We won’t call whoever’s giving you this course your Teacher, as that title is reserved for Alberto, and even him you should question. (Thoroughly).

These annotations will instruct you on when, how and why to find out more about someone who would have just appeared in Sophie’s World.

Basically, they will tell you to go to a page that looks like our training template, but which is populated by titles and links to a wide variety of multi-media for you to explore. There is one page for each historical figure that pops up in the novel, and all the multi-media content is categorized according to the icons you see on the left side of the page – so you can easily tell which are long or short, funny or serious, etc., and consequently decide which ones you want to watch for any particular historical figure, depending on your level of interest in that person.

Now the question remains: why these explorations beyond the book? Well, to begin with, there’s a lot of cool stuff out there from some amazing instructors – way more cool than I or any of your teachers (woops, I mean “facilitators”) might create. Furthermore, this method allows you to pick and choose how much and with what kind of material you want to further explore Sophie’s World.

Finally, it sets you up for this class’s main assignment, which we’ll explain in the third part of our instructions below…

You will read the book
Sophie’s World.

2nd

Yes, third. These instructions will end, but have you noticed that you haven’t been asked to create anything yet? Well, the time has come, and that’s one of the cool parts of the class that’s a little different from how European History (or any history) is usually taught: you get to be creative, making your own history, rather than just being handed one already created to merely memorize and spit back on some test.

In a nutshell:

  • You do this third step in the instructions at the same time as the first two.
  • Each time you explore a philosopher or historical figure from the novel through the multi-media content on his or her page in our complementary library, you will also create a single page 8 ½ x 11 poster for that person. You can use a computer program like PowerPoint, Google Slides, or Canva and build it yourself; you can use AI; or, if it’s your thing, draw it out by hand (or paint, stencil, collage, whatever floats your boat). Each of these formats should make up at least 25% of your posters. For example, 50% AI assisted art, 25% handcrafted, and 25% exclusively human created computer art would be acceptable, but 90% handcrafted, 10% AI-assisted, and no human created computer art would not be acceptable.
  • The posters should be “complete”, but certainly not wordy – like a poster, they should be informative, but all their information should be readily available to the viewer without having to read too closely. More specifically, it’s recommended each poster you create contains:
    • The full name of who it’s about
    • The years in which they lived
    • Why they’re important (this is just a bullet point, not a paragraph or even necessarily a full sentence). For this you may even want to just list the person’s “Philosophical Project”, once Alberto has defined that term for you in the novel.
    • A quote from or about this person that you think captures why they’re important.
    • What you take away from this person or their philosophical project as being the most important to you – how has it consciously or unconsciously affected, or would you like it to affect, the world you live in or your approach to living in that world?
    • Perhaps a second quote from or about this person that you think captures this second – but definitely more personal, and therefore arguably more important – importance. Did you like that: more important importance? In other words, this second quote is not about why these people or their ideas are important to the world; it’s what about them is important to YOU. Those two things may be the same, but they could also be something completely different, because only you are you.
    • Some kind of visual element: picture(s), graphic(s), interesting but appropriate use of fonts or other design elements – make your poster eye-grabbing, informative, and uniquely yours!

1“Build it yourself” = no AI

2“Use AI” = engineering and evolving a series of prompts to get what you want, keeping a separate record of those iterative prompts to share with your classmates and facilitator. Yup, some big words in that definition, so be sure to look them up! It’s okay – maybe even good – to use AI, but let’s do it right!

3But if you can do it in some other way that is more meaningful to you and your readers, yet still demonstrates that you’re reading the book and using the library of multi-media materials, go for it!

3rd

4th

Really? Do you really want a fourth step? Aren’t the first three enough for now? As I said before, steps 1 – 3 you’ll do all at the same time while reading the book. Step 4 I don’t even want you to think about until steps 1 – 3 are done. So yes, for now, our guidance has ended. Therefore, without any further delay… Let the adventure begin! Open your book and our library: enter Sophie’s World …