Rubric for Final Project on the Silk Road

Curatorial note from Digital Pedagogy in the Humanities: Students in this 100-level class recreate the trajectory of a historical route via the Google Earth virtual globe. The choice of the 3-D Earth platform (versus the 2-D Google Maps) provides a sense of the topographical relief that would have affected all aspects of travel across that route. Students are expected to go beyond a simple recreation of the geometric “line” of the Silk Road itself by integrating other digital media (images, timelines, text) to annotate their geographical points. Though the rubric does not indicate what would constitute inferior or superior grades, the author has distinguished between the various technical, cartographic, and textual interpretive elements of the final project