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The readiness assessment tests are given every two weeks to assess your readiness for the more complex thinking required for team assignments. These tests measure recognition and basic comprehension of (1) essential terms and (2) primary sources.
NOTE: each RAT takes place after an in-class study session, but before in-depth processing of the reading material in class. Therefore, doing well on RATs requires more than attending the in-class study session. Most students find themselves needing to allow more time than they are used to for reading assigned materials.
Students may raise their RAT score for a given unit by submitting a summary of EITHER the optional film listed on the syllabus next to the date of the RAT for that unit (10 points--attach store or library receipt) OR one or two of the optional EB readings listed on syllabus next to the date of the RAT for that unit (5 points each--a maximum of 10 points). Any points earned from summaries are added directly to the the immediately preceding RAT.
IMPORTANT: summaries submitted as a substitute for a unit test may not be used for extra credit!
In order to receive full credit, these summaries must concisely and insightfully incorporate the following:
Other Requirements:
CAUTION: the optional films are not necessarily easier to summarize than the readings!!
for RAT #0 (Trial)
[based on SHM, 1-12, 31-32; EB listings and the four on-line readings linked to the schedule of readings; ]
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Terms in "Myths, |
myth legend fantasy |
Terms in SHM: |
myth |
Terms in EB: |
myth |
Excerpts:
"The original model used the metaphor of a 'garbage can' to describe the 'messy,' non-linear, non-rational context of decision-making in which streams of ideas, participants, solutions, problems, politics swirl. Unpredicatability, serendipity, and a measure of chaos characterize the environment....[this] model builds on the garbage can and helps us understand the dynamics of movement through those swirling streams - adding the role of policy entrepreneurs -- those who have the capital and are willing to risk it to advocate and move ideas - and policy windows - which describe opportunities to take action."
"The pond was about the size of a football field. I sat right next to the water. I started playing with some bugs on the ground, but was mostly looking at every detail around me. The sky was cloudy, so the sun would shine through every couple of minutes and then go behind a cloud. After I had looked at every detail of the hill and pond, I began to wonder about why people had to go through all these tough times. I mean, I began to think that there had to be something more to life then this destruction, “evil,” that people had to face all the time. Feeling confusion and pure desperation, I looked up at the Sky..."
"The branches surely are the faculty – without them the tree would have no form. Certainly the leaves are our students – multitudes of them in all different shapes, sizes and colors, dancing in the wind and changing with the seasons. They give evidence to the ever-altering nature of life. However, no tree can live long without a strong and healthy root system - this is the role of the staff. Through our work we bring the essential nutrients to every part of the tree. Underground, unseen, quietly and oftentimes without much tangible reward, we do our jobs proudly, with dignity and strength, for the good of the tree."
"No one else seemed to notice or care about this as they gathered before class and then hurried out at the end, some pulling out their cell phones to continue their last conversation as if they had paused it just five minutes earlier, others chatting with each other about their weekend plans. Ellen herself never thought that much about it until the day she stayed after class to tell Flowerette about her idea for the midterm paper assignment. Ellen told her she wanted to write about Lewis Caroll's life and where he got the idea for Alice, and the professor's eyes twinkled as she said, "Great choice! That classic work never seems any less relevant to me." Ellen had walked just fifty feet from the door after leaving the classroom when she remembered the water bottle she had placed under her desk, and went back to get it."
[TOP]
for RAT #1
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Terms in SHM: |
sky god |
Terms in EB: |
descent line Maori oral tradition Pueblo tribes Navajo Chichen Itza Yucatan Maya |
Excerpts:
"Mayas had long pondered the obviously catastrophis fate of their ancient predecessors, those who built the great ruins that dot the land, who fought the Spaniards long ago, and who disappeared in defeat or digust. In some Maya legends that ancient race still lives in a distant land to the east, or hidden underground, or immobilized as enchanted beings of the sort whose carved images abound amongst ruined temples and pyramids. Wherever they are, Mayas have belived, those predecessors do live and await the moment of their return. Chichen Itza has seemed a likely abode for such mysterious beings, and Mayas have long spoken of a dormant king who resides there to this day, his still loyal subordinates dwelling in the subsurface water passages that honeycomb the peninsula."
“'Somebody sent you,' she said, and he noticed she was holding a small willow staff, slightly curved at one end. A cool wind blew down from the northwest rim of the mountain plateau above them and rattled the apricot leaves. He got off the mare and loosened the cinch; the horse tried to shake off sweat and fatigue. The leather and steel fittings on the saddle and bridle clashed together violently. She stepped out from under the tree then. She was wearing a man's shirt tucked into a yellow skirt that hung below her knees. Pale buckskin moccasins reached the edge of her skirt. The silver buttons up the side of each moccasin had rainbirds carved on them....she wore her hair long, like the old women did, pinned back in a knot."
"The horse was dozing under the tree. Her left hind foot was flexed and resting on the toe, the way horses did when they had to stand in one place for a long time. He rode slowly through the groves of dry sunflower stalks left over from better years, and it was then he saw a bright green hummingbird shimmering above the dry sandy ground, flying higher and higher until it was only a bright speck. Then it was gone. But it left something with him; as long as the hummingbird had not abandoned the land, somewhere there were still flowers, and they could all go on."
"At daybreak exploding rockets proclaimed the ritual 'planting' of the 'silk-cotton tree," which had been felled and brought into the shrine village the day before....it was, in fact, a more prosaic, though economically important, sapodilla, from which chicle is bled and whose sweet fruits attract such edible prey as the coatamundi. Cowboys in procession carried the tree horizontally on their sholders, while the Second Swineherd roade on top and posed as a cornered coatamundi. Two...priests followed them, each with a candle in one hand and a small bell in the other, which they rang while chanting prayers in harmony, the orchestra playing tunes to match. A motley crowd of excited, shouting men and boys brought up the rear."
Film Scene:
"My name is Paikea Apirana...and I come from a long line of chiefs, stretching all the way back to Hawaiiki, where our ancient ones are--the ones that first heard the land crying and sent a man. His name was also Paikea, and I am his most recent descendent. But I was not the leader my grandfather was expecting, and by being born, I broke the line back to the ancient ones. It wasn't anybody's fault. It just happened....But we can learn. And if the knowledge is given to everyone, we can have lots of leaders, and soon everyone will be strong, not just the ones that've been chosen. Because sometimes, even if you're the leader and you need to be strong, you can get tired. Like our ancestor Paikea, when he was lost at sea, and he couldn't find the land, and he probably wanted to die. But he knew the ancient ones were there for him, so he called out to them to lift him up and give him strength."
[TOP]
for RAT #2
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Terms in SHM: |
mother goddess grain mother civilization creation stories Gilgamesh imams |
Terms in EB: |
creator god priests ancestors Dogon Vodou lwa (=loa) |
Excerpts:
"He refused to linger over the dimensions of the moon, nor did he ever say anything about them. The moon's function was not important, and he would speak of it later. He said however that, while Africans were creatures of light emanating from the fullness of the sun, Europeans were creatures of the moon-light: hence their immature appearance. He spat out his tobacco as he spoke. [He] had nothing against Europeans. He was not even sorry for them. He left them to their desitny in the lands of the north."
"...the wild animals were the first to realize the historical significance of the man's cry, the beast's bellow and the gunshot that had just shattered the morning peace. They showed it by behaving strangely. The birds: vultures, hawks, wavers, doves, uttering strange cries, took flight from the trees, but instread of soaring they swooped down upon the land animals and men. Sartled by this unusual attack, the wild beasts charged towards the village compounds, the crocodiles rushed from the water and fled into the forest, while men and dogs, amid infernal shouting and barking, scattered and fled into the bush. The forests multiplied the echoes of the cry..."
"The drum beat of the maman "breaks" and at that very moment, a man standing on the sidelines...keels over backwards, as if stunned by the blow....The fall has been broken by several persons standing beside the man, and they are supporting him, bracing the still dead weight of his body, so that he remains on his feet. Then his body jerks violently out of its stillness, and with a mighty wrench which knocks one of his supporters to the ground, he frees himself and hurtles forward into the dance area of the peristyle. Now the drum has caught him up, catapults him from side to side. A woman who has accidently been jarred...freezes on one leg--as if this contact had been a contagion--lurches forward, is also caught up in the drums."
"...Chekura was a truly frightening creature, hideous and savage. He had glaring eyes like a black savanna buffalo. His plaited hair, laden with amulets, was haunted by a cloud of flies. He wore copper earrings, and his neck was welded to his shoulders by iron collars studded with magic charms....His nose was broad and flat, with a deep eroded furrow between nostril and cheek, like those that form at the foot ofhills. He had broad shoulders like a chimpanzee, a hairy chest and limbs; a mouth always pursed in ill-temper, an abrupt way of speaking, a shambling gait and bow-legs. He was the son and gradson of a fetish-priest, born and bred amidst sacrifices and ritual; rainy season and dry, there hung over him the scent of slaughter and burnt offerings, silent mysteries and hidden suffering."
Film Scene:
"I was waiting for you. I know why you're here. You want to know why I keep Mabo here. Is that right?...Tell me your name first...It's a nice name. Do you know what it means?...That's a pity. You don't know. What can you teach to children without knowing your own origin?..If you wish, I can explain your origin....I'll listen to you. But before, it is you who will listen to me. There are 124,000 beings between the sky and the earth, who breathe like you and me. Of all these 124,000 beings, I am only ignorant of two things: sheep and sorghum. So don't tell Mabo anymore that his ancestor was a gorilla! He was a king, Maghan Kon Fatta Konate, king of Mande....My son, knowledge is heavy with sense. Knowledge is ungraspable, complex. It might be in the breath of ancestors, in millet, in sand. It passes from spirit to man, from the man to the spirit."
[TOP]
for RAT #3
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Terms in SHM: |
Axial Age |
Terms in EB: |
shen Yin & Yang Huang Ti (=Di) Celestial Masters medium bodhisattva |
Excerpts:
"Many years earlier, Bean Curd Jong married an evil young woman. From the beginning, the household was unhappy because the wicked daughter-in-law worried and scolded her mother-in-law night and day. Finally, the old lady could bear no more, and hanged herself dressed in a bridal costume. ...After her death--as the daughter-in-law learned when she consulted a spirit medium about an illness--the old lady complained to the King of Hell about her daughter-in-law's wickedness, and she and the King of Hell together plotted the untimely death of the whole family. First the ghost of the old lady stole the soul of her son, who had violated his filial obligations by supporting his wife against her. Bean Curd Jong died shortly after his mother. His daughter was the next to die, then the evil daughter-in-law, and finally the son."
"The three schools--Confucianism, Buddhism, Daoism--are like the signboards hung outside three shops. In reality they are all sellers of mixed provisions; they all sell fuel, rice, oil, salt. But the shop belonging to the Confucian family is bigger; the Buddhist and Daoist shops are smaller. There is nothing they don't stock in all the shops.....All teachings have two layers: one can be called the surface teaching, one the inner teaching. The inner teachings are all the same: the surface teachings are all different. So Buddhist monks shave their heads; Taoist priests do their hair up in a coil; you can tell at a glance which is Buddhist and which is Taoist. If you ask the Buddhist monk to keep his hair and do it up in a coil and wear a feather-trimmed coat, and the Taoist preist to shave his hair and put on a gown of camlet, then people will call them by the opposite names."
"They followed this advice and taking telescopes and rugs went up the zigzag staircase at the back. When they entered the pavilion, they sat at a table by a window and looked out toward the east. All they could see were white waves like mountains stretching away without end. To the northeast were several flecks of blue mist....Around the pavilion the wind rushed and roared until the whole building seemed to be shaking. The clouds in the sky were piled up, one layer upon another. In the north was one big bank of cloud that floated to the middle of the sky and pressed down upon the clouds that were already there, and then began to crowd more and more upon a layer of cloud in the east until the pressure seemed insufferable. The whole spectacle was most ominous. A little later the sky became a shining strip of red."
"The men of the lineage...are descended in a direct line from a common ancestor, who founded the lineage over eight hundred years ago. Seen from the outside, the lineage appears to be a highly solidary, unified social group, which struggles for power, status, and wealth with other such social gropus. In the ideal view of the villagers, too, the lineage is a unitary group of brothers and kinsmen who enjoy equal status and a common social identity. Seen from within, however, the lineage i s a patchwork of competing families and sublineages. The ideal of fraternal equality is undermined by a drive for achievement that pits brother against brother. After death men who fail to rise in village society join the ranks of malevolent ghosts who popoulate the dark supernatural world of the spirit medium."
Film Scene:
"If there's mud in your pants, people will say you shit in them....Can't dodge what fate's got in store....I don't blame you. It's fate. I accept it....I've played with these my whole life. They're useless now. Didn't bring them into the world; can't take them when I go. I've broken the tradition. Broken it. It'll truly be a lost art. Don't cry...In a former life, I must've wronged you badly, and now I'm repaying the debt. It was karma....take General with you. I've given you comfort, taught you some skills. Burn spirit money for me in the ghost festivals, and you'll have done the right thing by me."
[TOP]
for RAT #4
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Terms in SHM: |
karma brahman Buddha Yahweh scientific rationalism |
Terms in EB: |
Veda karma Krishna Vishnu Bhagavad Gita Purana swami Nataraj |
Excerpts:
"In the first half of the year they had evening rains, which poured down fussily for a couple of hours to the tune of tremendous thunder; later in the year they had a quieter sort of rain, steadily pattering down. But no rain affected the assembly. People came shielding themselves with huge bamboo mats or umbrellas or coconut thatch. The hall became more packed during the wet season, since the people could not overflow into the outer courtyard. But it made the gathering cozy, interesting, and cool; and the swish of rain and wind in the trees and the swelling river (which made them carry their children aloft on their shoulders and cross the river only at certain shallow points) lent a peculiar charm to the proceedings."
"One fine day, beyond the tamarind tree the station building was ready. The steel tracks gleamed in the sun; the signal posts stood with their red and green stripes and their colorful lamps; and our world was neatly divided into this side of the railway line and that side. Everything was ready. All our spare hours were spent in walking along the railway track up to the culvert half a mile away. We paced up and down our platform, passed through the corridor, peeping into the room meant for the stationmaster."
"There was...the daughter-in-law who worshiped the goddess of well-being despite the mocking of her husband's family; she eventually won a kingdom for her husband, and a son and sweet revenge for herself. There was the girl, tricked into marrying a sword, who found a God-given husband, became pregnant by him, and had to endure the abuse of her in-laws, who believed her an adulteress; in the end her mother-in-law touches her feet. And there was, of course, the Brahman daughter-in-lway who offered Ganeshji butter..."
"She flew straight at the sobbing [woman], crying, 'Are you now satisfied with your handiwork, you she-devil, you demon. Where have you dropped on us from? Everything was so good and quiet--until you came; you came in like a viper. Bah! I have never seen anyone work such havoc on a young fool! What a fine boy he used to be! The moment he set his eyes on you, he was gone. On the very day I heard him mention the 'serpent girl' my heart sank. I knew nothing good could come out of it.'"
Film Scene:
"'On the banks of the river where the kadamba flower grows...' The kadamba is a flower so fragrant that people swoon in its presence. It's from Kalidasa's poem, 'Meghdoot.'...Do you know what 'Meghdoot' is?...In Sanskrit, 'Megh' means a raincloud, and 'doot,' a messenger. The poem is about the pain of separation of two lovers....The lover tells the cloud it resembles Lord Vishnu in Krishna's guise, gleaming with peacock feathers....If we believe that a statue of God can hear us, why not a cloud?...When did you become a widow?...Was your husband good to you?"
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