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Text Analysis of Ancient Civilizations

The textbook I decide to take a closer look at was Ancient Civilizations by the HMH

Publishing Company. This textbook is currently being used in my social studies placement class

of 6th graders. The portion of this book that I am focusing on is Lesson 3 of the Ancient Greece

section which is between pages 272-279. A quick summary of this lesson is how Sparta and

Athens were the biggest states in Greece and how they were very different cultures that ended up

clashing with one of them being victorious in the end. Overall, this text is appropriate for 6th

graders because it gives them a basic understanding of the lives of both Spartans and Athenians,

the text is easy to read/follow along, and allows for students to make sure they understand what

they learned.

Strengths

To start, the text is organized in a way that makes anyone who reads it from a secondary

education point and beyond, can easily follow along. They are given a basic outline of what will

be explained in each section. This outline is stated on the side of page 272 where you have the

big idea summarized, the main ideas bulleted and two key terms listed. As an example, the main

ideas listed as followed:

• The Spartans built a military society to provide security and protection.

• The Athenians admired the mind and the arts in addition to physical abilities.

• Sparta and Athens fought over who should have power and influence in Greece. (p.

272)

After reading through the lesson, those three points gave a great idea as to what is explained

within the lesson. Along with the a preview of the ideas presented in the lesson, the textbook
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starts the lesson with a hypothetical question as to whether or not you would choose to either live

in Sparta or Athens and why? I believe that this is a fun question to pose, especially for a class of

6th graders because most of the male students would want to live in Sparta because they are

portrayed as tough, athletic and strong while Athens is portrayed as smart and artistic. You can

also come back to this question at the end of the lesson to see if students would still agree with

their answer or if they would change after learning more about both sides. In addition to a

hypothetical question at the beginning of the lesson, there are constant reading check questions

that allow for students to test their comprehension of what they learned after each main idea. For

example after learning about life in Athens, the reading check question posed on the side is,

“Why did girls in Athens receive little education?” (p. 277) This is a good question because it is

not directly said in the text, but there are hints in the text that could help them come to a

conclusion as to why girls received little education. It also must be said that not every reading

check question is the same as the last. One asks to summarize, while the last one asks to analyze

effects of the Peloponnesian War. Along with the reading checks, the end of the lesson has an

assessment for students to take to see if they got a full grasp of the full lesson. I will talk more

about this later. My last point about this textbook is that it is not overbearing to the point that it

looks like vomit on the page. What I mean by this is that there are a couple short paragraphs per

topic presented in each main idea. It is not too much to take in, but also not too little that students

are left confused. Overall, there are many strengths to using this textbook that it can be beneficial

to use in a classroom.

Weaknesses

When going through the textbook, it was somewhat difficult to find weaknesses that were

clear to spot. One weakness I could maybe spot was that there could be some words that students
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may or may not understand. For example on page 273 under the Life in Sparta section, students

may not understand what the words discipline or obedience mean and thus a teacher might have

to go back and teach the students what those words mean or give them a refresher as to what they

mean. It is a small complaint that will come with textbooks for different grade levels. Along with

vocabulary, there are two sections in the book where they bring in historical sources that may

give students, especially 6th graders, trouble comprehending what exactly the texts mean. An

example of this would be one of the excerpts taken from Readings in Ancient History, where

they quote Xenophon, a man who wrote about an average day in Athens. The excerpt reads,

“After this, usually I mount my horse and take a canter. I put him through his paces, suiting

these, so far as possible, to those inevitable in war…” (p. 274) Even as someone learning to

become an educator, this can be tricky to read because of the pauses and not knowing the full

context behind the scenario. Therefore, for a 6th grader this will be even more difficult to

understand. Thus, a teacher will have to go out of their way to break down what this all means

and explain it to their students in a simpler way. Besides these two issues, I could not find more

weakness within this textbook that would make it difficult for a student and/or a teacher to use it.

Assumptions

To get the most basic assumption out of the way, students would have to have previous

knowledge of the past 2 lessons before this one which simply explain the culture of Greece, the

landscape, trading, and the types of government in Ancient Greece. I can only assume that if you

are on lesson 3 of this chapter of Ancient Greece, then you must have read or skimmed through

the previous two lessons. Besides that, a big assumption made in this book is that students should

understand social classes and how they work. The social classes present in this lesson are the

slaves, the poor (which I can only assume is the middle/lower class) and the rich (which is the
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upper class). I feel like for most students now-a-days thanks to social media can understand

social classes, but there is still a possibility of some not having a basic understanding of them.

Lastly the biggest assumption in almost every history textbook has to do with representation. For

the most part both male and females are represented in this lesson, but only white male and

females are represented. This will end up leaving those of us who are of another race/ethnicity

feeling left out. The problem with this assumption is that it is hard to represent all race/ethnicities

since this takes place in Greece, which in ancient times is majority white.

Teaching

If I were to teach using this textbook, I would make an organizer so students can write

down notes of the differences and/or similarities between the Athenian people and the Spartans.

This is something that is being implemented in my observation and I think it works great in

terms of helping students with understanding what they are reading. Along with this I would

most likely only use this textbook in the classroom as a class rather than individually make the

students read the textbook because there are some things in the text that you as a teacher may

want to go over with your students such as using the reading checks as a way to gage

engagement and comprehension. Another way I could use the textbook is by using it as means of

a way to find primary sources. In my observation, the students are supposed to get an

understanding of biased and primary sources. This textbook provides some historical sources that

would count towards primary sources. This will in return help students get that understanding of

what a primary source from the time period could be and could look like.

Conclusion
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As I previously stated, I believe that this textbook is good source of information for

students, specifically in a 6th grade classroom. The textbook gives them a basic understanding of

the lives of both Spartans and Athenians, the text is easy to read/follow along, and allows for

students to make sure they understand what they learned. I am not saying it should be the only

source of information for the students, but it does a great job of getting them a basic

understanding of what they need to know about certain ancient civilizations, specifically Ancient

Greece in this case.

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References

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. (2019). Athens and Sparta. In Ancient civilizations (pp. 272–279).
essay.