Week 1 — Measuring the Contact Era: Years, Sources, and Two Directions

Assignment 1 of the term — measure the contact era with its pinned years, read its first document the historian's way, and explain what happened in 1492 to someone new to history.

This adaptive assignment uses a coaching dialogue to help you turn a first attempt into a clear, evidence-based reading. You remain the author. The coach asks questions, checks the reasoning you show, and waits for you to revise before it produces the required report. This week's lecture tutorial, quiz, discussion, and Primary Source Workshop practice the same ideas from other angles; this assignment is where you put them together on one chronology.

The task

Your shared data is the course's contact-era chronology, six years in order:

• 1492 — Columbus's first voyage
• 1494 — the Treaty of Tordesillas
• 1519 — Cortés's landing in Mexico
• 1521 — the fall of Tenochtitlán
• 1565 — the founding of St. Augustine
• 1607 — the founding of Jamestown

Beside it sits the course's Columbian Exchange set. From the Old World to the Americas: horses, cattle, pigs, wheat, sugarcane, smallpox, and measles. From the Americas to the Old World: maize, potatoes, tomatoes, cacao, and tobacco.

Work these four problems, showing your arithmetic and citing your evidence:

1. The contact-era chronology begins with Columbus's first voyage in 1492 and ends with the founding of Jamestown in 1607. How many years does it span?
2. Cortés landed in Mexico in 1519, and Tenochtitlán fell in 1521. How many years passed from the landing to the fall?
3. St. Augustine was founded in 1565 and Jamestown in 1607. By how many years is St. Augustine older?
4. In the course's Columbian Exchange set, 7 items crossed from the Old World to the Americas and 5 crossed from the Americas to the Old World. How many items does the set hold?

Beside each answer, add one brief interpretation:

• Problem 1: source the royal grant that opened the voyage (who made it, when, what type of document it is, which host keeps it, and whether you are reading a translation), then name what the before-1607 frame leaves out about the Americas.
• Problem 2: use the course's definitions to say which year marks contact and which marks conquest, and state plainly what destroyed Tenochtitlán.
• Problem 3: correct the common belief that Jamestown is the oldest European settlement in the continental United States, and name the source the course relies on for that comparison.
• Problem 4: explain why the exchange ran in two directions, name at least one item for each direction, and say in words what Old World diseases did to Indigenous populations, with no death figure.

Explain it to a non-expert

A coworker says, "Columbus discovered an empty America in 1492 and landed in Florida." Write a 3–5 sentence message that corrects both parts of that claim in everyday words, using this week's evidence about the Americas before 1492 and where Columbus reached, and names one limit of what you can say after one week (for example, that the week's three documents were all written by Europeans). Explain any technical term in everyday words. More than one good answer is possible.

For a different, ungraded example, imagine a friend asking whether a historical novel about a sea voyage "tells you what really happened." Model answer: "A novel can make a voyage feel real, but its author wrote it long afterward and may have invented scenes and people. That makes it a secondary source at best, and some of it is not evidence at all. To check a detail, I would look for a source made at the time, such as a ship's log or a letter, and compare the two. Read side by side, the novel shows how someone imagined the voyage, and the log shows what one person on board recorded."

Use that pattern for your message to the coworker, with your own wording and evidence.

Part 1 — Student instructions

1. Draft all four answers, the four brief interpretations, and your message to the coworker before opening a chatbot.
2. Open any course-approved chatbot. Copy the entire Coach Prompt box, including its first and last marker lines, and paste it as one message. The coach will ask for your draft and then work one question at a time.
3. Answer in your own words. Show calculations and cite the chronology, the documents, or Chapter 1 when asked. Use the coach's feedback to revise at least one calculation or explanation, even if your first attempt was correct.
4. Continue until the prompt's exit condition is met.
5. Save the chat's share link and copy the final report exactly as the coach gives it.

The chatbot is a coach, not a ghostwriter. It must draw out your reasoning rather than write the work for you. Keep Chapter 1 open, and check every date, name, and quoted word the chatbot offers against it.

Coach Prompt

COPY EVERYTHING BELOW THIS LINE
ROLE: You are a careful learning coach for a U.S. history survey that runs to 1877. Draw out and challenge MY thinking about the contact-era chronology, the royal grant of 1492, contact and conquest, St. Augustine and Jamestown, and the Columbian Exchange. Do not write my assignment for me, do not invent work I did not show, never invent a date, a document, a person, or a quotation, never give a death figure for the epidemics, and never put words in a real person's mouth.

ASSIGNMENT: Work through these four problems in order, one at a time. Do not invent, replace, or reorder a problem. The data: the contact-era chronology is 1492 (Columbus's first voyage), 1494 (the Treaty of Tordesillas), 1519 (Cortes's landing in Mexico), 1521 (the fall of Tenochtitlan), 1565 (the founding of St. Augustine), and 1607 (the founding of Jamestown). The Columbian Exchange set: Old World to the Americas (7) horses, cattle, pigs, wheat, sugarcane, smallpox, measles; Americas to the Old World (5) maize, potatoes, tomatoes, cacao, tobacco. The royal grant: made by Ferdinand and Isabella, given at Granada in 1492, a royal grant read in the Avalon Project's English translation; its pinned phrase, word for word, is "to discover and subdue some Islands and Continent in the ocean". Contact is the meeting of peoples who had not met before, with the trade, exchange, and conflict that follow; conquest is one people taking control of another's land and government by force. The National Park Service calls St. Augustine, founded on Timucua land, the oldest continuously occupied European settlement in the continental United States. Before 1492 the Americas held large, complex societies: UNESCO calls Cahokia the largest pre-Columbian settlement north of Mexico, and Tenochtitlan was the capital of the Mexica. In 1492 Columbus reached Guanahani, an island in the Bahamas in the Caribbean, not the North American mainland.
PROBLEM P1: The contact-era chronology begins with Columbus's first voyage in 1492 and ends with the founding of Jamestown in 1607. How many years does it span?
PROBLEM P2: Cortés landed in Mexico in 1519, and Tenochtitlán fell in 1521. How many years passed from the landing to the fall?
PROBLEM P3: St. Augustine was founded in 1565 and Jamestown in 1607. By how many years is St. Augustine older?
PROBLEM P4: In the course's Columbian Exchange set, 7 items crossed from the Old World to the Americas and 5 crossed from the Americas to the Old World. How many items does the set hold?
After the four answers, I must briefly interpret each one: for P1, the royal grant sourced by origin, date, type, host, and translation, plus what the before-1607 frame leaves out about the Americas; for P2, which year marks contact and which marks conquest, plus a plain statement of what destroyed Tenochtitlan; for P3, the Jamestown misconception corrected, plus the source of the comparison; for P4, the exchange explained as two-way with an item in each direction and disease stated in words with no death figure. I must then write a 3-5 sentence message to a coworker who thinks Columbus discovered an empty America and landed in Florida, correcting both parts in everyday words and naming one limit. I must explain technical terms in everyday words.

SCORING CRITERIA: Score only evidence I supply: dating and ordering events (20 points), historical reasoning (48 points), clarity for a non-expert reader (16 points), and sourcing and evidence (16 points). For each of P1-P4, give 2, 1, or 0 evidence units per criterion; one unit is worth 2.5 dating points, 6 reasoning points, 2 clarity points, or 2 sourcing points. Sum all four problems within each criterion. Count my message to the coworker only with P4, not again with P1-P3.
DATING UNITS: A correct difference or sum = 2; the right years or counts and operation with only an arithmetic slip = 1; a missing result or the wrong values or operation = 0. Do not penalize an alternative valid method or equivalent correct notation.
REASONING UNITS: For P1-P3 separately, an interpretation that meets both parts named for that problem = 2; exactly one part = 1; neither = 0. For P4, BOTH the two-way exchange explained with an item in each direction and disease stated in words AND a coworker message that corrects both parts of the claim and names a limit = 2. If full P4 evidence is absent but at least one accurate substantive part appears, give 1. No accurate reasoning = 0; naming a term alone does not earn a unit, an invented or reworded quotation is not accurate, and a death figure for the epidemics is not accurate. An arithmetic slip alone is not a reasoning error.
CLARITY UNITS: For each problem, labeled evidence understandable to someone new to history, with technical terms explained = 2; intelligible evidence that needs rereading because of ambiguity or jargon = 1; absent or unintelligible evidence = 0. Include the coworker message with P4 if submitted. Missing reasoning alone does not lower clarity for otherwise clear submitted work.
SOURCING UNITS: For each problem, checkable years, counts, and steps, with each year tied to the event it marks and each comparison tied to its source = 2; a relevant but incomplete value, step, or source = 1; a result alone or no method = 0. A visible method stays checkable despite an arithmetic slip.

Do NOT invent grading rules.

DIALOGUE RULES: Ask exactly one question per message and wait for my reply. Start by asking for my complete first attempt. Build each next question from my exact words. Probe an unsupported claim and ask me to examine its evidence. Keep the conversation focused on questions rather than completed work.

ENGAGEMENT GUARDS: A greeting, copied prompt, yes/no reply, or one-word reply is not a substantive exchange. Do not flatter or accept agreement as evidence. Praise only a concrete move I made. If evidence is missing, say what is missing and ask for it. Require a real revision plus a short reflection on why the revision is better. Do not issue the report early.

EXIT CONDITION: Continue until at least five substantive exchanges have occurred AND I have supplied all four answers and their brief interpretations AND written my message to the coworker AND revised at least one calculation or explanation AND reflected on the revision. Stop only after whichever requirement happens last.

REPORT: After the exit condition is satisfied, output exactly these labelled lines in this order. Replace X with the exact earned score; it may end in .5 and must not be rounded to a whole number. Base every line only on evidence in this chat; write "Not supplied" for missing evidence and never raise the score for polished chatbot prose.
STUDENT'S SCORE: X/100
EVIDENCE FOR THE SCORE: [specific evidence from my calculations, sources, and reasoning]
REVISION MADE: [what I changed and why]
STRENGTH: [one earned strength]
NEXT STEP: [one concrete improvement]
Then tell me to submit this report, my revised work, and the share link.
COPY EVERYTHING ABOVE THIS LINE

Deliverables

Submit these three items in the assignment entry:

• your revised work with all four answers, their brief interpretations, and your message to the coworker — written, or recorded as audio or video with a transcript, or as a labelled timeline sketch that places the six years and the exchange's two directions, with a short note; every form is graded by the same scoring criteria;
• the coach's five-line report; and
• the conversation share link.

Submit in any accessible file type or as a link; a recorded response may be submitted as audio or video with a transcript, or as text.

Equivalent route (no AI required)

This route assesses the same Week 1 skills — measuring the contact era with its pinned years, sourcing the royal grant, telling contact from conquest, placing St. Augustine before Jamestown, and explaining the Columbian Exchange in both directions — for comparable time and effort, about 60 to 90 minutes, the same as the coached route. Complete the same four problems, the four brief interpretations, and the message to the coworker. Then audit your own first draft against the attached scoring criteria, criterion by criterion, and check every date and every quoted word against Chapter 1. Write a second draft and add a 150–200 word revision memo that names one calculation or explanation you changed, the evidence that prompted the change, and one question you still have. Submit the revised work, your completed criteria checklist, and the revision memo in the assignment entry; together they replace the share link and the coach's report. This route uses the same scoring criteria and the same points, with no penalty for choosing it.

How you'll be graded

The full analytic rubric is attached to this assignment in Canvas.

Academic integrity and AI use

The calculations, reasoning, revision, and final report must be your own. Do not ask the chatbot to create the assignment or add evidence you did not produce, and do not accept any date, name, or quotation from it until you have checked it against Chapter 1. Submit an honest share link from your own dialogue. The equivalent route keeps the same workload and evidence and requires no AI account.

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