Creating a timeline for various events throughout world history helps students understand periods of world history events. In the case of religion, timelines show major events such as beginnings, expansions, leadership changes and religious milestones. Timelines about wars show the early conflicts that led to fighting, major battles and commanders, generals and soldiers who made an impact. Timelines about geographic changes throughout the world show shifting borders of countries, language changes and population shifts of various changes. Students can also create timelines around industries that shaped world economies, such as shipping and trading.
Writing a paper about a world history topic helps students focus on just few areas of a topic, present an argument about historical event or create biographies about important figures in world history. In addition, a paper project can also focus on specific periods of world history such as battles, turning points, economic struggles and key events that shaped the world. Writing a paper also helps students develop their topic organization skills, grammar, structure and vocabulary. They also increase library and Internet research skills and learn ways to create a bibliography as well as beginning the early steps of citing sources. If a paper seems daunting, students might be more comfortable with a series of essays about the same subject matter.
For computer-savvy students, multimedia projects in world history show historical events using photographs, sounds, movie clips, animations and graphics to tell a story or show the history of a region or period. A project about the clothing people wore Europe during the 19th Century, the architecture of buildings in Europe's cities or the tribal villages in Africa make great visual projects, in which students can use photographs to tell an historical story. For students who want to focus on famous speeches, they can use video clips of leaders making famous statements in various parts of the world.
Students who like to dabble in theater can do a history project on either a historical figure or event and act it out in front of class. Telling the story of Amelia Earhart's air travels, Napoleon's battles or the story of the Trojan war allows students to research a topic, gather information, write their project and present it to the class. These projects also help develop excellent written and oral communication skills, as well as developing presentation skills. Depending on the time frame, students can create costumes, sets, music or can perform a "one person act" of an important period in the life of an historical figure.