Cuneiforms and characters, hieroglyphics and cartouches, Morse code and Pig Latin. Who invented writing? Why, the Sumerians and the Chinese, of course. Viewers watch as the video narrator details the development of writing from art, which is drawing what you mean, to rebus writing, i.e. using pictures to represent words or parts of words, to symbols that represent sounds, to phonetic alphabets known as cuneiforms. Viewers are also offered opportunities to test their recall of information presented in the video (Think), to think critically about the information (Dig Deeper), and to Discuss the implications of the materials presented.

Additional Tags

english language arts

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Pros

• Links provided to additional information on forms of writing
• Carefully scaffolded
• Concise explanations

Cons

• Lack of documentation for assertions

Common Core

SL.9-10.3