“Identify the historic context of ideas and cultural traditions outside the U.S., and how they have influenced American culture.”

How can you demonstrate this knowledge? Choose any country such as Japan, Chile, Mexico, etc. and research (or review from the slides in the modules) a historic fact or cultural tradition from that country and write about how it has influenced American culture. Two full pages double-spaced are required (don’t waste space at the top with double-spacing your name and header info). Spelling and grammar count towards the grade, so please be sure to run the spellchecker!

Here are some possible topics/examples (but you are welcome to write about any topic from any country – even ones that we did not specifically study in this course):

-the history of ramen (technically started in China, moved and developed in Japan) now a pop culture cuisine in the U.S.

-the relationship between Mexico and the U.S. – you can write about how the Spanish language came from Europe (Spain), moved to Mexico, now has spread to the U.S. – especially California

-how the U.S. has borrowed ideas for renewable energy from other countries such as Iceland, Costa Rica, and Norway. Here is a good article (Links to an external site.) for research on this topic.

-how has fashion taken a lesson from another country (example: cowboy hat from Mexico) – for this one you can review the slides (Links to an external site.) on traditional clothing from around the world

Those were just examples – you can write about one of the above topics or be creative with your own topic as long as it “identifies the historic context of ideas and cultural traditions outside the U.S., and how they have influenced American culture.”

Also, since you are researching and writing about new information, be sure cite your source (website name, address, date you visited it) at the end of the two pages, so I know where you got your information.