My "Power of the Past" Learning Community (combining Survey of Early Western Civilization and College Composition II is starting to wrap up, only a few weeks left. We've just had our lectures on the Flavian emperors and will be lectured Thursday about the "Five Good Emerors" and then we will be done for the most part with Rome. The last couple of weeks will cover rapidly up to 1500 AD (I prefer CE).

Our third and final writing assignment is to write about a time and place that fits within our subject (3000BC to 1500AD) and west of the Tigris river (we started with the Sumerians of course, then Egyptians then the Greeks and now Rome). We have a lot of freedom with this assignment, as one of the instructors made sure to stress, several times.

I'm thinking of trying to write a historical fiction short story for this, instead of just a research paper or essay.

I'm just not sure yet what I want to write about. I have plenty of time to think about it, our first "discovery draft" isn't due for two weeks.

Looking for suggestions.

A couple of topics I've brainstormed are:
The Battle of Alesia (I almost do not want to do a battle, as easy as this one would be; too many people have apparently done battles for this assignment in pass semesters)

Leifsbudir after Leif Ericson left (this could be seen as a jab at the history instructor so I might not actually want to do it; apparently in the Early American History course she teaches, she had a bit of an argument with some students who tried to defend Leif as the first European to reach the New World, she supposedly claims the Norse didn't leave enough behind to really be able to prove the claim, or at least to make it count)

Jerusalem set around the time of that very particular Passover back when Pontius Pilate was prefect there. From discussion with the one teacher, I think I might have more specific knowledge about the very early Christians and the putting together of the canon, which is another possibility, the Councils of Laodice, Hippo or Carthage.

But, I am not to particularly keen on any of them as of yet. Just at the brainstorm process. I plan to pick a subject by Friday night, Eastern time in the US.

One thing I do know, is I want to try to be as original as possible. Sure, Drew and Sarah have been teaching this same class together for 20 years, and have seen hundreds of different papers for this assignment (assuming they've included it all those years), but I am sure that somewhere out there is an idea for the time and place I could write about (one that actually has data that I could research via the library at my community college and the one at the nearby university (not that big of one) or online. Nothing uber obscure that has only had a couple of books published that deal with it.

Any suggestions are welcome and eagerly awaited. I appreciate the help!

(and yes, if there is interest, I'll post the essay/short-story here once the final draft is complete)