Renaissance Ideas in Motion

CASE BRIEF: A new invention — the printing press — helped a new idea — humanism — spread faster than any idea before it.

TASK: Use art, letters, and the printing press's spread to argue how humanism reshaped European thought.

EVIDENCE: A Renaissance humanist letter excerpt - Description of a humanist artwork (e.g., a realistic portrait) - Map of the printing press's spread across Europe, 1450-1500

ANALYZE: What does humanism value that medieval thought did not? How did the printing press accelerate this specific idea? Would humanism have spread without the press?

BUILD A CLAIM: Argue how much credit the printing press deserves for the spread of Renaissance humanism.

RUBRIC: Connects the technology to the idea explicitly - Uses the artwork as evidence of changing values - Considers what would have happened without the press