Curriculum architecture

Pictures, rules, and moves

Luna’s curriculum plan pairs a subject-specific cognitive scheme with a knowledge graph where every concept carries its representational anchor, second-person cognitive move, and generative invariant.

Mode: causal-palaceMemory balance: spatial-associativeAxes: land · surplus · power · legitimacy · record · strain · connection · lens

Interactives & operations: Timelines, maps, and trade webs set in the prose; four-sided source frames; trait pictures and palace stops in the reader’s toolkit.

Planning draft · world-history

Pictures, rules, and moves

A picture is a model a student holds in mind. Rules hold in every picture that runs them; moves are the procedures that read facts off a picture; keys are the few facts no rule produces. Each problem type an exam asks is homed on the picture whose moves solve it.

8 rules · 8 of 8 pictures written · 18 moves and 7 recipes · 5 key tables · 16 of 16 problem types solved · 37 of 37 concepts homed

A bridge sits on the line between the two pictures it is built from. A dashed picture is still an outline.

Rules

Time runs one way lawCauses come before effects, and a person at any moment could know only what had already happened. Before the Common Era, years count down.The time arrow: an arrow pointing right along the road, with everything to its right out of sight.Runs in ,
The land sets the options tendencyPeople farm, settle, trade, and fight where rivers, soil, and climate make it easiest, and they change the land back.The river line: a river drawn first, under the house.Runs in ,
Surplus makes specialists mechanismFarming grew more food than farmers ate. The surplus could be stored, taxed, and traded, so some people could stop farming and become priests, soldiers, scribes, and rulers: the rooms of the house.The granary: a storehouse in the house’s foundation, with a door into every room.Runs in
The course’s story tendencyLand produces a surplus; cities produce institutions; states expand and connect; connections transform societies; and systems adapt or fall apart.The five movements, one per era band on the road.Runs in ,
Empires turn tendencyMany empires rose, peaked, strained, and fell: a founder unifies, a golden age follows, spending and unrest pile up, and revolt or invasion ends it.The wheel: four positions hung over a house’s roof.Runs in
Routes carry more than goods tendencyEvery route that carries goods also carries faiths, ideas and inventions, and germs, and cities grow where routes meet.The thread: a line between two houses, with four bundles on it.Runs in ,
Every view is from somewhere lensEvery source was made by someone, at a time and place, for a reason, and for someone. Objects and maps have frames too, even when some sides are blank.The frame: four sides drawn around a source.Runs in
Many causes lensBig changes come from conditions built up over years, a trigger, and choices people made, and they have consequences no one planned.The spark: a small star where the trigger falls.Runs in ,

Course picture · written

Timeline

A road running left to right. Five eras as colored bands: first peoples and farming, to 3500 BCE; river civilizations, to 1000 BCE; classical empires, to 500 CE; faith and exchange, to 1200; a connected world, to 1520. One post per era: farming about 10,000 BCE, writing about 3200 BCE, 1 CE, 622, 1492. Four lanes side by side: Southwest Asia and Africa, South and East Asia, Europe, and the Americas.

Time runs one wayThe course’s story

Rehearsal

5 sSee the empty road, with the arrow pointing right and 1 CE in the middle, where the count turns around.
10 sLay down the five bands, saying each name and the year at each corner, counting down to 1 CE and up after it.
10 sPlant one post in each band: a sheaf of wheat, a clay tablet, the turn of the count, a caravan leaving Mecca, three ships.
10 sDraw four lanes under the road and drop a line through 2500 BCE: a pyramid, a drain, a ziggurat, and in the Americas a lane of its own.

Stages

1 Deep time Ch. 1
The road drawn to scale once, from 300,000 years ago: farming is the last few yards and writing the last two, so almost the whole human past came before either. And the count: BCE down, CE up, no year zero.
Draw it A field of human time with farming, writing, 1 CE, and Columbus marked to scale.
Gap To scale, every civilization is squeezed into a sliver. It can’t show their order. Answered by .
Brings in Time runs one way.
Deep time and chronologyThe band stage
- Chronology, counting across BCE and CE. (PA 8.1.7.A)
2 Posts and bands Ch. 2
The zoomed road from 3500 BCE, with a visible break before it: five eras, each with a post, and the course’s story in five movements, one per band.
Draw it The five bands, a post in each, and one word per band for its movement: surplus, cities, empires, connections, change.
Gap It puts one place in order, but can’t say what was happening elsewhere at the same time. Answered by .
Brings in The course’s story.
The village stageThe city stageThe state stageThe empire stage
- Continuity and change in world history, in order and context. (PA 8.4.7.C)
3 Four lanes Ch. 3
Four region lanes, and reading straight down through one year: what was happening at once in different places, and whether it touched.
Draw it One year’s line through all four lanes, with an event in each, and a mark where two touch.
Chinampas, terraces, and m’ita labor
- Several world regions in the same period. (PA 8.4.7.A–D)

Moves and recipes

Place it move Ch. 1

Name the era band it falls in.
Find the nearest post on each side.
Say which lane it belongs to.
Say one thing to its left that a person then could know.

Hammurabi’s code, about 1754 BCE: river civilizations, after writing (3200 BCE) and before 1 CE, in the Southwest Asia lane. A Babylonian then could know cuneiform and Sargon’s empire, but nothing of Rome.

Placing a BCE date by its size: 1754 BCE is older than 509 BCE.
Reading something from the right of a post into the moment at the post.

SolvesPut events in order across BCE and CE, and say what a person at a date could know

ReadsThe five eras

Count across the zero recipe Ch. 1

If both dates are BCE, subtract the smaller from the larger.
If both are CE, subtract as usual.
If one is BCE and one CE, add them and subtract one, because there is no year zero.

From Hammurabi (about 1754 BCE) to the Hijra (622 CE): 1754 + 622 − 1 = 2,375 years.

SolvesPut events in order across BCE and CE, and say what a person at a date could know

How long? move Ch. 1

Mark both ends on the road.
Count the years, across the zero if you must.
Turn them into lives, at about 25 years a generation.
Compare with a span you know.

Hunters and gatherers to farming: about 290,000 of 300,000 years, more than ninety-five percent of the human past.

SolvesSay how long something lasted, across the zero

Read across move Ch. 3

Choose the year.
Drop a line straight down through all four lanes.
Name what is in each lane.
Say whether they touch, by trade or by idea, or only share the year.

2500 BCE: the Great Pyramid, Mohenjo-daro’s drains, Ur’s royal tombs, and Caral in Peru. Indus seals in Mesopotamia prove those two touched; Caral only shares the year.

1324: Mansa Musa in Cairo, the Yuan in China, the Aztec founding Tenochtitlan within a year or two. Mali and Egypt touch; the Americas are off the web.

Assuming that what happened at the same time had to be connected.

SolvesSay what was happening in other regions at the same time, and whether it connects

ReadsThe five eras

Where it misleads

The bands have sharp edges, but eras don’t: no one in 500 knew a new era had begun.
Drawn to scale, ten thousand years makes the last fifteen hundred a sliver, so the course draws it to scale once, then zooms with a visible break.
The lanes look separate, but they touch. That is what Read across is for.

Problem types homed here

Problem type	Exams	Solved by
Put events in order across BCE and CE, and say what a person at a date could know	8.1.7.A	Place it, Count across the zero
Say how long something lasted, across the zero	8.1.7.A	How long?
Say what was happening in other regions at the same time, and whether it connects	8.4.7.A–D	Read across

Problem types

Each problem type is homed on one picture, and counts as solved once a written move or recipe solves it.

Home	Solved	Not yet
	3 of 3	None
	2 of 2	None
	4 of 4	None
	1 of 1	None
	1 of 1	None
	1 of 1	None
	3 of 3	None
	1 of 1	None
Practices · outline	0 of 0	Waiting on the picture

Concepts without a home

Every concept in the graph needs one home stage. These wait on pictures not written yet, or on a decision.

Keys

The facts no rule at this level produces. Kept small: everything else is derived or read off the sheet.

The five eras

First peoples and farming, to 3500 BCE Land produces a surplus.
River civilizations, 3500–1000 BCE Cities produce institutions: writing, law, kings.
Classical empires, 1000 BCE–500 CE States expand and connect.
Faith and exchange, 500–1200 Connections transform societies.
A connected world, 1200–1520 Systems adapt or fall apart, and the web goes around the world.

Each era has one post: farming about 10,000 BCE, writing about 3200 BCE, 1 CE, 622, 1492.

Read by Place it, Read across.

The house’s rooms

G, the foundation: geography, the river, the surplus AP World: humans and the environment.
R, the temple: religion and beliefs AP World: cultural developments.
A, the workshop: achievements, tools, writing, art AP World: technology and innovation.
P, the roof: politics, rulers, and laws AP World: governance.
E, the market: economics, work, trade, money AP World: economic systems.
S, the hall: social structure, who is above whom AP World: social interactions and organization.

The four rivers

Nile → Egypt: one kingdom under a god-king; hieroglyphs and pyramids Egypt floods: a gentle flood on time.
Tigris and Euphrates → Sumer: city-states; cuneiform and Hammurabi’s code Mesopotamia writes: records for an unruly river.
Indus → Harappa and Mohenjo-daro: grids, drains, an unread script The Indus plans: the same bricks for hundreds of miles.
Huang He → the Shang: bronze and oracle bones The Shang divines: questions to the ancestors on bone.

Egypt floods; Mesopotamia writes; the Indus plans; the Shang divine.

The wheel

Rise: a founder unifies
Peak: a golden age
Strain: spending, land, borders, plague
Fall: revolt, invasion, or a split

Read by Turn the wheel.

What travels

Goods
Faiths
Ideas and inventions
Germs

Read by Follow the thread.

Translations

Timeline: Four lanes ↔ Map: Empires at their peakPick a year and shade the map for it; from a map of empires, name its year and era by what is on it.
Map: Rivers and first farms ↔ Engine: Two engines side by sideFrom two rivers on the map, predict a difference between their houses; from a difference between two houses, find the river that explains it.
Engine: One engine at two times ↔ Wheel: One turnFrom a house at its peak and at its strain, place each on the wheel; from a position on the wheel, say which rooms show it.
The fire ↔ Wheel: Strain up closeBuild the fire for Rome’s fall, then put each log at the wheel’s strain; from the strain, name the wood.
Web: What travels ↔ The shelvesFrom an object on a shelf, follow the thread it traveled; from a thread, name what it set on a shelf where it arrived.

Where each picture lives in the book

Builds a stage here Teaches a move or recipe here Teaches a concept homed on it, not yet placed

Chapter
Part 1 · First camps to first cities (to 3000 BCE)
1 First Camps to First Cities	Builds a stage here	Builds a stage here	Builds a stage here				Builds a stage here
Part 2 · River kingdoms (3500–1000 BCE)
2 River Kingdoms	Builds a stage here	Teaches a concept homed on it, not yet placed	Builds a stage here	Builds a stage here	Builds a stage here		Builds a stage here	Teaches a concept homed on it, not yet placed
Part 3 · Classical empires (550 BCE–300 CE)
3 Classical Empires	Builds a stage here	Builds a stage here	Builds a stage here		Builds a stage here
Part 4 · Strain, break, and rebound (200–600 CE)
4 Strain, Break, and Rebound			Builds a stage here	Builds a stage here		Builds a stage here	Builds a stage here
Part 5 · Webs of exchange (600–1450)
5 Webs of Exchange		Builds a stage here	Teaches a concept homed on it, not yet placed	Builds a stage here	Builds a stage here			Builds a stage here
Part 6 · Two hemispheres meet (500–1520)
6 Two Hemispheres Meet	Teaches a concept homed on it, not yet placed		Teaches a concept homed on it, not yet placed		Builds a stage here	Teaches a move or recipe here	Teaches a concept homed on it, not yet placed	Teaches a concept homed on it, not yet placed

The course book’s master architecture is the Three-Room Memory Palace (Throne Room/state, Caravanserai/contact, Vault/the leap) paired with the five-slot causal engine (Land → Surplus → Power → Legitimacy → Record). This structure anchors every civilization in the survey.
Scope is assumed: a representative middle-school survey from the first humans to about 1520, the same span as Virginia’s World History I. Confirm the teacher’s course and unit order before revising chapters.
Pennsylvania has no state history exam. Problem types and stage notes cite the grade-7 standards instead: History 8.1.7 and 8.4.7, Geography 7.x, Economics 6.x (the 2025 standards, in effect from July 1, 2026), and PA Core literacy CC.8.5–8.6, paraphrased. The house’s six rooms are AP World’s six themes.
The course’s story (land produces a surplus; cities produce institutions; states expand and connect; connections transform societies; systems adapt or fall apart) and the wheel are tendencies, with their exceptions named, never laws.
The fire and the frame are taught as margin cards at the moment of use, never on a plate of their own, so their stages show no plates.
Mnemonics nest: the time walk holds when; the world journey, one stop per chapter along the web’s threads, holds where; the house’s rooms hold what kind, the same at every stop. Each stop’s image comes in three or four parts tied to what they explain, walked on the chapter’s memory page and reviewed with no images at the end of each era.
Text sources given only in plain words still need a verbatim excerpt from a translation the teacher has, with its translator named: the Cyrus Cylinder, Pericles’ Funeral Oration, the Twelve Tables, Pliny to Trajan, Ashoka’s Kalinga edict, Diocletian’s price edict, Procopius, the Constitution of Medina, al-Khwarizmi, Fulcher of Chartres, Marco Polo, Boccaccio, Bernal Díaz, and the Schleitheim Confession.