Description

Marco Polo is outside the scope of 4^th grade curriculum and should not be used.

Rationale for including: The Silk Road needs to be discussed as reason for later exploration by sea. Land travel was more dangerous and less efficient, so other methods were sought out to increase profit. Trade along silk road was the beginning of large scale trade interdependence throughout Europe and Asia, and sparked a hunger for global trade, which was foundational to later developments covered in 4^th grade standards. (i.e. Columbus was trying to find an efficient sea route to the same places he would have been visiting along the silk road.)

“The Amazing Adventures of Marco Polo,” (book) was cited by Christopher Columbus as a source of motivation for him to become an explorer. Therefore, the story of Marco Polo also helps to highlight the motivations of later explorers during the age of exploration.

This lesson also provides students with the opportunity to examine source credibility/the purposes for creating different types of information sources. The “Hero Classics,” video is a secondary source which was created with the purpose to entertain, therefore its relationship to fact may not be as strong as a source which was created truly for the purpose informing the audience with factual information about Marco Polo. (The video was actually pulled from previous D2L, as a source that was intended to be used for teaching factual information about Marco Polo, which is why there was a need to find the other, more credible sources, and became a great opportunity for students to examine the source through a crticial lens.)

In the hero video, Marco and his father live by a creed of honesty. This fictional notion, perfect for a cartoon about a hero, is later contradicted by the clip of historians describing a battle that Polo claims to have been part of, and the evidence that the historians can use to contradict this claim: showing that this battle could not possibly have happened during the time of Marco Polo’s travels.

The contradiction captures students’ attention and gets them fired up about determining a source’s credibility, and motivates them to question the credibility of other sources independently. It also leads into a powerful discussion of the three very different, distinct types of sources presented: Two secondary (one a cartoon for children, and the other a documentary with commentary from historians supporting their claims with evidence.) and one primary (a book written to entertain and enthrall audiences while also informing them about real places that they had never seen before. Many elements of this book were later proven to be accurate— but the role of the hero (and profiter) telling the story is less clear and sometimes even contradictory.)

Students will study individual explorers and their contributions as a class, contrasting various sources to reveal the difference between a "hero story" vs. a balanced historical perspective. Students will note that the contributions of famous explorers can be impactful whether negative or positive.

Learning Targets

Students will:
Explain why individuals and groups during the same historical period differed in their perspectives.

Explain how trade leads to increased economic interdependence. (Silk Road)

Explain the effects of increasing economic interdependence on different groups.

Explain why individuals and businesses specialize in trade.

Use information about a historical source, including the maker, date, place of origin, intended audience, and purpose to judge the extent to which a source is useful for studying a particular topic.

Infer the intended audience and purpose of a historical source from information within the source itself.

Pose and respond to questions using specific evidence and demonstrating understanding of multiple perspectives on key ideas through reflection and paraphrasing.

Draw information from multiple sources in response to a compelling question.

Summarize a central claim and evidence presented in a secondary source

Construct arguments using claims and evidence from multiple sources

Generate questions about individuals and groups who have shaped significant historical changes and continuities.

Summarize how different kinds of historical sources are used to explain events in the past.

Compare information provided by different historical sources about the past.

Determine the kinds of sources that will be most helpful in answering compelling and supporting questions taking into consideration the different opinions people have about how to answer the questions.

Describe how the spatial patterns of economic activities in a place change over time because of interactions with nearby and distant places.

Explain how cultural and environmental characteristics affect the movement and distribution of people, goods, and ideas.

Use evidence to generate possible claims in response to compelling questions. Identify reasons which might be more likely than others: possible causes/effects of an event or development of the past and theories to explain economic/geographic/civic outcomes

Teaching

First, review with students the sources for comparing/contrasting (fact-checking) "Hero Stories" vs. History:
Marco Polo- Served as the inspiration for various European explorers. He became famous upon publication of his journal, and was celebrated as a hero.

Next, show students the Animated Hero Classics video. Record the key takeaways from the video. Then, watch the Marco Polo Biography Clip and read the Article. Record the key takeaways from the two resources. Then, as a class, begin fact-checking the information from the various resources.
(Example applications of this "fact-checking" work: https://docs.google.com/a/users.mrhsd.k12.mo.us/document/d/1nSuEY2m1duUquHdOUmFPARq0uA3T9hJ6ApLdUAjN7PM/edit?usp=sharing)
-This work, if completed as a whole class, can be used to scaffold students towards structures they will use in group research projects about explorers of their choosing.

Sources for discussing long-term implications of Polo's exploration:

Positive-
The Silk Road Brainpop

Impact of Silk Road on China Article

Marco Polo's Effects on the East and West Article

Negative-
Long-Term Impact of Foreign Trade on China Article

Knowledge and Skills

3.A.2
3.B.1
7.D.1

Resources