Survey
* Your assessment is very important for improving the workof artificial intelligence, which forms the content of this project
* Your assessment is very important for improving the workof artificial intelligence, which forms the content of this project
The Historian’s Apprentice Learning the Historian’s Craft by Practicing the Historian’s Craft. The Mongol Impact on China, Europe, and the Middle East by Jonathan Burack Each unit in The Historian’s Apprentice series deals with an important historical topic. It introduces students to a five-step set of practices designed to simulate the experience of a historian and make explicit all key phases of the historian’s craft. The Historian’s Apprentice: A Five-Step Process 1. Reflect on Your Prior Knowledge of the Topic Students discuss what they already know and how their prior knowledge may shape or distort the way they view the topic. 2. Apply Habits of Historical Thinking to the Topic Students build background knowledge on the basis of five habits of thinking that historians use in constructing accounts of the past. 3. Interpret the Relevant Primary Sources Students apply a set of rules for interpreting sources and assessing their relevance and usefulness. 4. Assess the Interpretations of Other Historians Students learn to read secondary sources actively, with the goal of deciding among competing interpretations based on evidence in the sources. 5. Interpret, Debate, and Write About the Topic Yourself Students apply what they have learned by constructing evidencebased interpretations of their own in a variety of ways. ©2010 MindSparks, a division of Social Studies School Service 10200 Jefferson Blvd., P.O. Box 802 Culver City, CA 90232 United States of America (310) 839-2436 (800) 421-4246 Fax: (800) 944-5432 Fax: (310) 839-2249 http://mindsparks.com [email protected] Permission is granted to reproduce individual worksheets for classroom use only. Printed in the United States of America ISBN: 978-1-57596-355-6 Product Code: HS777 Teacher Teacher Introduction Introduction Teaching the Historian’s Craft The goal of The Historian’s Apprentice units is to expose students in a manageable way to the complex processes by which historians practice their craft. By modeling what historians do, students will practice the full range of skills that make history the unique and uniquely valuable challenge that it is. Modeling the historian’s craft is not the same as being a historian—something few students will become. Therefore a scaffolding is provided here to help students master historical content in a way that will be manageable and useful to them. Historical thinking is not a simple matter of reciting one fact after another, or even of mastering a single, authoritative account. It is disciplined by evidence, and it is a quest for truth. Yet historians usually try to clarify complex realities and make tentative judgments, not to draw final conclusions. In doing so, they wrestle with imperfect sets of evidence (the primary sources), detect multiple meanings embedded in those sources, and take into account varying interpretations by other historians. They also recognize how huge a divide separates our present from earlier times. Hence, they work hard to avoid present-mindedness and achieve empathy with people who were vastly different from us. In their actual practice, historians are masters of the cautious, qualified conclusion. Yet they engage, use their imaginations, and debate with vigor. It is this spirit and these habits of craft that The Historian’s Apprentice seeks to instill in students. The Historian’s Apprentice: Five-Steps in Four Parts The Historian’s Apprentice is a five-step process. However, the materials presented here are organized into four parts. Part I deals with the first two of the five steps of the process. Each of the other three parts then deals with one step in the process. Here is a summary of the four parts into which the materials are organized: Teacher introduction. Includes suggested day-by-day sequences for using these materials, including options for using the PowerPoint presentations. One sequence is designed for younger students and includes a page of vocabulary definitions. Part 1. A student warm-up activity, an introductory essay, a handout detailing a set of habits of historical thinking, and two PowerPoint presentations (Five Habits of Historical Thinking and The Mongol Impact on China, Europe, and the Middle East). Part 1 (including the PowerPoints) deals with Historian’s Apprentice Steps 1 and 2. Part 2. A checklist for analyzing primary sources, several primary sources and worksheets for analyzing them. Part 2 deals with Historian’s Apprentice Step 3. Part 3. Two secondary source passages and two student activities analyzing those passages. Part 3 deals with Historian’s Apprentice Step 4. Part 4. Two optional follow-up activities enabling students to write about and/or debate their own interpretations of the topic. Part 4 deals with Historian’s Apprentice Step 5. All pages in this booklet may be photocopied for classroom use. The Mongol Impact on China, Europe, and the Middle East | The Historian’s Apprentice 3 Teacher Introduction Suggested Five-Day Sequence Below is one possible way to use this Historian’s Apprentice unit. Tasks are listed day by day in a sequence taking five class periods, with some homework and some optional follow-up activities. PowerPoint Presentation: Five Habits of Historical Thinking. This presentation comes with each Historian’s Apprentice unit. If you have used it before with other units, you need not do so again. If you decide to use it, incorporate it into the Day 1 activities. In either case, give students the “Five Habits of Historical Thinking” handout for future reference. Those Five Habits are as follows: • • • • • History Is Not the Past Itself The Detective Model: Problem, Evidence, Interpretation Time, Change, and Continuity Cause and Effect As They Saw It: Grasping Past Points of View Warm-Up Activity: Homework assignment: Students do the “Warm-Up Activity.” This activity explores student memories and personal experiences shaping their understanding of the topic. Day 1: Discuss the “Warm-Up Activity.” Then either have students read or review the “Five Habits of Historical Thinking” handout, or use the Five Habits PowerPoint presentation. Homework assignment: Students read the background essay “The Impact of the Mongols.” Day 2: Use the second PowerPoint presentation, The Mongol Impact on China, Europe, and the Middle East to overview the topic for this lesson. The presentation applies the Five Habits of Historical Thinking to this topic. Do the two activities embedded in the presentation. Homework assignment: Students read the “Interpreting Primary Sources Checklist.” The checklist teaches a systematic way to handle sources: • Sourcing • Contextualizing • Interpreting meanings • Point of view • Corroborating sources Day 3: In class, students study some of the ten primary source documents and complete “Source Analysis” worksheets on them. They use their notes to discuss these sources. (Worksheet questions are all based on the concepts on the “Interpreting Primary Sources Checklist.”) Day 4: In class, students complete the remaining “Source Analysis” worksheets and use their notes to discuss these sources. Take some time to discuss briefly the two secondary source passages students will analyze next. Homework assignment: Students read these two secondary source passages. Day 5: In class, students do the two “Secondary Sources” activities and discuss them. These activities ask them to analyze the two secondary source passages using four criteria: • Clear focus on a problem or question • Position or point of view • Use of evidence or sources • Awareness of alternative explanations Follow-Up Activities (optional, at teacher discretion): Do as preferred: the DBQ Essay Assignment and/or the Structured Debate. 4 The Historian’s Apprentice | The Mongol Impact on China, Europe, and the Middle East Teacher Suggested Three-Day Sequence Introduction If you have less time to devote to this lesson, here is a suggested shorter sequence. The sequence does not include the PowerPoint presentation Five Habits of Historical Thinking. This presentation is included with each Historian’s Apprentice unit. If you have never used it with your class, you may want to do so before following this three-day sequence. The three-day sequence leaves out a few activities from the five-day sequence. It also suggests that you use only six key primary sources. Yet it still walks students through the steps in the Historian’s Apprentice approach: Clarifying background knowledge, analyzing primary sources, comparing secondary sources, and debating or writing about the topic. Warm-Up Activity. Homework assignment: Ask students to read or review the “Five Habits of Historical Thinking” handout and read the background essay “The Impact of the Mongols.” Day 1: Use the PowerPoint presentation The Industrial Revolution in Daily Life. It overviews the topic for this lesson by applying the Five Habits of Historical Thinking to it. Do the two activities embedded in the presentation. Homework assignment: Students read or review the “Interpreting Primary Sources Checklist.” The checklist teaches a systematic way to handle sources. Day 2: In class, students study some of the ten primary source documents and complete “Source Analysis” worksheets on them. They use their notes to discuss these sources. We suggest using Documents 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, and 9. You may wish to make your own choices of primary sources. Use your judgment in deciding how many of them your students can effectively analyze in a single class period. Homework assignment: Students read the two secondary source passages. Day 3: In class, students do the two “Secondary Sources” activities and discuss them. These activities ask them to analyze the two secondary source passages using four criteria. Follow-Up Activities (optional, at teacher discretion): Do as preferred: the DBQ Essay Assignment and/or the Structured Debate. The Mongol Impact on China, Europe, and the Middle East | The Historian’s Apprentice 5 Teacher Introduction Suggestions for Use With Younger Students For younger students, parts of this lesson may prove challenging. If you feel your students need a somewhat more manageable path through the material, see the suggested sequence below. If you want to use the Five Habits of Historical Thinking PowerPoint presentation, this sequence takes four class periods. If you do not use this PowerPoint, you can combine DAY 1 and DAY 2 and keep the sequence to just three days. We suggest using six primary sources only. The ones listed for DAY 3 are less demanding in terms of vocabulary and conceptual complexity. For DAY 4, we provide some simpler DBQs for the follow-up activities. Vocabulary: A list of vocabulary terms in the sources and the introductory essay is provided on page 7 of this booklet. You may wish to hand this sheet out as a reading reference, you could make flashcards out of some of the terms, or you might ask each of several small groups to use the vocabulary sheet to explain terms in one source to the rest of the class. SUGGESTED FOUR-DAY SEQUENCE Warm-Up Activity. Homework assignment: Students do the “Warm-Up Activity.” This activity explores student memories and personal experiences shaping their understanding of the topic. Day 1: Discuss the “Warm-Up Activity.” Show the Five Habits of Historical Thinking PowerPoint presentation (unless you have used it before and/or you do not think it is needed now). If you do not use this PowerPoint presentation, give students the “Five Habits of Historical Thinking” handout and discuss it with them. Homework assignment: Ask students to read the background essay “The Impact of the Mongols.” Day 2: Use the PowerPoint presentation The Mongol Impact on China, Europe, and the Middle East. This introduces the topic for the lesson by applying the Five Habits of Historical Thinking to it. Do the two activities embedded in the presentation. Homework assignment: Students read or review the “Interpreting Primary Sources Checklist.” The checklist teaches a systematic way to handle sources. Day 3: Discuss the “Interpreting Primary Sources Checklist” and talk through one primary source document in order to illustrate the meaning of the concepts on the checklist. Then have students complete “Source Analysis” worksheets after studying primary source documents 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, and 9. Homework assignment: Students read the two secondary source passages. Day 4: Students do only “Secondary Sources: Activity 2” and discuss it. This activity asks them to choose from among the sources the two that best back up each secondary source passage. Follow-Up Activities (optional, at teacher discretion): Do as preferred: the DBQ Essay Assignment and/or the Structured Debate. Here are some alternate DBQs tailored to the six primary sources recommended here: In what main ways did the Mongol Empire differ from the settled societies near it? How did those differences help them to control those societies for a century or more? “The Mongols were cruel and ruthless. They do not deserve the praise some historians give them.” Explain why you do or do not agree with statement. 6 The Historian’s Apprentice | The Mongol Impact on China, Europe, and the Middle East Vocabulary Vocabulary: The Introductory Essay catapult: An ancient military device used to hurl stones, other heavy objects, and explosives nomads: People who have no permanent home but who move continually, usually in a regular pattern siege: In this case, the effort to surround a fortified place and force it to surrender steppe: An extensive grassy plain without trees Vocabulary: The Primary Sources arraign: In this case, to accuse, charge, or criticize dragoman: A guide or interpreter ply: To carry on or pursue some effort precepts: A rule or maxim guiding moral action Vocabulary: The Secondary Sources ideological: A body of ideas, beliefs, or myths that guides a group in its social actions and plans imams: A Muslim leader or person in charge of a mosque insinuate: To instill an idea or suggest it subtly mandarin: In the Chinese Empire, a member of the higher ranks of public officials persistent: Able to endure or keep going in the face of opposition or obstacles pragmatic: Practical predilections: Inclined toward something, leaning in favor of it tenuous: Vague, unclear, or poorly understood universal: Something that applies to or is used by all The Mongol Impact on China, Europe, and the Middle East | The Historian’s Apprentice 7 Teacher Introduction Part 1: The Mongol Impact—Providing the Context Note to the teacher: The next pages provide materials meant to help students better understand and evaluate this topic. The materials also seek to teach students the Five Habits of Historical Thinking. This section includes the following: • PowerPoint presentation: The Five Habits of Historical Thinking This presentation illustrates five habits of thought or modes of analysis that guide historians as they construct their secondary accounts of a topic. These five habits are not about skills used in analyzing primary sources (those are dealt with more explicitly in another handout in the next section). The Five Habits are meant to help students see history as a way of thinking, not as the memorizing of disparate facts and predigested conclusions. The PowerPoint uses several historical episodes as examples to illustrate the Five Habits. In two places, it pauses to ask students to do a simple activity applying one of the habits to some of their own life experiences. If you have used this PowerPoint with other Historian’s Apprentice units, you may not need to use it again here. • Handout: “The Five Habits of Historical Thinking” This handout supplements the PowerPoint presentation. It is meant as a reference for students to use as needed. If you have used other Historian’s Apprentice units, your students may only need to review this handout quickly. • Warm-Up Activity A simple exercise designed to help you see what students know about the topic, what confuses them, or what ideas they may have absorbed about it from popular culture, friends and family, etc. The goal is to alert them to their need to gain a clearer idea of the past and be critical of what they think they already know. • Introductory essay: “The Impact of the Mongols” The essay provides enough basic background information on the topic to enable students to assess primary sources and conflicting secondary source interpretations. At the end of the essay, students get some points to keep in mind about the nature of the sources they will examine and the conflicting secondary source interpretations they will debate. • PowerPoint presentation: The Mongol Impact on China, Europe, and the Middle East This PowerPoint presentation reviews the topic for the lesson and shows how the Five Habits of Historical Thinking can be applied to a clearer understanding of it. At two points, the presentation calls for a pause and students are prompted to discuss some aspects of their prior knowledge of the topic. Our proposed sequences suggest using this PowerPoint presentation after assigning the introductory essay, but you may prefer to reverse this order. 8 The Historian’s Apprentice | The Mongol Impact on China, Europe, and the Middle East Student Activity Warm-Up Activity What Do You Know About the Mongol Empire? This lesson deals with impact of the Mongols on world history. Whenever you start to learn something about a time in history, it helps to think first of what you already know about it, or think you know. You probably have impressions. Or you may have read or heard things about it already. Some of what you know may be accurate. You need to be ready to alter your fixed ideas about this time as you learn more about it. This is what any historian would do. To do this, study this map and take a few notes in response to the questions below it. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. What part of the world does this map show? Can you name some of the nations today inside both the white and the darker shaded areas on the map? Together, those two areas made up the largest empire in history. It arose in the 1200s and was nearly all gone by 1400. It was controlled by a group known as the Mongols. What do you know about them? In the past, accounts of the Mongols often referred to them as the “Mongol Hordes.” What image of them does this call up in your mind? Do you think the image is a fair one? How was it that the Mongols were able to unite so many powerful civilizations into the largest empire in history? The Mongol Impact on China, Europe, and the Middle East | The Historian’s Apprentice 9 Introductory Essay • The Impact of the Mongols The story of the Mongols of the 13th and 14th centuries is one that many people find fascinating, horrifying, and often difficult to believe or fully understand. It is fascinating for being full of dramatic, colorful, swiftly moving events and amazing personalities— and also for its exotic setting. For the Mongols were nomads of the steppes of Central Asia, herders who mastered the art of horse riding. Of course, nomadic societies on the Eurasian steppes had been doing that for centuries. However, the Mongols put their horse-riding skills to the test within a military machine of truly formidable power. No other society at the time had warriors as skilled at shooting arrows from a galloping horse, nor were others as smart in cavalry tactics of attacking and of engaging in deceptive retreats as well. In time, the Mongols also learned from the Chinese how to use catapults and gunpowder explosives in the siege of cities. As for Mongol personalities, none is more amazing than Temujin, destined to rise from the head of a family of seven abandoned by its clan to become Chinggis Khan (often spelled Genghis Khan), ruler of a great united federation of Mongol tribes. As a part of his efforts to unify the Mongol tribes and clans, he seems to have created entirely new arrangements to overcome the purely tribal organization in military and other affairs. These efforts helped achieve much greater unity and discipline than what nomadic tribal societies had attained. Along with being fascinating, the story of the Mongols is also horrifying. It is horrifying to many because of the ruthless form of warfare by which a small army of horse-riding Mongol warriors was able to sow terror among and subdue whole civilizations vastly more populous and wealthier than the Mongols themselves. In attacking a city, for example, the Mongols learned to let residents know that if they surrendered, they would be allowed to live. If they did not surrender, the Mongols would massacre them—men, women, and children—sell any survivors into slavery, and level the city. They carried out this threat often enough that it had the desired effect in many cases. 10 • Finally, the Mongol story is hard to believe or fully understand. This is in part because we are used to thinking of nomadic herders of the open, rolling steppes as far less advanced than the huge agricultural and city-based civilizations such as ancient Egypt, Rome, China, or Persia. Yet in less than a century after Temujin united the Mongol tribes in 1206, his armies of about a hundred thousand had conquered two of the civilizations mentioned above (China and Persia), civilizations which contained tens of millions of people. The Mongol Empire soon split into four main parts, or khanates, when Chinggis divided the empire among four of his sons. Overall, these four regions together made up the largest empire in history. The question of how the Mongols did all this is a challenging matter that of course interests historians. Another issue that interests them, however, is what sort of lasting impact, if any, the Mongols had on history in general. For as swiftly as the Mongol Empire arose, it lasted only about a century in most places and then disappeared completely as an organized political entity. For some, the Mongol impact is seen almost entirely as a negative one. Mongol warriors laid waste to many regions—parts of China and Russia, present-day Iraq and Iran, Poland and Hungary, areas of northern India, and many other places. In the Middle East, they put an end to the Muslim world’s Abbasid Caliphate and may well have cut short the creative energy of Muslim civilization in certain places, such as Baghdad, which was subject to a devastating siege and slaughter in 1258. Everywhere they conquered, the Mongols brought terror and often destruction. Yet historians also speak of a Pax Mongolia—a “Mongolian Peace” in which a widespread lawfulness replaced the warring of small states and tribal societies throughout the parts of Asia the Mongols conquered. In China, by the time of Chinggis’s grandson Khubilai Khan, the Mongols were adopting many Chinese practices and acting to strengthen and protect that ancient civilization. The Yuan Dynasty established by Khubilai brought a degree of unity to China greater than had existed Debating the Documents | The Mongol Impact on China, Europe, and the Middle East Student Handout previously. There and elsewhere, Mongol leaders also seem to have taken a tolerant attitude toward the religious diversity in many of the lands they now controlled. Economic life thrived in many parts of the Mongol Empire. The Pax Mongolia made it far easier for merchants to trade along the many routes that made up the so-called Silk Road across Central Asia. Safe travel was guaranteed to them, and way stations were provided. Not only trade goods, but ideas, religions, and other cultural traditions could be carried much more easily from one part of the Mongol Empire to another. Europeans, for example, likely benefited from various transfers of technology from China, such as gunpowder, paper money, the compass, and many other materials, tools and methods. According to some historians, these accomplishments explain why Europeans and others closer in time to the Mongols often admired them, rather than saw them as a bloodthirsty horde, as many people did later on. Hence in the late 1300s, Geoffrey Chaucer in The Canterbury Tales could speak of “this noble king, the Tartar Genghis Khan.” Obviously not all historians agree with this assessment, nor need for you accept it either. Yet you do need to consider all the evidence on either side of this controversy. The sources for this unit should help you decide for yourself which view of the Mongols you think is most accurate. Points to Keep in Mind Historians’ Questions The Primary Source Evidence As the Mongol Empire was expanding, those in its path naturally regarded it with fear and loathing. However, after it faded from history, the Mongols were often admired by historians and other writers who looked back on their achievements. Much later, during the Enlightenment in Europe, the Mongols again began to reclaim their reputation as a bloodthirsty horde of barbarians bent only on destruction. For this lesson, you will study ten primary source documents. Some of them deal with the nature of the nomadic life the Mongols lived on the steppes of Central Asia. Other sources are from various accounts by Europeans or other nonMongol visitors to the Mongol lands. Together, these sources should give you a better sense of who the Mongols were and what they were like, as well as an understanding of what their impact was on surrounding societies and how they were perceived by those societies. Today, historians take a more balanced view of the Mongols, yet debates still take the form of trying to decide whether their overall impact was a creative one in the long run, or purely destructive. To some extent, which side a historian takes in this debate depends on the sources used and the time and place on which that historian focuses. A very positive take on the Mongols has been offered by Jack Weatherford in his book, Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World. Not everyone agrees with his views, and so they will form the basis for the contrasting secondary source interpretations provided in that section of this “Historian’s Apprentice” unit. Secondary Source Interpretations After studying and discussing the primary sources, you will read two short passages by two different historians. The historians who wrote these passages differ somewhat in their views about the Mongols and their impact on world history. You will use your own background knowledge and your ideas about the primary sources as you think about and answer some questions about the views of these two historians. The Mongol Impact on China, Europe, and the Middle East | The Historian’s Apprentice 11 Student Handout Five Habits of Historical Thinking History is not just a chronicle of one fact after another. It is a meaningful story, or an account of what happened and why. It is written to address questions or problems historians pose. This checklist describes key habits of thinking that historians adopt as they interpret primary sources and create their own accounts of the past. History Is Not the Past Itself When we learn history, we learn a story about the past, not the past itself. No matter how certain an account of the past seems, it is only one account, not the entire story. The “entire story” is gone; that is, the past itself no longer exists. Only some records of events remain, and they are never complete. Therefore it is important to see all judgments and conclusions about the past as tentative or uncertain. Avoid looking for hard-and-fast “lessons” from the past. The value of history is in a way the opposite of such a search for quick answers; that is, its value is in teaching us to live with uncertainty and see even our present as complex, unfinished, open-ended. The Detective Model: Problem, Evidence, Interpretation Historians can’t observe the past directly. They must use evidence, just as a detective tries to reconstruct a crime based on clues left behind. In the historian’s case, primary sources are the evidence—letters, official documents, maps, photos, newspaper articles, artifacts, and all other traces from past times. Like a detective, a historian defines a very specific problem to solve, one for which evidence does exist. Asking clear, meaningful questions is a key to writing good history. Evidence is always incomplete. It’s not always easy to separate fact from opinion in it, or tell what is important from what is not. Historians try to do this, but they must stay cautious about their conclusions and open to other interpretations of the same evidence. Time, Change, and Continuity History is about the flow of events over time, yet is not just one fact after another. It seeks to understand this flow of events as a pattern. In that pattern, some things change while others hold steady over time. You need to see history as a dynamic interplay of both change and continuity together. Only by doing this can you see how the past has evolved into the present—and why the present carries with it many traces of or links to the past. Cause and Effect Along with seeing patterns of change and continuity over time, historians seek to explain that change. In doing this, they know that no single factor causes change. Many factors interact. Unique, remarkable, and creative individual actions and plans are one factor, but individual plans have unintended outcomes, and these shape events in unexpected ways. Moreover, individuals do not always act rationally or with full knowledge of what they are doing. Finally, geography, technology, economics, cultural traditions, and ideas all affect what groups and individuals do. As They Saw It: Grasping Past Points of View Above all, thinking like a historian means trying hard to see how people in the past thought and felt. This is not easy. As one historian put it, the past is “another country,” in which people felt and thought differently, often very differently, from the way we do now. Avoiding “present-mindedness” is therefore a key task for historians. Also, since the past includes various groups in conflict, historians must learn to empathize with many diverse cultures and subgroups to see how they differ and what they share in common. 12 The Historian’s Apprentice | The Mongol Impact on China, Europe, and the Middle East The Primary Sources Part 2: Analyzing the Primary Sources Note to the teacher: The next pages provide the primary sources for this lesson. We suggest you give these to students after they read the background essay, after they review the “Five Habits of Historical Thinking” handout, and after they watch and discuss the PowerPoint presentation for the lesson. This section includes the following: • Handout: “Interpreting Primary Sources Checklist Give copies of this handout to students and ask them to refer to it when analyzing any primary source. • Ten Primary Source Documents The Documents are as follows: Document 1. A woman standing on a carpet at the entrance to a yurt Document 2. A woman and four men on horseback in front of a yurt Document 3. William of Rubruck on how nomads adapted to the steppes Document 4. Ata Malik Juvaini on Chinggis Khan’s address to conquered Muslims Document 5. The Great Khan’s reply regarding attacks on Christians Document 6. William of Rubruck on his travels to the Mongol capital Document 7. Marco Polo on Khubilai Khan’s views on religions Document 8. Ata Malik Juvaini on the Mongol destruction of the Assassins Document 9. Passage from Francesco Balducci Pegolotti’s Merchant Handbook Document 10. An illustration of Jews being burned during the Black Death • Ten “Source Analysis” Worksheets for Analyzing the Primary Sources Each worksheet asks student to take notes on one source. The prompts along the side match the five categories in the “Interpreting Primary Sources Checklist.” Not every category is used in each worksheet, only those that seem most relevant to a full analysis of that source. You may want students to analyze all of the sources. However, if time does not allow this, use those that seem most useful for your own instructional purposes. Students can use the notes on the “Source Analysis” worksheets in discussions, as a help in analyzing the two secondary sources in the next part of this lesson, and in follow-up debates, DBQs, and other activities. The Mongol Impact on China, Europe, and the Middle East | The Historian’s Apprentice 13 Student Handout Interpreting Primary Sources Checklist Primary sources are the evidence historians use to reach conclusions and write their accounts of the past. Sources rarely have one obvious, easily grasped meaning. To interpret them fully, historians use several strategies. This checklist describes some of the most important of those strategies. Read the checklist through and use it to guide you whenever you need to analyze and interpret a primary source. Sourcing Think about a primary source’s author or creator, how and why the primary source document was created, and where it appeared. Also think about the audience it was intended for and what its purpose was. You may not always find much information about these things, but whatever you can learn will help you better understand the source. In particular, it may suggest the source’s point of view or bias, since the author’s background and intended audience often shape his or her ideas and way of expressing them. Contextualizing “Context” refers to the time and place of which the primary source is a part. In history, facts do not exist separately from one another. They get their meaning from the way they fit into a broader pattern. The more you know about that broader pattern, or context, the more you will be able to understand about the source and its significance. Interpreting Meanings It is rare for a source’s full meaning to be completely obvious. You must read a written source closely, paying attention to its language and tone, as well as to what it implies or merely hints at. With a visual source, all kinds of meaning may be suggested by the way it is designed, by such things as shading, camera angle, use of emotional symbols or scenes, etc. The more you pay attention to all the details, the more you can learn from a source. Point of View Every source is written or created by someone with a purpose, an intended audience, and a point of view or bias. Even a dry table of numbers was created for some reason, to stress some things and not others, to make a point of some sort. At times, you can tell a point of view simply by sourcing the document. Knowing an author was a Democrat or a Republican, for example, will alert you to a likely point of view. In the end, however, only a close reading of the text will make you aware of point of view. Keep in mind, even a heavily biased source can still give you useful evidence of what some people in a past time thought. But you need to take the bias into account in judging how reliable the source’s own claims really are. Corroborating Sources No one source tells the whole story. Moreover, no one source is completely reliable. To make reasonable judgments about an event in the past, you must compare sources to find points of agreement and disagreement. Even when there are big differences, both sources may be useful. However, the differences will also tell you something, and they may be important in helping you understand each source. 14 The Historian’s Apprentice | The Mongol Impact on China, Europe, and the Middle East The Primary Sources The Primary Sources for the Lesson Document 1 Information on the source: This photo is of a woman, possibly Turkman or Kyrgyz, standing on a carpet at the entrance to a yurt, dressed in traditional clothing and jewelry. The photo was taken in the early 1900s, but it depicts a scene on the steppes of Central Asia that is not that different from what would have been common there during the time of the Mongol Empire. Document 2 Information on the source: An 1870s photo of a woman and four men on horseback in front of a yurt. The photo helps call attention to the central role of the horse in the various cultures that gave birth to the Mongols and other federations of steppe nomads of the past. Information on the source: Document 3 The Franciscan monk William of Rubruck traveled to the Mongol capital of Karakorum in 1253–55. He wrote a detailed account of the his time with the Mongols. The passage here is from The Journey of William of Rubruck to the eastern parts of the world, 1253–55, as narrated by himself, with two accounts of the earlier journey of John of Pian de Carpine, translated from the Latin and edited, with an introductory notice, by William Woodville Rockhill (London: Hakluyt Society, 1900). Nowhere have they fixed dwellingplaces, nor do they know where their next will be… For in winter they go down to warmer regions in the south: in summer they go up to cooler towards the north. The pasture lands without water they graze over in winter when there is snow there, for the snow serveth them as water. They set up the dwelling in which they sleep on a circular frame of interlaced sticks converging into a little round hoop on the top, from which projects above a collar as a chimney, and this they cover over with white felt… And they make these houses so large that they are sometimes thirty feet in width. I myself once measured the width between the wheel-tracks of a cart twenty feet, and when the house was on the cart it projected beyond the wheels on either side five feet at least. I have myself counted to one cart twenty-two oxen drawing one house, eleven abreast across the width of the cart, and the other eleven before them. The Mongol Impact on China, Europe, and the Middle East | The Historian’s Apprentice 15 The Primary Sources Document 4 Information on the source: In one of his wars of conquest, Chinggis Khan fought the Khwarezmid Empire in Central Asia and what is now Iran and part of Iraq. After his Mongol army took over the city of Bukhara, he spoke to the Muslim population at a mosque. These words from that speech are reproduced from Ata Malik Juvaini, Genghis Khan: The History of the World Conqueror, translated by J. A. Boyle, (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1997), p. 105. Juvaini was a native of an area the Mongols conquered in what is now the northeastern part of Iran. Document 5 Information on the source: In 1243, Pope Innocent IV sent Franciscan friar John Plano Carpini to Karakoram to meet with the Kuyuk Khan, the third Great Khan of the Mongol Empire, to ask him to stop his attacks on Christians. After a wait, Carpini was given a reply, part of which is reproduced here. And when you say: “I am a Christian. I pray to God. I arraign and despise others,” how do you know who is pleasing to God and to whom He allots His grace? How can you know it, that you speak such words? Thanks to the power of the Eternal Heaven, all lands have been given to us from sunrise to sunset. How could anyone act other than in accordance with the commands of Heaven? Now your own upright heart must tell you: “We [the Pope and monarchs of Europe] will become subject to you, and will place our powers at your disposal.” You in person, at the head of the monarchs, all of you, without exception, must come to tender us service and pay us homage, then only will we recognize your submission. But if you do not obey the commands of Heaven, and run counter to our orders, we shall know that you are our foe. 16 O people, know that you have committed great sins, and that the great ones among you have committed these sins. If you ask me what proof I have for these words, I say it is because I am the punishment of God. If you had not committed great sins, God would not have sent a punishment like me upon you. Document 6 Information on the source: Another passage from William of Rubruck’s account of his travels to the Mongol capital, Karakorum. The next day (the Chan) sent his secretaries to me, who said: “Our lord sends us to you to say that you are here Christians, Saracens [Muslims] and Tuins [Buddhists]. And each of you says that his doctrine is the best, and his writings—that is, books—the truest. So he wishes that you shall all meet together, and make a comparison, each one writing down his precepts, so that he himself may be able to know the truth.” Then I said: “Blessed be God, who put this in the Chan’s heart. But our Scriptures tell us, the servant of God should not dispute, but should show mildness to all; so I am ready, without disputation or contention, to give reason for the faith and hope of the Christians, to the best of my ability.” They wrote down my words, and carried them back to him. Then it was told the Nestorians that they should look to themselves, and write down what they wished to say, and likewise to the Saracens, and in the same way to the Tuins. The Historian’s Apprentice | The Mongol Impact on China, Europe, and the Middle East The Primary Sources Document 7 Information on the source: Perhaps the most famous European visitor to China under Mongol rule was Marco Polo. He left Venice in 1271 and did not return until 1295. His account was treated with some doubts at first, though over time many Europeans had their views of China shaped by it. This passage deals with Khubilai Khan, a grandson of Chinggis Khan who became the fifth Great Khan of the Mongol Empire and the founder of China’s Yuan Dynasty. Here Marco deals with Khubilai’s views on Christianity and other religions. From The Travels of Marco Polo, translated and with an introduction by Ronald Latham (London: Penguin Books, 1958). It was in the month of November that Kubilai returned to Khanbalik. And there he stayed until February and March, the season of our Easter. Learning that this was one of our principal feasts, he sent for all the Christians and desired them to bring him the book containing the four Gospels. After treating the book to repeated applications of incense with great ceremony, he kissed it devoutly and desired all his barons and lords there present to do the same. This usage he regularly observes on the principle feasts of the Christians, such as Easter and Christmas. And he does likewise on the principle feasts of the Saracens, Jews, and idolaters. Being asked why he did so, he replied: ‘There are four prophets who are worshiped and to whom all the world does reverences. The Christians say that their God was Jesus Christ, the Saracens Mahomet, the Jews Moses, and the idolators Sakyamuni Burkhan [Buddha] who was the first to be represented as God in the form of an idol. And I do honour and reverence to all four, so that I may be sure of doing it to him who is greatest in heaven and truest; and to him I pray for aid. But on the Great Khan’s own showing he regards as truest and best the faith of the Christians, because he declares that it commands nothing that is not full of all goodness and holiness. He will not on any account allow the Christians to carry the cross before them, and this because on it suffered and died such a great man as Christ. Document 8 Information on the source: The Mongol Ilkhanate was founded in the 1200s by Chinngis Khan’s grandson Hulagu in what is now mainly Iran and Iraq and nearby parts of Central Asia. It arose at first during Mongol wars against the Khwarezmid Empire. At first the Ilkhanate was sympathetic to Buddhism and Christianity. After 1295, its rulers embraced Islam. This passage is by Persian chronicler Ata Malik Juvaini, who worked for the Mongols. In it, he describes the results of the Mongol destruction of a Shi’a group known as the Assassins. From Ata Malik Juvaini, Genghis Khan: The History of the World Conqueror, translated by J. A. Boyle, (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1997). So was the world cleansed which had been polluted by their evil. Wayfarers now ply to and fro without fear or dread or the inconvenience of paying a toll and pray for the fortune of the happy King who uprooted their foundations and left no trace of anyone of them. The Mongol Impact on China, Europe, and the Middle East | The Historian’s Apprentice 17 The Primary Sources Document 9 Information on the source: Pegolotti’s Merchant Handbook offers insight into trade across Central Asia in the 1300s, when the “Golden Horde” was in control of much of the area. The Golden Horde was the name used for the group of Mongols who took control of what is now Russia and other nearby lands. Francesco Balducci Pegolotti worked for a merchant firm in the Italian city-state of Florence. The passages here are from the partial translation in Henry Yule and Henri Cordier, tr. and ed., Cathay and the Way Thither, Being a Collection of Medieval Notices of China, Vol. III (London, 1916). The road you travel from Tana to Cathay is perfectly safe [Tana is Azov, at the mouth of the Don River in Russia, Cathay is China], whether by day or by night, according to what the merchants say who have used it… You may calculate that a merchant with a dragoman, and with two men servants, and with goods to the value of twenty-five thousand golden florins, should spend on his way to Cathay from sixty to eighty sommi of silver, and not more if he manage well; and for all the road back again from Cathay to Tana, including the expenses of living and the pay of servants, and all other charges, the cost will be about five sommi per head of pack animals, or something less. And you may reckon the sommi to be worth five golden florins… Whatever silver the merchants may carry with them as far as Cathay the lord of Cathay will take from them and put into his treasury. And to merchants who thus bring silver they give that paper money of theirs in exchange. This is of yellow paper, stamped with the seal of the lord aforesaid. And this money is called balishi; and with this money you can readily buy silk and all other merchandise that you have a desire to buy. And all the people of the country are bound to receive it. And yet you shall not pay a higher price for your goods because your money is of paper. Document 10 Information on the source: One unintended result of the more open trade on the Central Asian routes during Mongol times was the ease with which diseases passed from one region to another. In the 1340s, merchants helped spread the terrifying Black Death throughout Europe. Perhaps a third of Europe’s population was destroyed by it. Since no one really understood how the disease spread, many blamed outsiders or people who were different in some way. This illustration from a book published in 1493 depicts Jews being burned alive for “spreading the Black Death.” The photo of this work of art is courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. 18 The Historian’s Apprentice | The Mongol Impact on China, Europe, and the Middle East Student Activity Source Analysis: Primary Source Document 1 Photo of a woman standing on a carpet at the entrance to a yurt Contextualizing _____________________________________________________________________ What aspects of the physical environment on the Central Asian steppes might explain why nomadic groups there preferred this form of housing? What aspects of their nomadic lifestyles also might lead them to build such dwellings? Interpreting meanings_ ______________________________________________________________ Just from this photo alone, explain what you think the advantages and disadvantages of living in a home like this yurt would be. Some might call this a “primitive” sort of housing, compared to dwellings in settled cities and villages. Others say that is a biased way of looking at it, that this form of housing is perfectly sensible for the groups that used it. With which view do you agree more? Why? The Mongol Impact on China, Europe, and the Middle East | The Historian’s Apprentice 19 Student Activity Source Analysis: Primary Source Document 2 An 1870s photo of a woman and four men on horseback in front of a yurt Contextualizing _____________________________________________________________________ The first societies to tame the horse were probably those located on the Eurasian steppes where the Mongols lived. Why might that environment lead societies to stress the raising of horses? What gave the Mongols their advantage in warfare was not just the use of the horse. More settled societies also had cavalry forces. What else do you know about the way the Mongols used their horses to gain advantage over most other armies from more settled societies? Interpreting meanings_ ______________________________________________________________ How does this photo help in understanding why horses would have been so important to steppe nomads like the Mongols? 20 The Historian’s Apprentice | The Mongol Impact on China, Europe, and the Middle East Student Activity Source Analysis: Primary Source Document 3 William of Rubruck on how nomads adapt to conditions on the steppes Interpreting meanings_ ______________________________________________________________ Nomads are often described simply as groups that move from time to time rather than living in settled communities. What does this account add to that view—that is, how would you describe the pattern of movements made by Mongol tribes? Were they random, short or long in distance, one-way or back and forth, etc.? What explains the way these groups moved? What does the second paragraph in this passage suggest about the complexity and technical levels achieved by these Mongol communities? Corroborating sources ______________________________________________________________ In what ways do Primary Source Documents 1 and 2 back up the ideas expressed in this passage? What does this passage add or help you notice better about those first two sources? The Mongol Impact on China, Europe, and the Middle East | The Historian’s Apprentice 21 Student Activity Source Analysis: Primary Source Document 4 Ata Malik Juvaini reports the words of Chinngis Khan to Muslims he has conquered. Interpreting meanings_ ______________________________________________________________ What do you think Chinggis Khan meant by referring to himself as “the punishment of God”? What would have made him seem punishing to the Muslims in the mosque at which he was speaking? Consider the fact that his audience was Muslim. Might that fact alone explain the choice of words Chinggis Khan uses to describe himself here? Or do you think he really does think of himself literally as the punishment of God? Point of view________________________________________________________________________ Ata Malik Juvaini worked for the Mongols and wrote a chronicle about them. He was also a native of Khorasan, an area of northeastern Iran conquered by the Mongols. How might this background explain the way he depicts Chinggis Khan here? Do you think he might be altering what Chinggis Khan said in some way or reporting it fairly and accurately? Explain your answer. 22 The Historian’s Apprentice | The Mongol Impact on China, Europe, and the Middle East Student Activity Source Analysis: Primary Source Document 5 The Great Khan’s reply to Franciscan friar John Plano Carpini, regarding attacks on Christians Contextualizing _____________________________________________________________________ Notice that the date of this source is 1243. What do you know about recent events then involving Mongols and Europeans? How might those events explain the haughty tone the Khan seems to have taken here in dealing with the pope? Considering that the Mongols invaded Hungary and Poland in 1241, do you think the Khan was justified in making the sort of demand he makes here of all European monarchs and the pope? From what you know about the pope and the Catholic Church’s leadership in the 1200s in Europe, why might the pope have felt justified in telling the Khan about his power in relation to the monarchs of Europe? Interpreting meanings_ ______________________________________________________________ What can you reasonably conclude about the Khan’s actual feelings about Christianity from his brief remarks here? The Mongol Impact on China, Europe, and the Middle East | The Historian’s Apprentice 23 Student Activity Source Analysis: Primary Source Document 6 Another passage from William of Rubruck on his travels to the Mongol capital Interpreting meanings_ ______________________________________________________________ What can you conclude from this passage about the cultural life of Karakorum, the Mongol capital, in 1253–55 when William of Rubruck was there? Why do you think the Mongol Khan wanted to have all the representatives of these religions meet and compare their ideas? What do you think of the reasons William of Rubruck gives for refusing to take part in what he calls a”disputation”? Corroborating sources ______________________________________________________________ Compare this source with others that deal with Mongol views about religions other than their own. What similarities and differences do you notice among these sources? 24 The Historian’s Apprentice | The Mongol Impact on China, Europe, and the Middle East Student Activity Source Analysis: Primary Source Document 7 Marco Polo on Khubilai Khan’s views on Christianity and other religions Corroborating sources ______________________________________________________________ In what ways does Marco Polo’s account here of Khubilai Khan’s views about religion seem similar to that of William of Rubruck in Primary Source Document 6? What differences can you see? Given the similarities, do you think these two sources show accurately how the Mongols viewed the religious ideas of the various cultures they encountered? Point of view________________________________________________________________________ In what way might Marco Polo’s account reflect his own attitudes about Christianity as much as it describes Khubilai Khan’s? How reliable do you think his account is? Explain your answer. The Mongol Impact on China, Europe, and the Middle East | The Historian’s Apprentice 25 Student Activity Source Analysis: Primary Source Document 8 Ata Malik Juvaini on the Mongol destruction of a Shi’a group, the Assassins. Contextualizing _____________________________________________________________________ This passage refers to the Mongol efforts to eliminate a Shi’a sect known as the Assassins. What do you know about Shi’a Islam and about this particular sect? Based on what you know, explain how this passage does not illustrate general Mongol attitudes toward all of Islam. Given the fact that the Mongols came to control the routes known as the Silk Road, what does this passage suggest their role was in fostering worldwide trade? Corroborating sources ______________________________________________________________ How would you compare this source’s evidence with the Mongols’ tolerant views about religion as described in Primary Source Documents 6 and 7? 26 The Historian’s Apprentice | The Mongol Impact on China, Europe, and the Middle East Student Activity Source Analysis: Primary Source Document 9 Francesco Balducci Pegolotti’s Merchant Handbook, on trade across Central Asia in the 1300s. Interpreting meanings_ ______________________________________________________________ What sorts of things can you learn from this source about merchants and the nature of trading along the Silk Road routes of Central Asia? Aside from making the routes safe, in what other ways does this source suggest Mongol rule benefited merchants trading across these routes? This source does not provide details about the exact value of florins and the other currencies it mentions. However, it is very confident that those values will stay stable and dependable in relation to one another. What does this confidence suggest about Mongol rule over these trade routes? The Mongol Impact on China, Europe, and the Middle East | The Historian’s Apprentice 27 Student Activity Source Analysis: Primary Source Document 10 A medieval work of art showing Jews being burned at the stake during the Black Death Contextualizing _____________________________________________________________________ The Black Death was most likely the bubonic plague. It probably first arose in Central Asia and spread west. What do you know about how it was actually spread? What about Europe in the Middle Ages helps explain why people there might have blamed Jews in particular for this mysterious plague? Point of view________________________________________________________________________ Do you think this illustration expresses any attitude toward the Jews being burned at the stake here, or is the image purely neutral in tone? Explain your answer. 28 The Historian’s Apprentice | The Mongol Impact on China, Europe, and the Middle East The Secondary Sources Part 3: Analyzing the Secondary Sources Note to the teacher: This next section includes passages from two secondary source accounts dealing with the Mongols’ impact, along with two activities on these sources. We suggest you first discuss the brief comment “Analyzing Secondary Sources” just above the first of the two secondary sources. Discuss the four criteria the first activity asks students to use in analyzing each secondary source. These criteria focus students on the nature of historical accounts as 1) problem-centered, 2) based on evidence, 3) influenced by point of view and not purely neutral, and 4) tentative or aware of alternative explanations. Specifically, this section includes the following: • Two secondary source passages Give copies of these passages to students to read, either in class or as homework. The two passages are from Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World, by Jack Weatherford (New York: Crown Publishers, 2004), p. 233–4, and from Timothy May’s review of Jack Weatherford’s Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World, in World History Connected, Vol. 2, No. 2, May 2005. The review can be accessed at http:// worldhistoryconnected.press.illinois.edu/2.2/br_may.html • Two student activities Activity 1 Students analyze the two passage taking notes on the following questions: • How clearly does the account focus on a problem or question? • Does it reveal a position or express a point of view? • How well does it base its case on primary source evidence? • How aware is it of alternative explanations or points of view? Activity 2 In pairs, students select two of the primary sources for the lesson that best support each author’s claims in the secondary source passages. Students discuss their choices with the class. The Mongol Impact on China, Europe, and the Middle East | The Historian’s Apprentice 29 The Secondary Sources The Secondary Sources for the Lesson Analyzing Secondary Sources Historians write secondary source accounts of the past after studying primary source documents like the ones you have studied on the Mongols’ impact. However, They normally select documents from among a great many others, and they stress some aspects of the story but not others. In doing this, historians are guided by the questions they ask about the topic. Their selection of sources and their focus are also influenced by their own aims, bias or point of view. No account of the past is perfectly neutral. In reading a secondary source, you should pay to what it includes, what it leaves out, what conclusions it reaches, and how aware it is of alternative interpretations. * * * * Secondary Source 1 Information on the source: The passage in the box below is an excerpt from Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World, by Jack Weatherford (New York: Crown Publishers, 2004), p. 233–4. Whether their policy of religious tolerance, devising a universal alphabet, maintaining relay stations, playing games, or printing almanacs, money, or astronomy charts, the rulers of the Mongol Empire displayed a persistent universalism. Because they had no system of their own to impose upon their subjects, they were willing to adopt and combine systems from everywhere. Without deep cultural preferences in these areas, the Mongols implemented pragmatic rather than ideological solutions. They searched for what worked best; and when they found it, they spread it to other countries. They 30 did not have to worry whether their astronomy agreed with the precepts of the Bible, that their standards of writing followed the classical principles taught by the mandarins of China, or that Muslim imams disapproved of their printing and painting. The Mongols had the power, at least temporarily, to impose new international systems of technology, agriculture, and knowledge that superseded the predilections or prejudices of any single civilization; and in so doing they broke the monopoly on thought exercised by local elites. The Historian’s Apprentice | The Mongol Impact on China, Europe, and the Middle East The Secondary Sources The Secondary Sources for the Lesson Secondary Source 2 Information on the source: The passage in the box below is an excerpt from Timothy May’s review of Jack Weatherford’s Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World, in World History Connected, Vol. 2, No. 2, May 2005. It is quite clear that Weatherford is a brilliant writer, blending anthropological insight and incredible enthusiasm with a captivating narrative. It is easy to see why many reviewers and readers have been enthusiastic about it. Yet despite all of Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World’s acclaim, it is very clear that Weatherford is not a historian. In the general narrative, Weatherford is sufficiently accurate. However, in the details, Weatherford is wrestling with material that he clearly does not fully appreciate. For instance, one of the most troublesome aspects is that Weatherford places far too much emphasis on the Mongols’ use of gunpowder in warfare, going so far as to insinuate that they used cannons at the siege of Baghdad in 1258 (p. 182). There is no indication of this in the Arabic, Syriac, or Persian sources of this practice, nor of the Mongols using any device like a cannon at other sieges. To be sure, the Mongols did use grenades thrown from catapults occasionally, but gunpowder weapons of any form were not a major component of their arsenal as Weatherford portrays it… Weatherford overstates his case in his enthusiasm for the Mongols, making connections that are often tenuous. Did the Mongols contribute to the modern world? Definitely yes, the evidence (even considering the errors) assembled makes this very clear. It is too much to say that the Renaissance would not have happened without the Mongols. Indeed, eventually artists would have had contact with Chinese paintings and Chinese technology would have crept into Europe at any rate via the Middle East, albeit at a slower rate. One could make the argument that the Renaissance would not have happened without the Crusades as well. The Mongol Impact on China, Europe, and the Middle East | The Historian’s Apprentice 31 Student Activity The Secondary Sources: Activity 1 In this exercise, you read two short passages from longer secondary sources dealing with the impact of the Mongols on world history. For each secondary source, take notes on the following four questions (you may want to underline phrases or sentences in the passages that you think back up your notes): 1. How clearly does this account focus on a problem or question. What do you think that problem or question is? Sum it up in your own words here. Genghis Khan, Weatherford Review of Weatherford’s Genghis Khan, May 2. Does the secondary source take a position or express a point of view about the impact of the Mongols on world history? If so, briefly state that point of view or quote an example of it. Genghis Khan, Weatherford Review of Weatherford’s Genghis Khan, May 3. How well does the secondary source seem to base its case on primary source evidence? Take notes about any specific examples, if you can identify them. Genghis Khan, Weatherford Review of Weatherford’s Genghis Khan, May 4. Does the secondary source seem aware of alternative explanations or points of view about this topic? Underline points in the passage where you see this. Genghis Khan, Weatherford Review of Weatherford’s Genghis Khan, May In pairs, discuss your notes for this activity. 32 The Historian’s Apprentice | The Mongol Impact on China, Europe, and the Middle East Student Activity The Secondary Sources: Activity 2 This activity is based on the passages from Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World, by Jack Weatherford, and from Timothy May’s review of Weatherford’s Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World, in World History Connected. From the primary sources for this lesson, choose two that you think best support each source’s point of view about the impact of the Mongols on world history. With the rest of the class, discuss the two secondary source passages and defend the choice of sources you have made. 1. From this lesson, choose two primary sources that best back up the interpretation in Weatherford’s Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World. List those sources here and briefly explain why you chose them. 2. From this lesson, choose two primary sources that best back up the interpretation in May’s review of Weatherford’s book. List those sources here and briefly explain why you chose them. 3. Does your textbook include a passage describing the impact of the Mongols on world history? If so, with which of the two secondary source passages (Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World or the review of that book) does it seem to agree most? What one or two primary sources from this lesson would you add to this textbook passage to improve it? The Mongol Impact on China, Europe, and the Middle East | The Historian’s Apprentice 33 Follow-Up Activities Part 4: Follow-Up Options Note to the teacher: At this point, students have completed the key tasks of The Historian’s Apprentice program. They have examined their own prior understandings and acquired background knowledge on the topic. They have analyzed and debated a set of primary sources. They have considered secondary source accounts of the topic. This section includes two suggested follow-up activities. Neither of these is a required part of the lesson. They do not have to be undertaken right away. However, we do strongly recommend that you find some way to do what these options provide for. They give students a way to write or debate in order to express their ideas and arrive at their own interpretations of the topic. Two suggested follow-up activities are included here: • Document-Based Questions Four document-based questions are provided. Choose one and follow the guidelines provided for writing a typical DBQ essay. • A Structured Debate The aim of this debate format is not so much to teach students to win a debate, but to learn to listen and learn, as well as speak up and defend a position. A more interactive and more civil debating process is the goal. 34 The Historian’s Apprentice | The Mongol Impact on China, Europe, and the Middle East Follow-Up Activities Document-Based Questions Document-Based Questions (DBQs) are essay questions you must answer by using your own background knowledge and a set of primary sources on that topic. Below are four DBQs on the impact of the Mongols on world history. Use the sources for this lesson and everything you have learned from it to write a short essay answer to one of these questions. Suggested DBQs Using the documents for this lesson, describe the key ways that the Mongol Empire differed in its social patterns and cultural attitudes from the settled societies around it. “The Mongols were just lucky. They benefitted from the more advanced societies around them without really understanding them.” Assess the validity of this statement (that is, explain why you do or do not agree with it). “The Mongols may have been ruthless warriors, but so were warriors everywhere then. What was unusual was their openness and tolerance in peacetime.” Assess the validity of this statement (that is, explain why you do or do not agree with it). How accurately can we understand the Mongols when so many available sources are accounts by non-Mongols? Discuss this with reference to the sources for this lesson. Suggested Guidelines for Writing a DBQ Essay Planning and Thinking Through the Essay Consider the question carefully. Think about how to answer it so as to address each part of it. Do not ignore any detail in the question. Pay attention to the question’s form (cause-and-effect, compare-and-contrast, assess the validity, etc.). This form will often give you clues as to how best to organize each part of your essay. Thesis Statement and Introductory Paragraph The thesis statement is a clear statement of what you hope to prove in your essay. It must address all parts of the DBQ, it must make a claim you can back up with the sources, and it should be specific enough to help you organize the rest of your essay. Using Evidence Effectively Use the notes on your Source Analysis activity sheets to organize your thoughts about these primary sources. In citing a source, use it to support key points or illustrate major themes. Do not simply list a source in order to get it into the essay somehow. If any sources do not support your thesis, you should still try to use them. Your essay may be more convincing if you qualify your thesis so as to account for these other sources. Linking ideas explicitly After your introduction, your internal paragraphs should make your argument in a logical or clear way. Each paragraph should be built around one key supporting idea and details that back up that idea. Use transition phrase such as “before,” “next,” “then,” or “on the one hand..., but on the other hand,” to help readers follow the thread of your argument. Wrapping it up Don’t add new details about sources in your final paragraph. State a conclusion that refers back to your thesis statement by showing how the evidence has backed it up. If possible, look for nice turns of phrase to end on a dramatic note. The Mongol Impact on China, Europe, and the Middle East | The Historian’s Apprentice 35 Follow-Up Activities A Structured Debate Small-group activity: Using a version of the Structured Academic Controversy model, debate alternate interpretations of this lesson’s topic. The goal of this method is not so much to win a debate as to learn to collaborate in clarifying your interpretations to one another. In doing this, your goal should be to see that it is possibly for reasonable people to hold differing views, even when finding the “one right answer” is not possible. Use all their notes from previous activities in this lesson. Here are the rules for this debate. 1. Organize a team of four or six students. Choose a debate topic based on the lesson The Mongol Impact on China, Europe, and the Middle East. (You may wish to use one of the DBQs suggested for the “Document-Based Questions” activity for this lesson. Or you may want to define the debate topic in a different way.) 2. Split your team into two subgroups. Each subgroup should study the materials for this lesson and rehearse its case. One subgroup then present its case to the other. That other subgroup must repeat the case back to the first subgroup’s satisfaction. 3. Then the two subgroups switch roles and repeat step 2. 4. Your team either reaches a consensus which it explains to the entire class, or it explains where the key differences between the subgroups lie. 36 The Historian’s Apprentice | The Mongol Impact on China, Europe, and the Middle East Answers Answers to “Source Analysis” Activities Source Analysis: Document 1 Contextualizing: Lack of timber or stone for more solid buildings, need to be able to move regularly, etc. Interpreting meanings: Answers will vary and should be discussed. There is no one right answer, but students should at least see how well adapted to the environment this sort of housing is. Source Analysis: Document 2 Contextualizing: Horses thrived on these open grasslands. They were better able than other animals to survive harsh winters and forage beneath the snow, etc. All Mongols trained to ride early. Each warrior had several horses. They used them in large formations, but rarely in individual combat, etc. Interpreting meanings: Answers will vary, but the open steppe lands are clear in the photo and these were an ideal setting for horses and horse riding. Source Analysis: Document 3 Interpreting meanings: The pattern is a cyclic and regular one over a fairly short distance, tied to seasonal changes. Such large vehicles and houses suggest a high level of building skills, larger populations of skilled workers, etc. Corroborating sources: Answers will vary and should be discussed. Source Analysis: Document 4 Interpreting meanings: He had just taken over their city and defeated the empire of which it was a part. Answers will vary. It is worth considering that Chinggis Khan may have been speaking in terms he knew would have the most impact on his subject audience. Point of view: Answers will vary depending on how critical they think Juvaini might have been of the Mongol takeover of his society. Source Analysis: Document 5 Contextualizing: The Mongols had just inflicted huge losses on armies in Poland and Hungary. As devastating as the Mongols had been in Poland and Hungary, students may feel the Khan was overestimating his power over the rest of Europe, or simply trying to appear more powerful than he was. The papacy was at the height of its power in the 1200s and could influence political events in many places. Interpreting meanings: Answers will vary and should be discussed. The Mongol Impact on China, Europe, and the Middle East | The Historian’s Apprentice 37 Answers Source Analysis: Document 6 Interpreting meanings: It was a diverse city with several major religions represented. Answers will vary: He could have simply wanted to manage possible conflict, he might actually have hoped to learn more or see a way to get these groups to understand each other better, etc. Answers will vary. Some may see this as a sincere wish to avoid conflict. Others may see it as an excuse. Corroborating sources: Answers will vary and should be discussed. Source Analysis: Document 7 Corroborating sources: Answers will vary, but if Marco Polo was accurate, Khubilai Khan seems much more knowledgeable than the Mongol ruler in Primary Source 6 and more concerned to respect these various traditions. Answers will vary, but the similarities should be seen as evidence that the sources are fairly accurate. Point of view: There is no easy way to answer this question, but given Marco Polo’s origins, his view that the Khan favored Christianity should be seen with some skepticism, especially as the Mongols in China did not in fact embrace Christianity. Source Analysis: Document 8 Contextualizing: Shi’a Islam was a minority version of Islam in most Muslim societies, and the Assassins were one small group within that sect. It shows their commitment to maintaining the routes and keeping them open and safe for merchants. Corroborating sources: Answers will vary. Some may see a somewhat less tolerant attitude, at least with respect to extreme religiously motivated groups. Source Analysis: Document 9 Interpreting meanings: The central role of money, either in coin or paper; the need for teams of horses and skilled servants; the need for careful planning, etc. It maintained stable values for good and money so that merchants could plan and take risks more confidently, etc. That Mongol rule was strong and steady and also perhaps that it sought to ensure some elemental sense of fairness, etc. Source Analysis: Document 10 Contextualizing: There is still some debate about what disease(s) the Black Death was, but assuming it was bubonic plague, it was a bacterium spread by fleas carried by rats onboard ships. Jews were a despised minority, they were often involved in trade in cities where the plague spread most rapidly, etc. Point of view: Answers will vary and should be discussed. 38 The Historian’s Apprentice | The Mongol Impact on China, Europe, and the Middle East Answers Evaluating Secondary Sources: Activity 1 These are not definitive answers to the questions. They are suggested points to look for in student responses. 1. How clearly does this account focus on a problem or question. What do you think that problem or question is? Sum it up in your own words here? Weatherford in Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World focuses on the question of how the Mongols reacted to and adopted various beneficial accomplishments of the more settled societies they conquered and controlled. May in his review of Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World focuses on Weatherford’s strong claim that the Mongols shaped the modern world in fundamental ways. In this passage, May looks at some of the evidence Weatherford uses to make his case and assesses how accurate he is in doing this. 2. Does the secondary source take a position or express a point of view about the impact of the Mongols on world history? If so, briefly state that point of view or quote an example of it. Weatherford in this passage sums up his thesis by using the phrase “persistent universalism” to get at the way the Mongols accepted and passed on to others all kinds of technological, cultural, and intellectual achievements of the societies they came to control. In other words, they were very practical, he says, in seeing each of these achievements as having universal value—that is, value beyond the boundaries of the society that originated that achievement. May in his review does not dispute the general notion that the Mongols had the sort of universalizing effect Weatherford claims. What he does is indicate some factual mistakes that he says call some of Weatherford’s claims into question and that exaggerate the influence of the Mongols on some of the later historical trends discussed. 3. How well does the secondary source seem to base its case on primary source evidence? Take notes about any specific examples, if you can identify them. Weatherford does not refer directly to primary sources because this passage is more of a summary of the overall Mongol influence as he sees it. May does refer to other sources, but does not quote any or site them specifically. 4. Does the secondary source seem aware of alternative explanations or points of view about this topic? Underline points in the passage where you see this. Both Weatherford and May are responsive to alternative views. Weatherford does not refer to any here directly, but his whole book is explicitly defined as a corrective to purely negative views of the Mongols and their influence. May is directly responding to Weatherford’s view and appears to accept some but not all of it. The Mongol Impact on China, Europe, and the Middle East | The Historian’s Apprentice 39