In this final vocab activity of the unit, as with all of the final vocab activities in each unit, you will engage in a deeper exploration of the unit’s vocabulary. You’ll move beyond defining words to representing them in a variety of ways, including acting them out, drawing pictures, defining them in sentences, providing antonyms, and connecting them to course content.

Your teacher will give you a vocab card. Once everyone in the class has their cards, hold your card up to your forehead (with the word facing out), and try to find the other students in the room that have synonyms of your card. You and your synonyms are a group.

Now, you’re going to play a few rounds of the Word Wheel Game. The Word Wheel game works like this:

• Your teacher spins the wheel and calls out the action.
• For each spin, one person in your group has to complete the action related to where the spinner has landed. The actions are as follows for each word:
  • Use it in a sentence
    • Come up with a sentence that uses the word.
  • Think of an antonym
    • Come up with a word that is the opposite of the card you have.
  • Draw it
    • Create a quick sketch of the word.
  • Act it out
    • Act out the definition of the word. (Don’t just act out the word itself!)
  • Explain how your word relates to course content.
    • Relate your word to an activity, a lesson, a concept, the unit driving question, or even one of the practices. This one can be hard!
  • You choose!
    • You can do any of the above.
• You and the rest of the people in your group determine if the student whose turn it was gave a correct answer. If your group can’t decide, ask your teacher to help.
• Each time a student gets a correct answer, they get a point.
• Then, the teacher spins the wheel again and it’s the next person’s turn to go.

Once all of the word in the group have been explained (after two or three rounds), your teacher will collect the cards, shuffle them, and redistribute them. Repeat the process as many times as your teacher says!

The Americas from the thirteenth to the fifteenth century were home to varied and complex societies that took several different forms. Haudenosaunee was a confederation of related peoples. The Aztec and Inca states were empires with sophisticated bureaucracies. City-states like Mayapan governed themselves independently. During this period, these states grew more connected to their neighbors and themselves.

This survey of communities the Americas introduces you to the states and networks of this region. This will help you evaluate the networks frame and provide information to formulate an answer to the Unit 2 Problem: How did networks of exchange connect societies, and how were communities changed by these connections?

Preview – Skimming for Gist

Fill out the Skimming for Gist section of the Three Close Reads worksheet as you complete your first close read. As a reminder, this should be a quick process!

Key Ideas – Understanding Content

For this reading, you should be looking for unfamiliar vocabulary words, the major claim and key supporting details, and analysis and evidence. By the end of the second close read, you should be able to answer the following questions:

1. What type of state was Haudenosaunee, and how was it governed?
2. What type of state was the Aztec state? How was its diverse population ruled, according to the author?
3. What evidence is there of connections between the Aztec society and Mayapan?
4. What kind of a state was the Inca state, and how was it governed?

Evaluating and Corroborating

At the end of the third close read, respond to the following questions:

1. What factors stand out to you as particularly distinct and important in the way communities were organized in the Americas in this period?
2. How do these seem similar or different to other parts of the world you have studied for this period?

Migrations from the Central and South American mainland to the Caribbean islands began c. 5000 BCE. Over the course of thousands of years, indigenous peoples created communities and established networks of exchange between islands and with the mainland. Trade goods such as jade, ceramics, shells, and teeth moved across aquatic highways. However, these highways would change dramatically after 1492 with the arrival of the Spanish and the sustained connections between the Eastern and Western Hemispheres.

This video provides information about pre-colonial Caribbean communities and networks that are often overlooked in textbooks. You will use the evidence presented here to support, extend, and challenge the networks frame narrative. This video will also provide you with evidence to assess networks that existed before the Columbian Exchange. This evidence will help you identify changes that took place post-1492 and respond to the Unit Problem.

Preview – Skimming for Gist

Before you watch the video, open and skim the transcript. Additionally, you should always read the questions below before you watch the video (a good habit to use in reading, too!). These pre-viewing strategies will help you know what to look and listen for as you watch the video. If there is time, your teacher may have you watch the video one time without stopping, and then give you time to watch again to pause and find the answers.

Key Ideas – Understanding Content

Think about the following questions as you watch this video:

1. What were the two major moments of migrations to the Caribbean islands and when did these take place?
2. Dr. Hofman states that the soil has to be opened like a book in order to learn about these early Caribbean peoples. What types of information can archaeologists learn by doing this?
3. What were belief systems like in the early period of migration? How did these beliefs change in the later periods?
4. How do we know that there were continued contacts and exchanges between islands and between the Caribbean islands and the mainland of Central and South America in the pre-colonial period?
5. How did the indigenous Caribbean peoples help the Spanish and what occurred as a result of this help?
6. Who were the Kalinago and where did they settle?

Evaluating and Corroborating

1. In the video, Dr. Hofman states that 1492 marks “the beginning of the true globalizing world.” What evidence does she give to support this statement, and do you agree with her? Explain your reasoning.
2. How does the history of the pre-colonial Caribbean support, extend, or challenge what you’ve learned about networks and communities in this unit?

The Aztec Empire emerged from a bunch of Aztec city-states. One of these city-states, Tenochtitlan, was kind of an underdog. But in the context of a civil war, it formed a strategic alliance with other city-states to form the famous Aztec Empire—with Tenochtitlan as its seat. For a while, this system worked. But when the empire was invaded from outside, the city-state system could not hold the empire together.

By describing the context of the formation and decline of the Aztec Empire, this video will provide evidence for understanding the Americas prior to the Columbian Exchange. Later, you will look at how things changed after 1492. This will serve as evidence for responding to the question: "How were human communities organized and how did they interact during this period?" The evidence this article provides will also help you evaluate whether the communities frame narrative is accurate for this period.

Preview – Skimming for Gist

As a reminder, open and skim the transcript, and read the questions before you watch the video.

Key Ideas – Understanding Content

Think about the following questions as you watch this video:

1. What did Aztec society have in common with ancient Greece?
2. What was the Triple Alliance, and in what context did it develop?
3. How did the system of city-states help Hernando Cortes conquer the Aztec Empire?
4. The author of the video describes the Aztec Empire as advanced. What evidence does the author give for this claim and is the author’s argument convincing?
5. How did Aztec political communities differ from Maya political communities?

Evaluating and Corroborating

1. How does the Aztec state compare or contrast to different types of states and communities you have learned about in Afro-Eurasia?

Macuilxochitl was a Mexica (Aztec) poetess. Her life and her poetry are evidence of the structure of the Aztec state and the networks built by the Mexica people and their neighbors prior to the Columbian Exchange.

The Americas often seem less familiar and easy to grasp than Afro-Eurasia in the pre-Columbian period. But we know quite a bit about how some states, especially the Aztec state, actually worked. Tribute played a central role in both the economy and the governing of the state. One of our sources for understanding the Aztec state is the poetry of Macuilxochitl, in particular the poem about the emperor Axayacatl. Use this source to help you to build your understanding of networks and communities in pre-Columbian Mesoamerica.

Read 1: Observe

As you read this graphic biography for the first time, review the Read 1: Observe section of your Three Close Reads for Graphic Bios Tool. Be sure to record one question in the thought bubble on the top-right. You don’t need to write anything else down. However, if you’d like to record your observations, feel free to do so on scrap paper.

Read 2: Understand

On the tool, summarize the main idea of the comic and provide two pieces of evidence that helped you understand the creator’s main idea. You can do this only in writing or you can get creative with some art. Some of the evidence you find may come in the form of text (words). But other evidence will come in the form of art (images). You should read the text looking for unfamiliar vocabulary words, the main idea, and key supporting details. You should also spend some time looking at the images and the way in which the page is designed. By the end of the second close read, you should be able to answer the following questions:

1. Who was Macuilxochitl and how does she describe herself?
2. She describes the Tenochtitlan (Aztec) conquest of Tlacotepec as “forays for flowers [and] butterflies.” What does this mean?
3. She writes that Axayacatl spared the Otomi warrior partly because he brought a piece of wood and deerskin to the ruler? What does this tell you?
4. How does the artist use art and design emphasize and demonstrate the importance of tribute?

Read 3: Connect

In this read, you should use the graphic biography as evidence to support, extend, or challenge claims made in this unit of the course. On the bottom of the tool, record what you learned about this person’s life and how it relates to what you’re learning.

1. How does this biography of Macuilxochitl support, extend, or challenge what you have learned about the state and economy in Mesoamerica in this period?

To Be Continued…

On the second page of the tool, your teacher might ask you to extend the graphic biography to a second page. This is where you can draw and write what you think might come next. Here, you can become a co-creator of this graphic biography!

On the vast Colorado Plateau of the American Southwest, the Ancestral Pueblo built large agricultural communities, big cities, and monumental architecture. Yet the Ancestral Pueblo relied on movement—on repeated migrations—to sustain their communities and thrive in a challenging landscape. In this video, Jerad Koepp speaks with Theresa Pasqual (Acoma), Natalie Martinez (Laguna), and archaeologist Kurt Anschuetz about how the Pueblo people have managed their patterns of life in this region for thousands of years. We can learn about this history from archaeologists and by listening to the oral history traditions of Pueblo communities today.

You’re learning some big, world-historical narratives about the diverse global tapestry of the world before 1200 CE. Many of the communities you’re encountering will fit the world-history narratives about the development of complex, agricultural societies. But when we start looking more closely at patterns in different parts of the world, we often find evidence to challenge or complicate those big narratives. The example of Ancestral Pueblo societies and their use of migration as a strategy provides you with new evidence to complicate those narratives.

Preview – Skimming for Gist

Remember to open and skim the transcript, and then read the questions below before you watch the video.

Key Ideas – Factual

Think about the following questions as you watch this video.

1. How does the story of the Ancestral Pueblo challenge world-historical narratives about agriculture and complex societies?
2. How does Theresa Pasqual characterize Pueblo origin stories?
3. According to Dr. Natalie Martinez, why are these origin stories important today?
4. According to Dr. Kurt Anschuetz, what are some strategies that Pueblo people used to thrive on the Colorado Plateau?
5. How does Theresa Pasqual describe the movement of the Ancestral Pueblo people?

Evaluating and Corroborating

1. The people in this video suggest that oral histories should be taken seriously as historical evidence, on par with archaeological evidence. What do you think are the differences in what we can learn from archaeology and oral traditions? What do you think historians should do when the two types of evidence disagree?

The Inca Empire started off as the Kingdom of Cusco. Under the leader Pachacuti, the Inca brought other groups under their control and under their collected tribute system called the mita (Mit’a) system. This system helped the Inca build its famous monuments and grow into a sophisticated empire with ten million residents.

By describing the formation and operation of the Inca Empire, this video provides evidence for understanding the Americas prior to the Columbian Exchange. Later, you will look at how things changed after 1492, which will serve as evidence for responding to the question: "How were human communities organized and how did they interact during this period?" The evidence this article provides will also help you evaluate whether the communities frame narrative is accurate for this period.

Preview – Skimming for Gist

As a reminder, open and skim the transcript, and read the questions before you watch the video.

Key Ideas – Understanding Content

Think about the following questions as you watch this video:

1. Who was Pachacuti?
2. What did the Inca call themselves? What did Inca mean?
3. What made the Inca an empire?
4. How many people were living in the Inca Empire prior to its decline?
5. What was the Mit’a system?

Evaluating and Corroborating

1. How does the Mit’a system compare or contrast to systems of production and distribution in Afro-Eurasia during this era?

This article covers only a small part of the vast Pacific Ocean. And yet, that small part is by itself huge! Humans migrated to the islands of Oceania—including Melanesia, Micronesia, Polynesia, and Australasia—thousands of years ago. But they are often left out of world-historical narratives. These societies developed innovations that allowed them to cross ever-larger spans of open ocean, eventually migrating to even the most distant and isolated of island chains. Despite the vast distances that separated them and diverse societies they developed, many of these societies remained in contact and retained cultural practices and social organization.

The peoples of Oceania developed technologies that allowed them to move vast distances across the open ocean—a feat not achieved by Afro-Eurasians until much later. This article provides an overview of a people often left out of the world historical narrative, and it will provide you with evidence to challenge these narratives. As you read, think about how the story of Oceania challenges the three frame narratives of this course.

Preview – Skimming for Gist

Fill out the Skimming for Gist section of the Three Close Reads worksheet as you complete your first close read. As a reminder, this should be a quick process!

Key Ideas – Understanding Content

For this reading, you should be looking for unfamiliar vocabulary words, the major claim and key supporting details, and analysis and evidence. By the end of the second close read, you should be able to answer the following questions:

1. How do historians believe that humans ended up settling the islands of Oceania? What debate surrounds this question?
2. What were the most important innovations that allowed migrations across Oceania?
3. In general, how did communities in this region organize themselves?
4. How does the article describe gender relations in societies in Oceania?
5. What evidence do the authors use to argue that Oceania was not separated from the rest of the world?

Evaluating and Corroborating

At the end of the third close read, respond to the following question:

1. The production and distribution frame narrative asserts that humans have grown more sophisticated in the way we make and use the things we need over time. Does the evidence presented in this article support, extend, or challenge this narrative? How?

Kupe the Navigator is sometimes seen as the first Polynesian to settle in Aotearoa (New Zealand), perhaps in the fourteenth century. But his story is actually much more important than a myth or history of settlement. It helps to make the past usable for Māori people today.

Polynesian societies are often left out of the networks used to describe connections around the world in this period. Stories of Kupe the Navigator, retold as oral tradition in Māori society, help us to understand the historical connections between the people of Aotearoa (New Zealand) and other Polynesian communities, as well as their significance for Māori communities in the present.

Read 1: Observe

As you read this graphic biography for the first time, review the Read 1: Observe section of your Three Close Reads for Graphic Bios Tool. Be sure to record one question in the thought bubble on the top-right. You don’t need to write anything else down. However, if you’d like to record your observations, feel free to do so on scrap paper.

Read 2: Understand

On the tool, summarize the main idea of the comic and provide two pieces of evidence that helped you understand the creator’s main idea. You can do this only in writing or you can get creative with some art. Some of the evidence you find may come in the form of text (words). But other evidence will come in the form of art (images). You should read the text looking for unfamiliar vocabulary words, the main idea, and key supporting details. You should also spend some time looking at the images and the way in which the page is designed. By the end of the second close read, you should be able to answer the following questions:

1. Who was Kupe?
2. How is the story of Kupe normally told in Polynesian society? How have European historians tried to tell it?
3. How does the author argue that the Māori make this story a usable past? What meanings do they take from it?
4. How did the artist use art and design to demonstrate the theme of connectedness?

Read 3: Connect

In this read, you should use the graphic biography as evidence to support, extend, or challenge claims made in this unit of the course. On the bottom of the tool, record what you learned about this person’s life and how it relates to what you’re learning.

1. How does this biography of Kupe support, extend, or challenge what you have learned about networks and connections in this era?
2. In what ways does this biography lead you to think differently about what it means for a history to be “usable”?

To Be Continued…

On the second page of the tool, your teacher might ask you to extend the graphic biography to a second page. This is where you can draw and write what you think might come next. Here, you can become a co-creator of this graphic biography!

Comparison is a key process that historians use to help them better understand the past. While comparing and contrasting is something that you’ve likely engaged in prior to this course, in this activity you’re introduced to a systematic way of conducting historical comparison. The ultimate goal is for you to be able to describe and explain the relevant similarities and differences between specific historical developments and processes, and to be able to explain the relative historical significance of similarities and differences between topics of study. In addition, you’ll learn to use the Comparison Tool (which you’ll see an example of in this activity’s worksheet) to conduct and generate historical comparisons.

Reading
You’ll conduct historical comparison both as part of reading historical accounts and as part of generating your own historical interpretations. This comparison activity also has you look at two points of time (temporal scale) and place (spatial scale). Try to use the language of spatial scale when describing your comparisons (for example: local, regional, national, and global).

Although comparing and contrasting may sound simple, it actually gets really complicated when what you’re comparing is multidimensional, as is the case with historical topics. Because comparison is harder than it looks, your teacher will show you a tool you can use to conduct historical comparisons using the frames you learned about earlier in this lesson.

First, your teacher will either hand out or have you download the Comparison – Life in 1200 and Today worksheet. Review the questions associated with each of the frames. The questions in the left-hand column of the worksheet have been selected because they are most relevant to this particular comparison. As this is the first comparison activity of the course, you’ll complete this one together as a class. Your teacher will guide you through the process of using these questions to fill in the top few rows of the worksheet.

Before you read the synopsis of life in 1200, decide which time period you’d rather live in—today or 1200. Be sure to explain your choice.

Next, read the synopsis of life in 1200. This is a general story of what life was like in the thirteenth century, so the specifics would change depending on geographic location, ethnicity, age, gender, and social class. Your teacher may also have you read one or more of the region-specific paragraphs for what life was like in 1200.

Then, as a class, fill out the first part of the worksheet using the synopsis for 1200. Next, do the same thing to complete the sections for life today, using your own knowledge of today to fill out those columns. Remember that community focuses on how people organize into groups, usually with shared values or beliefs as well as being inhabitants of the same region or nation. Production and distribution refer to how people make goods and get them into the hands of other people. For example, do they make goods at home or in a factory? Do they travel to markets to sell these goods, or do they trade with neighbors? Networks refer to how people connect with others, sometimes through work-related connections, or through trade, or, in the twenty-first century, via social media and the Internet. Once you have filled out the Today section with the class, discuss the following questions:

• How are these stories similar?
• How are they different?
• What’s important about those similarities and differences?

Now that you’ve learned more about life in 1200 versus today, would you change the answer you gave at the start of this activity about which period you’d rather live in? Be prepared to share your reasoning with the class.

Once everyone has completed the rows relating to the frames, you’ll review the answers together and then work in small groups to identify similarities and differences between life in 1200 and today, and you’ll then add them to the similarities and differences sections on the Comparison Tool.

Finally, you’ll come back together as a class to share the similarities and differences your group came up with.

Your teacher may also discuss how to use these similarities and differences to develop two thesis statements, one about the similarities between 1200 and today, and another about the differences between 1200 and today.

Don’t worry—if your teacher chooses to have you do this activity extension, they’ll walk you through the definition of a thesis statement and show you how to create a thesis statement that answers a comparison prompt.