Contextualization is a historical thinking skill we scaffold throughout the course. As you prep for this intro activity, use this Contextualization One-Pager as a quick introduction.
It can be hard to fully understand a situation if you don’t have the full picture—literally and figuratively. Contextualizing helps you gather all the surrounding facts and details to ensure you’re not missing anything important.
The materials in this lesson work best when students see them as different perspectives on the same process. The article and videos emphasize that technologies and belief systems spread through merchants, migrants, pilgrims, and conquerors, while the Rumi graphic biography and the Traveler Postcards closer show cultural exchange at the scale of an individual moving through these networks.
Meeting new people or coming into contact with new things might make you reevaluate the way you think or feel about things. Certainly, that was the case with all the Afro-Eurasian cultural diffusion going on circa 1200-1450!
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Guiding Questions
Poetry has the power to communicate in a way that standard writing sometimes cannot. This is certainly the case with Rumi, who affected many with his poetry.
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Guiding Questions
Show pictures that illustrate words used in the text to allow students to visualize what they’re reading about. You can also bring actual objects into the classroom to illustrate texts (for example: chocolate, spices, flags). For the activity, you could show students the full Catalan Atlas and zoom in on the depiction of Mansa Musa.
Imagine being one of the richest people who ever lived! What kind of effect do you think you would have on society? Or history? Build on your contextualization skills as you learn about an individual who both shaped and was shaped by his circumstances: Mansa Musa.
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Guiding Questions
One useful teaching move here is to consider the word center. The video explicitly asks why it’s wrong to think of Chaco as a center, which gives you a chance to help students think in terms of distributed networks and exchange relationships rather than assuming that all important trade networks were run by empires with capitals. This is a good place for comparison with Afro-Eurasia. How do the scale, transport systems, and environmental conditions of American trade routes compare with those across the Silk Roads, Indian Ocean, or Sahara Desert?
What are the qualities or conditions that would make an area the center of trade for a region? Chaco Canyon in modern-day New Mexico was one such center—but what about it made it so special?
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Guiding Questions
Group Problem-Solving: Together or Alone?
Try this: Present students with a historical dilemma. In the fourteenth century, the Guanche people were living in the Canary Islands off the northwest coast of Africa. In 1312, an Italian navigator named Lancelotto Malocello landed on the island.
- Have student role-play as islanders deciding whether to remain isolated or engage with outsiders.
- Students develop 10 questions to ask Malocello, then prompt AI for more.
- After refining the list, students compare how AI shaped their thinking.
Behind the design: Students learn that AI can help expand how we ask questions. They deepen their understanding of historical dilemmas and the risks and rewards of global connectivity.
Have you ever traveled far from home? Most likely, you kept in touch by calling, texting, or maybe emailing! What did you talk about? Now imagine traveling in the thirteenth century—what would you write home about?
Was cultural connectivity more positive or negative? Time to assess the consequences of connectivity.
If you’re watching OER Project videos on YouTube, you can slow things down or speed things up by going to Settings and adjusting the playback speed—a trick that’s particularly helpful to slow down fast-talking John Green in Crash Course videos.
Want to learn more about Mansa Musa? This video from our friends at Crash Course will help you become an expert on this wealthy ruler.
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Guiding Questions
