The Silk Roads
Teacher Resources
Lesson Guide
This guide includes all the usual stuff on pacing, guiding questions, and sample answers, but it will be especially useful as you prepare to teach the Silk Road Simulation activity that closes this lesson.
Diverse Perspectives on the Silk Roads: The Sogdians
OER Project partnered with NYU to learn more about the Silk Roads. Check out this presentation.
Driving Question: How did the Silk Roads forge connections in Afro-Eurasia?
Learning Objectives:
- Explain the causes and effects of the growth of networks of exchange after 1200.
- Identify and describe a historical context for a specific historical development or process.
Vocab Terms:
- caravan
- commerce
- economy
- empire
- merchant
- trade
- trade network
How can you answer a question if you aren’t sure what that question is asking? Practicing prompts promotes quality answers to challenging questions!
Highlight an illustrative example and help your students make connections with a deep dive on the middlemen who helped keep the Silk Roads alive as the Roman and Han Empires died. Share historian Bennett Sherry's blog post about who built the Silk Roads with your students.
Some things are built to last, whether the Roman aqueducts or the Silk Road. Dynasties come and go, but the infrastructure they built can last lifetimes.
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Guiding Questions
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Before you watch
Preview the questions below, and then review the transcript.
While you watch
Look for answers to these questions:
- The term Silk Road is commonly used. Why does this video argue that the name is somewhat misleading?
- What were some of the commonly traded items on the Silk Road?
- How did the Han Dynasty “manage” the Silk Road? What were the economic impacts of this management?
- What was the impact of the fall of the Han Dynasty on the Silk Road?
- What is the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative?
After you watch
Respond to the following questions:
- To what extent does this video describe the causes and effects of the growth of networks of exchange after 1200?
- The video says that the Tang Dynasty created a golden age across the Silk Road, starting in 626 CE. However, the Tang Dynasty gained power in 618 CE. What’s going on here? What does this suggest about the effects of collapse and recovery on large networks?
- This video focuses on how the collapse and rise of political states can affect networks and cultural interactions. What are some ways that the expansion or contraction of networks might affect economic systems? Think about the ancient Silk Road as well as modern China’s Belt and Road Initiative.
For every product traded from place to place, so much more than that product is transported: there are people communicating ideas, cultures coming into contact with one another, and even germs being exchanged!
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Guiding Questions
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Before you read
Preview the questions below, and then skim the article. Be sure to look at the section headings and any images.
While you read
Look for answers to these questions:
- Why is the Afro-Eurasian system of long-distance trade described as an archipelago?
- What was the effect of the Mongol Empire on trade?
- What role did this regional trade network play in helping Johannes Gutenberg create his printing press?
- What impact did annual fairs have on the European economy?
- What was one negative effect of interconnected trade?
After you read
Respond to the following questions:
- To what extent does this article explain the causes and effects of the growth of networks of exchange after 1200?
- This article is about economic systems in Afro-Eurasia. Which Afro-Eurasians does it leave out? Whose experiences of trade, production, and distribution are not included in the article?
- Given what you have already learned about the Mongol Empire, do you think the view of the Afro-Eurasian system as an “archipelago” makes sense?
Students may assume global trade only affected rich empires or luxury consumers. Having students compare this video on medieval guilds with the Silk and the Song Dynasty video in Unit 1 will help them see how trade reshaped labor, class, and production at many levels, from women producing silk in Song China to wool workers and guild members in medieval England.
Guilds and wool and trade, oh my! You’ll learn all about how Jolly Old (medieval) England was a mover and shaker in the world economy of that time!
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Guiding Questions
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Before you watch
Preview the questions below, and then review the transcript.
While you watch
Look for answers to these questions:
- How do Nick and Trevor describe the Afro-Eurasian trade system in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries?
- Why did people in Flanders and northern Italy buy English wool?
- Who produced wool in England?
- How did the wool trade empower the merchant classes? What role did guilds play in this process?
- Why was wool important for England?
After you watch
Respond to the following questions:
- To what extent does this video support your understanding of the causes and effects of the growth of networks of exchange after 1200?
- English wool is one example of a local good that was traded across extensive regional networks. The trade reshaped both economic systems as well as governance in England and across Western Europe. Can you think of anything that is or was once made in your community? Where does that good get distributed? Who produces it? How does that industry affect your community, and how do you think it impacts other places?
- Think about how you might tell the story of the Worshipful Company of Woolmen differently through the lens of different AP themes. How were they a community? What impacts did they have on economic systems in England and the larger region?
You can use OER Project source collections in different ways. If your students aren’t ready to analyze multiple sources just yet, have them focus on one of the sources in this collection by asking them to analyze the historical context, the author’s purpose, point of view, or audience to help them practice their sourcing skills.
Networks of exchange are about so much more than the goods being bought and sold; they are about the diffusion of ideas and the spread of new technology—as well as disease. Use the Quick-Sourcing Tool to help you analyze these primary source excerpts.
As with most simulation activities, this one requires a bit of prep work (but the payoff is worth it!). Make sure to check out the Lesson Guide in advance so you have everything you need. In particular, don’t forget to download the Silk Roads Goods Cards and the Regional Guide Cards ahead of time!
This is a teacher and student favorite activity. One AP teacher chose it as her Unit 2 must-do, saying, “This simulation brings postclassical interregional trade to life, letting students experience the challenges and excitement of distant markets firsthand.”
Want more tips on this activity? Tips such as booking out the library so that students can spread out their trade, or an AP-teacher-created slide deck to accompany the activity? Check out this community thread for lots of ideas!
Ever wonder what it would be like to be a trader back in the heyday of the Silk Road? Well, wonder no longer as this simulation puts you in the center of the action!
