GRADE: AP World History (WHAP)                                                 AUTHORS: FLHS AP teachers
UNIT TITLE/FOCUS:  Period 3: Regional and Interregional Interactions (600-1450 CE)
UNIT LENGTH: 7-8 weeks


Essential Question: How did the expansion of communication and exchange networks intensify state control and interregional economic developments?

Enduring Understanding:  Students understand …
  1. Monotheism, particularly Islam, expanded its influence.
  2. Human interaction, innovations and wealth expanded and allowed for diffusion between various societies.
  3. New powerful states emerged in various regions around the globe.
  4. Nomadic groups played a significant role in creation and maintenance of trade networks.
  5. Changes in trade networks created positive and negative impacts focused around demographics, the environment, productivity and social structures.

Guiding Questions: (content, process, metacognitive)

Content:
  1. How did improved transportation technologies and commercial practices lead to an increase in the volume of trade and expansion of pre-existing trade networks? (3.1.I)
  2. Why did the movement of peoples cause both linguistic and environmental effects? (3.1.II)
  3. To what extent were cross-cultural exchanges fostered by the intensification of trade and communication networks? (3.1.III)
  4. How did the types of pathogens and crops diffused along the trade networks change? (3.1.IV)
  5. How did the collapse of previous empires lead to the establishment of new state forms? (3.2.I)
  6. Why did interregional conflict and contact between states and empires foster significant technological and cultural transfers? (3.2.II)
  7. How did new innovations stimulate both agricultural and industrial production? (3.3.I)
  8. Why did the fate of developed cities vary? (3.3.II)
  9. To what extent did the patterns of social and economic structures both change and continue throughout the time period? (3.3.III)

Process:
  1. How does understanding the author’s point of view (POV) provide context in analyzing a primary source?
  2. Why is understanding primary sources useful in answering historical questions?
  3. To what extent does evaluating a historian’s argument help in the analysis of different interpretations of historical events?
  4. How does comparing and contrasting events, individuals and processes over time and across time periods help us to construct a better understanding of historic developments?
  5. Why is chronology and geography essential to contextualizing history?
  6. To what extent does understanding a historical issue provide insight to events that occurring today?
  7. Can evaluating causation provide an opportunity for historical contingency?
  8. How does evaluating the process of continuity and change over time relate to bigger historical questions?
  9. To what extent can history be organized into discrete periods of time?
  10. How does a student’s ability to develop an argument demonstrate the application of historical thinking?
  11. How can relevant evidence help to drive an argument?


Metacognitive:
  1. Was the Harkness discussion a positive or negative learning style for you?
  2. What were your difficulties in separating continuity from change?
  3. How did utilizing maps of trade routes impact your context of the period between 600-1450?
  4. How did evaluating primary sources assist your understanding of the time period?



Standards: KEY CONCEPTS

3.1 Expansion and Intensification of Communication and Exchange Networks
  1. Improved transportation technologies and commercial practices led to an increased volume of trade, and expanded the geographical range of existing and newly active trade networks.
  2. The movement of peoples caused environmental and linguistic effects.
  3. Cross-cultural exchanges were fostered by the intensification of existing, or the creation of new, networks of trade and communication.
  4. There was continued diffusion of crops and pathogens, including epidemic diseases like the bubonic plague, throughout the Eastern Hemisphere along the trade routes.
3.2 Continuity and Innovation of State Forms and Their Interactions
  1. Empires collapsed and were reconstituted; in some regions new state forms emerged.
  2. Interregional contacts and conflicts between states and empires encouraged significant technological and cultural transfers, including transfers between Tang China and the Abbasids, transfers across the Mongol empires, transfers during the Crusades, and transfers during Chinese maritime activity led by Ming Admiral Zheng He.
3.3 Increased Economic Productive Capacity and Its Consequences
  1. Innovations stimulated agricultural and industrial production in many regions.
  2. The fate of cities varied greatly, with periods of significant decline and periods of increased urbanization buoyed by rising productivity and expanding trade networks.
  3. Despite significant continuities in social structures and in methods of production, there were also some important changes in labor management and in the effect of religious conversion on gender relations and family life.


ASSESSMENTS



Authentic Performance Task(s):

  • Continuity and Change over Time Essay: Analyze economic continuities and changes in trade networks within Afro-Eurasia in the period between 600CE and 1450CE.
  • Comparative Essay: Compare and contrast the political and economic effects of Mongol rule on two of the following regions: China, Middle East, Russia
  • Comparative Essay: Analyze the similarities and differences in TWO of the following trade networks in the period between 600-1450 CE. Your response can include comparisons of biological, commercial or cultural exchanges. (Indian Ocean, Silk Road, Trans-Sahara)
  • DBQ: compare and contrast the attitudes of Christianity and Islam towards merchants and trade from the religions’ origins until about 1500.
  • Mongolian Tour T-Shirt project


Other Assessments (Diagnostic, Formative, Summative):

Formative: Chapter quizzes, document analysis (comparing accounts of Marco Polo to Ibn Battuta), thesis statement writing, comparative chart, Harkness debate on Mongols, Islamization Spectrum activity
Summative: Multiple Choice Test and Performance Tasks




                                   TEACHING AND LEARNING PLAN


Teaching and Learning Activities:
Activities and tasks, Linked to guiding questions and standards, Describe what the students will do and why…
Students will…
1. Create thesis statements based off prompts provided in DO NOW activities.
2. Peer editing and grading of CCOT essays.
3. Engage in a Harkness discussion debating whether the Mongols were a stabilizing or destructive force of history.
4. Compare and contrast primary source documents of merchants (Marco Polo to Ibn Battuta)
5. Evaluate impacts of Islam by completing a Spectrum Activity on life before and after the introduction of Islam in specific regions

Resources and Technologies Needed:
ACORN Book
Accounts of Ibn Battuta and Marco Polo
Crash Course World History- John Green YouTube series
Trade Route maps
Aztec codex
Footbinding photos
Architectural maps of classical cities

Text:  Stearns World History
         Primary Sources- Andrea book
         Excerpts from the Qu’ran
         Primary Source accounts of Bubonic plague from various regions of the world
         Primary Source accounts of European perspective of the Mongols
         Journal Article on the Mongols