The first part of the unit will cover the travels, the maps and any other possible visual material about the Vikings, Scandinavian people, who adventured to new lands for various reasons. The students will have various documents: an excerpt from Voyages in World History by Valerie Hansen telling about "The Vikings in Vinland" around the years 1000 (Hansen, chapter 10), entitled the Graenlendiga Saga and Eirik's Saga from The Vinland Sagas: The Norse Discovery of America by Magnus Magnusson and Hermann Palsson Saga. They will also analyze the Vinland Map (held in Beinecke Library, Yale University) learn and discuss about the culture of these Scandinavian people interpreting the visual document of a Viking boat from the cover page of The Vinland Sagas: the Norse Discovery of America. These various documents will give the students the opportunity to determine the correct information about the Vikings approach to the American continent, what they discovered about the people already living here, and the reasons which pushed them to explore new lands. The second part of the unit will analyze the voyages of the Chinese Admiral Zheng He to east Africa. The documents will put in evidence the complete different reasons behind the travels the Admiral Zheng lead, and will illustrate the time and the peculiarities of the Ming dynasty. As primary source, I will use Overall survey of the Ocean's Shores by Ma Huan and translated by J.V.C. Mills. The students will use excerpts from Voyages In World History by Valerie Hansen (Hansen, chapter 14) and How Not to (Re)Write World History: Gavin Menzies and the Chinese Discovery of America by Robert Finlay. The third part will cover the travels of Christopher Columbus, who was sponsored by the Spanish monarchs to try a new route toward the eastern countries. As secondary source, they will read the excerpt from Voyages in World History (Hansen, chapter 15) and as primary sources they will read excerpts from The Journal of Christopher Columbus by Clements Markham, and The Four Voyages of Christopher Columbus by J.M. Cohen. The primary and secondary sources will focus on the reflections and interactions with the native populations but will also point out the real reasons moving money and men into the unknown of the exploration. The students will also interpret some visual documents and will thoroughly write and discuss about them. They will also be encouraged to search about the Vikings, Zheng He and Columbus independently to understand how a 'researcher' draws
his/her conclusions.
At the beginning of the unit the students will write an essay which will primarily focus on their prior knowledge discussing the actual role, importance and interest for exploring the unknown. I will suggest some of the following points to be included in the essay: What is the challenge to discover something nobody knows about? Do we still need to explore? Why? What benefits might we have? What about the space explorations? What benefit do we actually have from the space explorations? Why? What do we expect to find and what do we actually find? Who discovered America? This pre-reading activity will direct them to the understanding of the underling desire which motivated and drove Columbus, the Vikings and Zheng He into their explorations.
After this initial activity, all the three parts of the unit will be built around specific activities of reading and writing. The visual texts will be analyzed by looking, analyzing, and responding in writing. They will involve descriptions of the details shown by the visual as well as the feeling aroused by the same. These texts will offer also the opportunity to learn analyzing the image with a specific language based upon perception and will include terms as focal point, figure-ground contrast, repetition or similarity (shape and size), and color contrast. I will suggest questions like: what do you think are the key elements or features of the image? How do they contribute to what you see? Look for the elements that are similar for size, shape or color and explain the effects of those elements. Does this image suggest you a story? What does this image tell you about this culture/this traveler? I will also require them to compare and contrast their analysis of the visuals to the written documents to see if they communicate contrasting information or if they support and confirm the written text.
I will require the students to do their initial reading of the written documents with an emphasis on the meaning of the unknown words they will have to determine either by using the context or the dictionary. The first close reading will require the students to work on the text by highlighting and labeling in the margin its various components. I will teach them to determine the descriptions, the reflections or hypothesis, the facts, the purpose, the narration and whatever the document contains. The second close reading of the document will call for writing down the results of the analysis and interpretation so that they can determine the purpose and the perspectives. Before drawing any conclusions, I will require them to compare the perspectives of all visual and non-visual documents in order to determine similarities and/or differences. They will have to prepare an annotated bibliography with concise summaries, and/or paraphrased passages and/or relevant quoted information. At the end of each traveler, the students will have to write a documented essay in response to the essential questions supporting their theories with specific references to the visual and written documents in a reflective and convincing voice.
When all the three parts of the unit are concluded, the students will be required to compare and contrast the three travelers with each other and write a final paper in the form of a documented essay presenting their interpretations or theories about the real reasons and advantages behind these voyages together with the historical truth narrated in the various sources. I will also require a presentation of their conclusions with Power Point slides. The students with special needs will conclude the unit with the presentation and the Power Point slides only.