The Middle Ages

Essential Question

What makes cultures and civilizations different from each other? What happens to power when civilizations and cultures interact?

Students will know:
  1. Medieval European society was organized around a feudal system.
  2. Medieval African society was organized into various empires:  Songhei, Mali, and Ghana were main ones.
  3. Medieval Asia was organized into empires, dynasties, and  militaristic states. 
  4. Trade played an important role in cultural contact (e.g. Marco Polo and the Silk Road).
  5. Religion played an important role in cultural contact (e.g. Crusades).
  6. Values played an important role in how societies held together (e.g. familial honor and duty in Japan, Confucianism, chivalry in Europe, Islamic religious principals in Africa).
  7. Religion was an organizing structure for medieval societies (e.g The Church, Islam, Shintosim)
  8. The Plague / Black Death led to major changes in medieval societies, impacting trade, daily life, economic systems, and political structures.
  9. The Enclosure movement led to the creation of big cities and eventually nation-states - a move away from feudalism.
Enduring Understandings
  1. ​Religious institutions may play an important role in a society's power.
  2. Feudalism developed to provide protection and order through a rigid power structure.
  3. Throughout the Middle Ages, groups of people in different places experimented with different ways of organizing themselves political: clans, feudal states, nation-states, empire.
  4. Many factors - such as disease, war, natural disaster, political upheaval, and cross-cultural contact - can lead to changes in a society's political systems.
  5. When cultures come into contact with one another, they have to figure out how they will relate to and influence each other.
  6. ​Geography influences how and to what extent cultures come into contact with each other.
Students will be able to:
  1. Research a historical question using secondary sources. Apply this research to a historical scenario.
  2. Close-read a text to pull out its key ideas connecting to a question; pull out evidence/details to support an idea; interpret the author’s perspective and purpose.
  3. Facilitate peer-peer dialogical conversation.
  4. Engage in talk to deepen understanding of a text’s ideas.
  5. Develop debate skills by using historical evidence to support a stance; corroborating multiple sources on a topic; clearly stating a position and elaborating with reason and evidence; and anticipating opposing viewpoints’ arguments and possible rebuttals.
Key vocabulary & concepts: 

General: institutions, feudalism, social hierarchy, political systems, aristocracy, regent, imperialism, matrilineal/patrilineal, dynasty

Europe:  monarch/royalty, lords/nobles, knights, vassals, serfs, peasants, clergy, fief, chivalry, fealty, tithe, Magna Carta, crusades, enclosure, The Plague, 100 Years War, guild 

Africa: sheikh, caliph, sultan, griot, clan, Songhi, Ghana, Mali

Asia: samurai, bushido, shinto, shogun, seppuko, Marco Polo, Kublai Kahn, Mongol, Silk Road
Below are links to the Power Point Presentations on each of the Cultures we will study.
Medieval Africa
File Size: 5213 kb
File Type: pptx
Download File
Code of Bushido
File Size: 5763 kb
File Type: pptx
Download File
Assignments: 

1. Text-based Socratic seminar about the core values that organized various societies
2. Write a 500 word essay in MLA format that answers one of the Essential Questions above.
3. Plan a trade mission: What products are you selling?  What products are you seeking?  How will you get to your destination(s)?  What will be your schedule?  What will you need for provisions on your trip?  What obstacles do you expect to encounter along the way?
4. Read at least three books about the Middle Ages and write a 250 word critical analysis.
​5. Learn the countries of Asia.
​​5. End of unit test
Below are some resources you can explore:

What was life like during this time period? Check out this site by the Annenberg Foundation. Click here
Visit The Finer Times to learn about monasteries during the Middle Ages. Click here
The Medieval Period: Some Important Points. Click Here