Adapted Historical Document
Adapted Historical Document
Embedded Files
The historical document below is the story of Marco Polo, a famous Italian explorer. He traveled the Silk Road to China with his father and uncle in 1271 and spent 17 years in China working under Kublai Khan. He was fascinated by the show of wealth and luxury in the country, much of which he describes in the book. The book was supposedly written as Marco Polo told his stories to his cell mate while prisoners in a war years later. It is debated whether or not Marco Polo made up these stories, but many observations are deemed historically accurate. Use this in connection with SOL 3.2.
Marco Polo - Primary Source Document.pdfThe Travels of Marco Polo
The Travels of Marco Polo
This PDF from the Library of Congress shows one of the original documents in French. While this won't be readable to third graders, it can be used to show the age of the book/story, to give context to what they are about to read.
PDF from: https://www.loc.gov/item/2021668052/
Adapted Document
Adapted Document
This document is a translated and adapted version of a piece of Marco Polo's book. I included certain vocabulary words from the passage and their meanings at the bottom of the page for easier reading comprehension.
Students will see this first-hand account of what China looked like from a European perspective. We can talk as a class about the significance of silk cloth as an important contribution, and make connections to the stone architecture described in the passage to another architectural contribution, the Great Wall. Ask students what Marco Polo means by the "splendor" of these cities.
Translation from: http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/ps/china/polo_suzhou.pdf
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