Medieval China

Big Question: Which women leader did more to spread Buddhism?

In this unit on Islam, students will use The UCLA History Project curriculum with a collaborative model and Common Core Standards in History to produce a website to examine the big question stated above. Students will examine a set of documents and web quest to gather evidence for their Socratic Seminar. All documents will be examined using close reading techniques.

Time Frame two-three weeks.

Culminating activity: Students will take part in Socratic Seminar answering the question, "Which women leader did more to spread Buddhism?"

CALIFORNIA HISTORY CONTENT STANDARDS

7.5 Students analyze the geographic, political, economic, religious, and social structures of the civilizations of Medieval Japan.

7.5.1. Describe the significance of Japan’s proximity to China and Korea and the intellectual, linguistic, religious, and philosophical influence of those countries on Japan.

7.5.4.Trace the development of distinctive forms of Japanese Buddhism.

COMMON CORE READING STANDARDS FOR LITERACY IN HISTORY/SOCIAL STUDIES 6–12

RH 1. Cite specific textual evidence to support analysis of primary and secondary sources.

RH 2. Determine the central ideas or information of a primary or secondary source; provide an accurate summary of the source distinct from prior knowledge or opinions.

RH 8. Distinguish among fact, opinion, and reasoned judgment in a text.

WHST 7. Conduct short research projects to answer a question (including a self-generated question), drawing on several sources and generating additional related, focused questions that allow for multiple avenues of exploration.

Students were then given 5 historical documents and a list of websites to analyze. The students used the close reading technique to read and re-read documents to then answer text dependent questions for each document. The students were then given a window to fill out a Google Form that contained some of those text dependent questions. The Google Form is provided below.

Then students were able to analyze ALL the text dependent answers and collaborate to collect evidence to produce a group presentation. Below is the responses to the Google Form in a spreadsheet. I have removed students names from their responses.

The students then used their analysis of the documents and the class constructed knowledge through the data pool of answers to prepare for the Socratic Seminar. Each class was split into three groups to participate in the Socratic Seminar. Each group will be between 12-15 students. The first two groups will participate in two discussion sessions of students in the inner circle or discussion circle. Each discussion lasts about 15 minutes. The other groups are sat in a larger circle around the outside of the discussion circle and are to observe a partner. Both sessions were recorded and posted by period below.

The third group of students took part in a back channels conversation that was recorded on a Google Sheet that was displayed for the class during the conversations and is recorded below.