Early China, World Geography, and Intercultural Connections

Course: Early Ancient China

Carolyn Y Labor

SPI 6.32 Explain how the regions of China are isolated by geographic features, making governance and the spread of ideas and goods difficult, and how these features served to isolate the country from the rest of the world.

Class periods required:

Two to three 50-minute classes.

Objectives:

Students will practice map reading skills.

Students will be able to locate the natural barriers that affected China.

Students will be able to draw conclusions about the natural barriers around China and the difficulty, danger, and sometimes death that travelers experienced that hindered them from crossing these barriers. China was never isolated from much of Asia.

Students will use Socratic Seminar to discuss the aspects of isolation resulting from the natural barriers of China as well as the effects of the advantages of its long eastern coast for trade and interaction with Korea and Japan.

Procedures:

·  Greet the class with handouts of a blank physical map of China. Tell them to put their names at the top of the map. Instruct students to look at their maps of China and label only without coloring, using the map on page 134-135 of the Tennessee Social Studies textbook, Discovering Our Past: A History of the World-Early Ages by McGraw-Hill publishing. Use the map from the link in the resources section of this lesson.

Students must label the following: India, China, Korean Peninsula, Japan, Himalaya Mountains, Tibetan Plateau, Taklimakan Desert, Gobi Desert, Mongolia, Yellow River, Yellow Sea, Yangtze River, East China Sea, South China Sea, and Pacific Ocean. Give students 15 minutes to label the map.

·  Instruct students to stop labeling their maps and be ready to volunteer for an illustration. Ask for volunteers. Choose a tall, medium, and small size trio. Have students stand in a line shoulder to shoulder. Tell students they represent the natural barriers to the west side of China. Have them recall from the map they completed; the Himalaya Mountains, Tibetan Plateau, and the Taklimakan Desert. Explain that they are like the linemen on a football team. The teacher (or a student you choose) represents the quarter back. The teacher moves toward the line, trying to push through, showing how difficult it would be to get through this “barrier”. The quarter back is from India trying to get to his goal, China.

Now, tell the first student in line that he represents difficulty, the second represents danger, and the third student represents death. Explain that crossing these natural barriers during ancient days would result in difficulties (point to first student) and dangers (point to second student) and possible death (point to third student) due to the high elevation and vast expanse of the Himalayas and the Tibetan Plateau and due to the long, dry, crossing of the deserts with their extreme temperatures and the fact that their were many poisonous snakes! This gives the students a visual aide to help them understand the effects of traversing these natural barriers. 5-7 minutes. Ask students to go back to their seats.

·  Students will view pictures of the Himalaya Mountains, the Tibetan Plateau, the Taklimakan Desert, and the Gobi Desert using the internet images selection from Google.com

After looking at each barrier and discussing their effects (with their groups or as a class), students will write responses in their Social Studies journals about what it would be like to take cargo, camels, donkeys, armies, missionaries, etc. across these barriers to get to China from India or the Middle East.

Students could compare the tallest mountains in the Himalayas with the tallest in Tennessee. Write response in journal. Look up together on http://www.peakbagger.com/list.aspx?lid=13504 (can use a handout for each student or look together on the classroom screen.) Approx. 20 minutes

Students may now begin coloring their maps by starting with the water and coloring the mountains brown, the plateau gray, and the deserts tan. Then color the rest of China green. This may be completed as homework. 5-10 minutes

·  Socratic Seminar (the kids love this)

Have the classroom set up for seminar according to the instructions on Seminar in the Middle by Middleweb. (See link in resources section of this lesson plan)

Give the students the questions from frame #22 of the PPT in the resource list.

Have them read over them.

Show the PowerPoint “Has Geography Helped or Hurt China? “(Tell students they may take notes to help them with the questions later in seminar.)

Use the Seminar method and rubrics for discussion of the questions from frame #22 of the PPT.

Evaluation

·  The students will be evaluated based on a grade for the Map including correct coloring and labeling.

The seminar rubric will be used to evaluate the students’ understanding of the impact of these natural barriers in China.

Teacher could also play a game called “Slap-It” to make formative assessment of students’ understanding of terms. Write vocabulary in a scattered manner on the whiteboard. (Himalaya Mountains, Mt. Everest, Natural Barrier, coastline, desert, Gobi Desert, elevation, plateau, Yellow River, climate, Taklimakan Desert) Teacher gives a definition of one of these words. Two students race to the whiteboard with a fly swatter to “slap” the correct word. Students will take turns until all the words are “slapped”.

Student Handouts:

Map printed from Textbook online maps Connected.mcgraw-hill.com

Questions for Socratic Seminar discussion from PowerPoint presentation. (See frame # 22 of PPT)

Seminar Rubric (print from Seminar resource link)

Resources:

Map http://connected.mcgraw-hill.com/media/repository/private_data/DOC/50000069/71/62.pdf

http://www.peakbagger.com/list.aspx?lid=13504

Google.com images of Himalaya Mountains, Taklimakan Desert, Gobi Desert, and Plateau of Tibet

Has Geography Helped or Hurt China? By Schoolweb (PowerPoint for students to view and then use Socratic Seminar to discuss.) https://schoolweb.dysart.org/iplan/publicresources/00107_200908051602_Has%20Geography%20Helped%20or%20Hurt%20China.ppt

Seminar resource for teachers with links to the Seminar Rubrics. Socratic Seminars in the Middle by Middleweb. http://www.middleweb.com/8989/socratic-seminars-in-middle-school/