Silk Road Travelogue (25 Exam Points)

You will work in assigned groups of three. You will (1) write an experiential and creative travelogue* in the form of a primary source (think: letter, diary, journal) portraying a person who participated in the Silk Road exchange, (2) choose an artifact to analyze visually and write a caption summarizing your analysis underneath the image, and (3) finally glue everything to poster board in a way that captures and symbolizes the network of exchanges of the historical Silk Road.  By the end of the period, you will have a poster with a minimum of three travelogues, three artifacts (one per group member), and three analytical captions.  The grading rubric is below.  

What should you use as the supporting evidence to create your travelogue?

• The video tutorial from John Green on the Silk Road we watched in class 
• The video tutorial from Ted-Ex on the Silk Road we watched in class  
• The board notes from our discussion of the video tutorials (bottom of page)
• The computer game from Stanford University that you played in class 
• This map distributed in class.
• This short article on Southernization in China (1-7 is India, 8-12 is China) 
• This longer article on the Silk Road distributed in class. 
• This United Nations artifact website for the Silk Road lets you pick artifacts particular to different geographic regions (Afghanistan, China, Greece, etc). 
• This website has some actual letters sent that you may use for inspiration beginning on the 2nd page. 
• Our visual analysis of artifact question page. 

Rubric

1. Each student in the group prepared a creative, deeply thought out portrayal of a Silk Road personage. Overlapping reduces score. 

2. Each student in the group chose and deeply analyzed a Silk Road artifact to include on the poster in the form of an annotated caption. Overlapping reduces score. 

3. Poster is attractive and professional.   

4. The details on the poster are historically accurate and symbolic of the networks of exchange of the Silk Road. 

5. Poster is completed on time.  

* A travelogue is defined as "a movie, book, or illustrated lecture about the places visited and experiences encountered by a traveler." Yours will be in the form of a poster.

Student-created board notes from class based on above videos: