DAILY LIFE THROUGH HISTORY
THE MEDIEVAL WORLD
Subject Area World History
Related Subject Social Science
Grade Level 10–12
Time Requirement 2-3 class periods, with additional time
for student reading and research
Objectives
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Students will be able to plot events on a timeline and differentiate between
what is a significant event and what is not.
Students will be able to compare and contrast different representations of the
same historical era.
Students will be able to interpret a timeline and use it as a tool for thinking
about the past.
Students will be able to understand how history is constructed as a series of
events that tells a story.
Standards
Source: 1996, National Center for History in the Schools
HISTORICAL THINKING STANDARDS IN HISTORY FOR GRADES 5-12
STANDARD 1: CHRONOLOGICAL THINKING
A. Distinguish between past, present, and future time.
C. Establish temporal order in constructing their [students’] own historical
narratives: working forward from some beginning through its development, to
some end or outcome; working backward from some issue, problem, or event to
explain its origins and its development over time.
E. Interpret data presented in time lines and create time lines by designating
appropriate equidistant intervals of time and recording events according to the
temporal order in which they occurred.
Copyright © 2002 Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc.
All rights reserved.
G. Compare alternative models for periodization by identifying the organizing
principles on which each is based.
STANDARD 2: CHRONOLOGICAL THINKING
D. Differentiate between historical facts and historical interpretations but
acknowledge that the two are related; that the facts the historian reports are
selected and reflect therefore the historian’s judgment of what is most significant
about the past.
Materials
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Daily Life in Traditional China: The Tang Dynasty, by Charles Benn
Daily Life in Chaucer’s England, by Jeffrey L. Singman and Will McLean
Daily Life in Medieval Europe, by Jeffrey L. Singman. All texts are from
Greenwood Press
Computers with Internet Access
Construction paper or butcher-block paper
Overview
The purpose of this activity is to introduce students to thinking about history as
something that is already an interpretation and something that needs to be
interpreted. By working together to construct an annotated timeline, and by
comparing their timelines with others, they will better be able to make inferences
about a culture’s history and to grasp cause and effect relationships among
various events.
Teaching Strategies & Learning Activities
WARM-UP
Introduce the idea of the timeline to students, emphasizing that historically,
different cultures have had varying relationships to time, and that calendars and
watches are human inventions based on ideas about the nature of time. To make
a timeline, then, is to use a Western way of thinking and measuring to better
understand cultures and societies of the past. A line is a particular shape,
suggesting a past, a present, and a future. By dividing it into increments of time
marked by events, makers also suggest cause and effect relationships by what
they include and what they leave out.
Copyright © 2002 Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc.
All rights reserved.
Ask students to make a quick timeline of their own lives, marking significant
points in their lives according to the age they were at the time. Then ask students
to have a family member make a timeline of the student’s life. Ask students to
note the differences between the two timelines. What does the family member
include or leave out and what does the student? Emphasize that history, and
timelines, are very much a matter of interpretation made for a particular purpose.
PROJECT
A) Divide the students into three groups (one for Traditional China, one for the
Chaucer’s England, one for Medieval Europe), and require that each group use
the timeline at the beginning of the Greenwood text as a base. Have students
duplicate that timeline on a large sheet of butcher-block paper.
Their next task is to research other timelines of the same era on the web (see
sites listed below), noting what these sites include that the Greenwood timeline
does not.
B) Each group skims one Daily Life text looking for dates referring to social
history (tell students to divide the chapters among themselves). A social history
“event,” for example, might be the popularization of a game called thirty-one, the
precursor to blackjack, at the beginning of the fifteenth century in England.
Students compile these dates and descriptions, and then choose which ones to
add to the timeline. Encourage them to find a good mix of dates about details
such as food, money, housing, work, marriage, etc. Make sure there are as many
social history entries as there are entries about political events. They should also
be encouraged to look at more general websites about the medieval world.
When they finish adding their entries to the base timeline, have them post the
timelines in the class so that everyone can see them.
C) Discuss the following questions with students:
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Which of the three timelines suggests the idea of progress? Support your
answer with reasons and examples.
What information is missing from the timelines?
Are there cause and effect relationships that you can see between political
events and how people lived?
Are there generalizations you can make across cultures, from the information
provided on the timelines?
Did one society live better than another? Explain.
What more do you want to know about the time period that is not on the
timeline?
Copyright © 2002 Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc.
All rights reserved.
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What is the nature of an “event”? Which event/entry had the most signficant
impact on people’s daily lives?
EXTENSION ACTIVITIES
To extend this lesson, consider the following activities:
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Have groups make a meal for the class based on the foods of the culture they
studied. The can find suggestions for recipes in Chapter 6: “Food and Drink”
in Daily Life in Chaucer’s England; Chapter 3: “Material Culture” in Daily Life
in Medieval Europe; and Chapter 6: “Food and Feasts” in Daily Life in
Traditional China:The Tang Dynasty.
Have students do additional research on topics of the time they want to know
more about, and add their information to the timelines. In addition, encourage
students to provide images to their timeline entries.
Using the information from the timeline and any other research they have
done on the era, students compose a profile of a typical person who lived in
medieval times. Include physical characteristics, details about diet, housing,
work, clothing, etc. Have males do profiles of a typical female in the medieval
world and females do profiles of males. Have students read them aloud, and
then discuss.
WEB RESOURCES TO COMPLEMENT RESEARCH MATERIALS
http://chaos1.hypermart.net/medi/
Medieval Europe timeline
http://spotlightongames.com/background/emw.html
Timeline of Central Asia During the Tang Dynasty
http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/tang/hd_tang.htm
Tang Dynasty Timeline
http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hm/06/hm06.htm
Timeline of art history from the Metropolitan Museum of Art
http://guweb2.gonzaga.edu/faculty/wheeler/chaucerbio.html
Chaucer biography and timeline
http://search.about.com/fullsearch.htm?terms=medieval%20europe
An excellent resource for data about medieval europe
Copyright © 2002 Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc.
All rights reserved.