NOTE: Text in RED Refers to Changes Made to the Next Lesson

Nathan Logan 4-06-09 60 minutes Topic: Islam in Africa 7th Grade World Studies Lesson Title: Ibn Battuta and Mansa Musa of Africa Goals: By the end of today’s lesson, students will have:

1. An understanding of Ibn Battuta’s importance on African history.

2. An understanding of Mansa Musa’s contributions to African history.

Concept: Ibn Battuta, Mansa Musa

NOTE: Text in RED refers to changes made to the next lesson.

NCSS Standards Thematic Strand: Culture I Performance Expectation: c) explain and give examples of how language, literature, the arts, architecture, other artifacts, traditions, beliefs, values, and behaviors contribute to the development and transmission of culture. Pg. 79

Thematic Strand: People, Places & Environments III Performance Expectation: h) examine, interpret, and analyze physical and cultural patterns and their interactions such as land use, settlement patterns, cultural transmission of customs and ideas, and ecosystem changes. Pg. 85

Thematic Strand: People, Places & Environments III Performance Expectation: i) describe ways that historical events have been influenced by, and have influenced, physical and human geographic factors in local, regional, national, and global settings. Pg. 85

Ohio Standards 7 1-D-6a-d

Pre-requisite Knowledge: Students will need to have pre-requisite knowledge of Objectives: By the end of today’s lesson, students will be able to: 1. Describe Ibn Battuta’s journey across the Muslim world. 2. List and detail three contributions of Mansa Musa to Islam in Africa.

Resources and Materials: Textbook:

World History - Journey Across Time - The Early Ages by Spielvogel

Technology: SMART Board, Flash Drive, SMART Board Slides and Computer Teaching Methods / Student Activities

 Introduce Ibn Battuta and the importance of his journey as well as Mansa Musa’s pilgrimage or his “Rihla” aka The Journey to Mecca.  Discussion and reading of pp. 464-465.  While reading, ask comprehension and extended thought questions consisting of. o “Why do you think Ibn Battuta set out to see the Muslim World? What is typically the purpose of doing something like this, i.e. a journey?” o The next lesson I did after the post-assessment day was focused around hitting these areas hard again and seeing why they missed what they missed on the assessment. For this particular objective, why Ibn Battuta set out to see the Muslim World, it was like pulling teeth for some hours since it seemed like review, but little did they know they were answering new content questions and even though it was review, they were learning, whether they knew it or not. So, when I essentially taught this lesson again, since this lesson is almost verbatim of what I did two days later, the importance of my goal and objective about Ibn Battuta was met somewhat weakly at the beginning but by the end of the hour, not by me lecturing but by having the students answer even more and more, prodding them with questions, heavily Socratic, they were answering questions and expanding on the questions and answers and leap- frogging and piggy-backing on other student responses and it was really nice. o “Why hadn’t people in West Africa been introduced or had even heard of Islam yet?” o “Had Islam even been around at this time period, the 1300s???” o “Why do you think Islam being popular helped people trade with the Muslims Arabs?” o Again, this was one I didn’t necessarily hit as hard for whatever reasons the second time around, and I’m not sure, maybe it’s because the class got so caught up in answering each other’s questions that I just glossed over it. So, in reality, I can’t remember if I got to this one again, although I do remember two students mentioning it. I just can’t remember if I hit this as hardly as I did the first time.  Cover key points of interest namely whether or not Islam had even been around at 1300 and why people learning about Islam was popular and beneficial concerning trade.  Transition into Mansa Musa in Mali by having a chart or map up on the SMART Board showing Ibn Battuta’s journey across Africa and read p. 465.  While reading, ask comprehension and extended thought questions consisting of. o “If you were a devout Muslim and Sundiata Keita and Sunni Ali were your leaders, what would be your reaction to them expanding the kingdom and putting down rebellions as opposed to spreading Islam more?” o This goes along with the next bullet point below from the original lesson. Trying to get out of the students if they were Muslims how they would react if their leaders were using Islam to spread the government and not religion, most especially if they were a devout Muslim. What was odd about this, was that they were able to answer this sufficiently, not just in 5th hour where I had the Teach Re-Teach, but in all hours; but 5th hour in particular had difficulties really only the second time around answering this and the next bullet point below on the post- assessment. I point to the wording on the question, because I can see how choices A and C would be awfully close to sounding the same. But, the religion aspect was in C and not A… o “How are Mansa Musa’s actions as a ruler in Mali different than those of Sundiata Keita and Sunni Ali when they ruled?” o Again, this piggy-backs on the previous older bullet point and now that I looked back at the pre and post assessments…I had an awfully lot of questions on Ibn Battuta and the ones I had on Mansa Musa were tied to the goals and objectives, but I just felt the questions were not balanced as well. As much time we as spent on Ibn Battuta, we spent even more time on Mansa Musa and looking back on that now I see the assessment didn’t reflect how much material we actually covered during class. Alas, one of the pitfalls of not exactly knowing how much you’re going to get through and how much you’re going to expand upon when you teach the material. Lesson learned for next time: have more questions on assessments and more diversity in the questions to cover as many possible avenues as possible. o “What was Mansa Musa’s major trip to a certain part of the world? Where did he go? What was the significance of this trip and the lasting impact of it?”  Transition out by asking the students what they think the overall importance of these two massive journeys in Africa were all about and what they did not just for Islam but for Africans as well.  Inform the students that tomorrow we will finish up the Islam portion of Africa and that students will be able to give a summary of Islam’s contributions on Africa and the people that have impacted Africa.

Assessment: 1. Teach Re-Teach Pre-Assessment at the beginning of the hour. 2. Informal Assessment at the end of the hour based on the Objectives and the Key Comprehension Questions throughout the class. Assessment Questions: 1. Describe Ibn Battuta’s journey across the Muslim world. 2. List and detail three contributions of Mansa Musa to Islam in Africa. 3. Why do you think Ibn Battuta set out on a journey to see the Muslim world? 4. What would be the purpose of such a journey? 5. What sort of things could or would you learn on a journey like this? 6. How is Mansa Musa different from Sundiata Keita and Sunni Ali? 7. What did Mansa Musa do to further religion and government in Mali? Did he do anything to further or did he regress? 8. What was significant about Mansa Musa’s journey to a certain part of the world? Where did he go? Why? What happened when he went to some places?

Reflection:

Since this is a Teach Re-Teach Lesson Plan that is only for one class, there will be reflections for only one hour.

The hour began well enough and today has been excellent with myself getting back on track in terms of teaching, not being distracting, not role-playing, not confusing students and 5th hour is a very hour in terms of the students and the kind of things they can come up with. I handed out a pre-assessment and I told them right at the beginning that they were not going to know anything on the assessment except for perhaps some names from last week but that was it, just the knowledge that they had seen some names before. What do I hear? I don’t know any of this! I re-iterated this to the whole class and told them this wasn’t for a grade but that I needed it for MY class. The hour went very well and I wouldn’t really change anything except perhaps more prodding during the questions and not spending as much time on some key comprehension questions as opposed to others. I feel very confident except for the new student, the girl we got last week whose name I can’t reveal for privacy reasons, since I don’t know what her abilities and skills are.

Afterwards, I graded the pre-assessments and as I figured many people did poorly. There were those who for whatever reason did reasonably ok, quite well and then those who missed everything. It will be interesting to see how they perform tomorrow on the post-assessment and then further on Wednesday when I do a review of the material learned as a whole in a review session from both Monday and Tuesday.