Students in 7th grade often read in their textbooks that the Mongols were the terrifying conquerors of the largest land empire in world history.  But look at these three representations of Mongols. 

Could 7th-graders point out what the differences are?  After sourcing and map activities, could they explain why the representations are so different?  What more would they learn about the Mongol Empire – and the medieval world as a whole – if they engaged in this inquiry?  Rather than viewing the Mongols exclusively as conquerors, students would observe the distinct ways in which Mongols are portrayed by artists from Persia (image 1), China (image 2), and Europe (image 3), and recognize the ways in which the Mongols helped connect these disparate cultures.

The content of world history is impossible to cover, a fact which is blindingly clear to teachers of 7th-grade Medieval and Early Modern World History.  Both the standards and the framework are stuffed full of a bewildering array of strange names and unfamiliar places, which the 7th-grade history teacher tries to explain to students.  Anyone who has marched through the standards with a pacing guide knows that most students don’t remember a lot of those names and places after the course is over. 

The good news is that most 7th-grade world history teachers don’t have to march through the standards anymore.  With the Framework revision, the emphasis is not on memorization of content but on inquiry.  Inquiry does take a lot of time and reduces what you can cover even more.  However, choosing one Framework Investigative question from a unit for an inquiry activity, rather than trying to cover all the questions, would mean that you would be doing an extended inquiry activity roughly every three weeks.  That may seem daunting – but, remember, you don’t have to cover everything.  In addition, as the Mongol images above suggest, the investment of time in just a few images like these help students understand the depth, perspective, and significance of a whole empire.

Teaching select case studies through inquiry requires suitable primary sources.  In the Teaching California collection, there are 11 inquiry sets for 7th grade – at least one for each unit.  Four sets are explorations of sites of encounter at Rome, Baghdad, Tenochtitlán (the Aztec capital before the arrival of the Spanish) and Mexico City (the Spanish colonial city on the site of Tenochtitlán.)  The Framework calls for study of these sites, but none are included in the Sites of Encounter in the Medieval World curriculum.  Now sources are available for all the sites.  Other sets provide sources for new topics, such as the development of Sikhism, India/South Asia, Korea, and the Mongol Empire.  Since these sets contain sources with evidence of interconnection with other parts of the world, students will not be memorizing the attributes of a society in isolation, but rather looking at how that society was embedded in a world of trade and exchange. 

Teaching California isn’t just about teaching California history.  It’s a wealth of resources for every grade, K-12.  If you try out a Teaching California inquiry set, let us know what you think.