The Silk Road

Introduction

The Silk Road is a series of routes for trade and cultural communication and interaction throughout China and some other Asian countries to Europe. It is always thought of as the routes amongst Eurasian continents.

Here is a video clip of an introduction to The Silk Road:

http://www.history.com/shows/mankind-the-story-of-all-of-us/videos/mankind-the-story-of-all-of-us-the-silk-road

Task

Students' task consists of two parts:

1. Comprehensive understanding of The Silk Road, including what it is about, when and where it happened, and what its impact it;

2. Work in groups and make a presentation about what they discovered or learnt (a group-made map is required).

Process

Please follow the process below to finish your task:

1. Read your assigned text in combination with information from wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silk_Road

2. Form a group of 3 and discuss and communicate what information you have found;

3. Browse this website for information you need: http://www.ess.uci.edu/~oliver/silk.html

4. A travel website for The Silk Road: http://www.travelchinaguide.com/silk-road/

5. When you and your group have collected all necessary information, prepare for your presentaion. You could choose to make a PowerPoint or use Prezi http://prezi.com/ to make it more fun. Feel free to include photos or videos in your presentation.

6. Presentation time is no longer than 10 minutes.

Evaluation

Rubric

Student Name:

Category	4	3	2	1

	Included events are	Most of the included	Some events included	Many major events
	important and	events are important	are trivial, and major	are excluded, and too
Quality of content	interesting. No major	or interesting. One or	events are missing.	many trivial events
	details are excluded.	two major events		are included.
		may be missing.

	The timeline contains	The timeline contains	The timeline contains	The timeline contains
	at least 8–10 events	at least 6–7 events	at least 5 events	fewer than 5 events.
Quantity of facts	related to the topic	related to the topic	related to the topic
	being studied.	being studied.	being studied.

	Facts are accurate for	Facts are accurate for	Facts are accurate for	Facts are often
Accuracy of	all events reported on	almost all events	most (~75%) of the	inaccurate for events
content	the timeline.	reported on the	events reported on	reported on the
	timeline.	the timeline.	timeline.


Sequence of	Events are placed in	Almost all events are	Most (~75%) of the	Most events are
proper order.	placed in proper	events are placed in	incorrectly placed on
content		order.	proper order.	the timeline.

	An accurate,	An accurate,	An accurate date has	Dates are inaccurate
Dates	complete date has	complete date has	been included for	or missing for several
been included for	been included for	almost every event.	events.
	each event.	almost every event.

	Events are clearly	Events are described	Events are not	Events are described
Sentence fluency	described using	well, but language is	described well and	using vague language
accurate and vivid	sometimes vague or	language is often	or inaccurate
	language.	inaccurate.	vague or inaccurate.	information.

	Punctuation, spelling	Punctuation, spelling	Punctuation, spelling,	There are many
	and capitalization	and capitalization	and capitalization are	punctuation, spelling,
Mechanics	were checked by	were checked by	mostly correct, but	and capitalization
another student and	another student and	were not checked by	errors.
	are correct	are mostly correct.	another student.
	throughout.

ReadWriteThink materials may be reproduced for educational purposes.

Conclusion

The Silk Road played a vital role in promoting the economic and cultural as well as religious communication and interaction between Eurasian countries and China in ancient times. It is a fundamental impetus to world's civilization.