Grade 7 Fall — The Medieval World c. 500-1500 CE: Byzantium, the Islamic Caliphates and Golden Age, Tang and Song China, West African Empires (Ghana/Mali/Songhai), Mesoamerica (Postclassic Toltec/Aztec) and the Inca, the Mongol Empire and Pax Mongolica, the Indian Ocean and Trans-Saharan Trade Networks, Medieval Europe as ONE Region Among Many — Whose Golden Age? Whose Crusade? Whose Trade Network?
History · CUL
G7
hist.g7.f.cul.capstone_medieval_world_inquiry_exhibit
Capstone — Medieval World Inquiry Exhibit storybook (Foxfire 3-copy distribution) + civic-action letter (Banks Level-4 social-action) integrating all unit skills, applying MG-7 SEVEN-QUESTION SOURCE CARD + MG-8 four-perspective Crusades protocol + ibn Khaldun's Muqaddimah lens + Abu-Lughod's world-systems lens, with each student contributing one civilization-profile chapter + one civic-action letter mailed to a contemporary descendant-community institution
Capstone integration of all 17 prior skills into a class-collective storybook with 3 bound copies (classroom library / school library / contemporary descendant-community institution) AND each student's civic-action letter mailed to ONE of: Mamma Haidara Library Timbuktu; Hagia Sophia Foundation Istanbul; INAH Templo Mayor Museum Mexico City; Mongolian National Museum; or Sankore Educational Foundation. Each chapter applies MG-7 SEVEN-QUESTION SOURCE CARD to one primary source + names one descendant-tradition scholar + names one living-descendant community + applies one of (a) MG-8 four-perspective Crusades protocol OR (b) ibn Khaldun's Muqaddimah dynastic-cycle OR (c) Abu-Lughod's 13-circuit world-systems lens.
Mastery threshold
90%
Min instances
12
Typical minutes
90
Spaced intervals (days)
1, 3, 7, 14, 30, 60
Prereqs
- Construct an EIGHT-CIVILIZATION SIMULTANEOUS-AND-CONNECTED chronology of the Medieval World 500-1500 CE placing Byzantium, Islamic Caliphates, Tang-Song China, West African Empires, Mongol Empire, Indian Ocean network, Mesoamerica/Inca, and Medieval Europe on one timeline, refusing the Eurocentric 'Middle Ages / Dark Ages' single-narrative framing
- Trace the Byzantine Empire 527-1453 CE from Justinian's Code and Hagia Sophia through the East-West Schism 1054 and the Fourth Crusade 1204 to the fall of Constantinople 1453 — refusing the 'Eastern remnant' framing in favor of Byzantium as ONE-THOUSAND-PLUS-YEAR Roman continuation
- Trace the rise of Islam 610-661 CE — Muhammad's prophetic mission, the Qur'an, the Five Pillars, the Hijra 622, the Rashidun Caliphate, and the Sunni-Shia distinction taught respectfully
- Trace the Umayyad Caliphate 661-750 (Damascus capital), Abbasid Caliphate 750-1258 (Baghdad capital), Fatimid Caliphate 909-1171 (Cairo capital), and the splintering into multiple sultanates after 1258, applying ibn Khaldun's dynastic-cycle model
- Trace the Islamic Golden Age c. 750-1258 CE centered at the Abbasid House of Wisdom (Bayt al-Hikma) in Baghdad — naming al-Khwarizmi, ibn Sina, al-Razi, ibn Rushd, al-Haytham, ibn Khaldun and their specific contributions in mathematics, medicine, optics, philosophy, and historiography
- Trace al-Andalus (Islamic Iberia) 711-1492 CE — the Umayyad Emirate/Caliphate of Cordoba, the convivencia tradition (Maria Rosa Menocal), the Toledo Translation Movement (Gerard of Cremona 12th c.), and the Reconquista culminating 1492
- Trace the Tang Dynasty 618-907 and Song Dynasty 960-1279 — civil-service examination system, technological innovations (printing/gunpowder/magnetic compass/paper currency/porcelain/forensic medicine), poetry (Li Bai, Du Fu, Wang Wei, Li Qingzhao), and Neo-Confucianism (Zhu Xi 1130-1200)
- Trace medieval West African empires — Ghana c. 300-1200 CE, Mali c. 1235-1670 CE (Sundiata + Mansa Musa 1324 hajj + Timbuktu Sankore complex), Songhai c. 1464-1591 CE (Sunni Ali + Askia Muhammad I) — refusing the 'tribal/primitive' Orientalist framing absolutely
- Map and analyze the trans-Saharan caravan trade and Indian Ocean monsoon trade networks c. 800-1500 CE — goods, routes, intermediaries, monsoon-wind-seasonal-timing, and the integration of African + Asian + Middle Eastern + European economies BEFORE 1492
- Trace the Mongol Empire under Genghis Khan 1206-1227 and successors — the four Khanates, the Pax Mongolica trade integration 1250-1350, the Sack of Baghdad 1258, the conquest of Song China completing 1279, and the transformation of Eurasian trade and cultural exchange
- Trace the Indian Ocean network c. 800-1500 CE — the Swahili Coast city-states (Mogadishu, Mombasa, Kilwa, Zanzibar, Sofala), ibn Battuta's 1352-3 visits, the Calicut spice-trade entrepôt, and Zheng He's 1405-1433 Treasure Fleet voyages
- Apply the FOUR-PERSPECTIVE CRUSADES PROTOCOL (MG-8) to the Crusades 1095-1291 CE — telling the story from Islamic (Hillenbrand + ibn Munqidh), Western Christian (Tyerman + Fulcher of Chartres + Urban II), Jewish (Chazan + Solomon bar Simson 1096 Rhineland Chronicle), and Eastern Christian/Byzantine (Anna Komnene's Alexiad) perspectives, refusing any single-narrative crusade history
- Describe medieval Europe 500-1500 CE as ONE region among many in the medieval-world system — feudalism, manorialism, the Catholic Church, monasteries as scholarly preservation, the rise of universities (Bologna 1088, Paris 1150, Oxford 1167) AND their direct dependence on Toledo Translation Movement Islamic-world scholarship
- Trace Postclassic Mesoamerica c. 900-1521 CE — the Toltec c. 900-1150 CE (Tula), the Aztec/Mexica founding of Tenochtitlán 1325 CE through the imperial peak 1500 CE under Moctezuma II, applying the Camilla Townsend 'Fifth Sun' refusal of the conquest-myth + Matthew Restall 'Seven Myths' framing
- Continue the Inca civilization study from G3-Spring (where Inca was introduced via the world cultures sampler with present-tense protocol) into G7 — Tawantinsuyu c. 1438-1533 CE under Pachacuti + Topa Inca + Huayna Capac, the khipu primary-source system, Quechua as living language, and the Pizarro-era smallpox transmission
- Study ibn Khaldun's Muqaddimah (1377 CE) as the world's first systematic theory of historical change — 'asabiyya, the dynastic cycle, the rural/urban dialectic, and the comparative method as the unit's pedagogical historiography lens
- Trace the Black Death 1346-1353 CE as an EURASIAN pandemic emerging from Yersinia pestis along Mongol-era Pax Mongolica trade routes — refusing the Eurocentric 'European plague' framing in favor of Egypt + Syria + Maghreb + Persia + China named as equal-victims per Monica H. Green 2014 scholarship
Successors
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hist.g7.s.cul.capstone_renaissance_to_age_of_exploration_inquiry_exhibit
(not yet loaded)
Common misconceptions
- Treating the capstone as a 'list of civilizations' — it must apply MG-7 + one of the three analytic lenses (MG-8 OR ibn Khaldun OR Abu-Lughod) per chapter
- Skipping the civic-action letter — Banks Level-4 social-action is REQUIRED; the letter is mailed to a real contemporary institution
- Treating the storybook as fiction — it is a rigorous research-product with MLA 9th citations and primary-source quotation