The Round City of Baghdad

Student Activities

In my class the emphasis is on historical, written, and oral literacy. Prior to exploring this map, my students examine and acquire content through various sources. This foundational work, or lower level depth of knowledge acquisition, is completed collaboratively in class and assessed by various means.

When I am satisfied that they possess sufficient understanding of the content, we move into primary and secondary reading sources – several are attached to this plan. We conduct close readings, create graphic organizers, and annotate each document. I often incorporate an original story, a work of historical fiction, that takes place in the same time and location to provide a backstory for their leap into the past through Minecraft.

The intent of this map is to provide a place for students to experience the content. In the maps I develop, students live in a historical narrative and explore it on their own terms. They partake of quests, design solutions for problems they encounter, and construct meaning along with physical features and interactions with other players and NPCs.

Minecraft activities specific to my course include:

• Students research, then role-play a citizen while creating a biographical sketch along the way.
• Students participant in a market day exchange of trade goods, discovering Silk Road connections.
• Students examine the three houses of wisdom to uncover topics and generate research questions.
• Students encounter and interact with NPCs created by other students and by me and complete religious, scientific, and personal choice quests.
• Students expand the city outside the walls to include farmland communities, the al-Khuld Palace, and bridges across the Tigris.
• Students write an original story that takes place in round Baghdad to add to 1001 (Arabian) Nights.

Minecraft activities that might apply to other courses include:

• Use Code Builder to develop the mostly undeveloped land surrounding the city.
• Add appropriate plant and animal life to the city.
• Add occupation specific interiors to the many of the buildings.
• Design and develop waypoints on the roads leading out from Baghdad.
• Add NPCs throughout the city.
• Write a series of expository texts to be placed in the houses of wisdom.
• Create another site of encounter from the time period and link it to Baghdad.

A few writing prompts to consider include:

• Tell the story of a visitor just arriving in the city from a small village.
• What are the dreams of a child growing up in this city?
• You are the architect and al-Mansur is describing his wishes for the proposed city. How do you react?
• You are invited to a grand reception in the palace under the green dome. Describe your encounters.
• You uncover a foreign looking very odd object for sale in the market. Describe how it got there.
• While exploring a house of wisdom, you discover a new book. What is the title and what does it contain?