Adapting the Traveler's Postcard

Hey Adam Esrig . To be honest I've skipped the postcards the last few years in favor of other Era 5 projects like the World Zone Café and a Columbus trial.

When I did use it, it didn't stray too far from the original. Here's a link the the template I used.

I like that you've incorporated the RAFT elements more explicitly in the directions and gave students a starting point with what to write. In hindsight, I seriously doubt many kids have ever written a postcard so it's an unfamiliar medium to them that would need additional instructing for them to be successful.

Hey Adam Esrig ,

My students love the traveler postcard however, I do it with an activity from the Black Death. This is one of my more popular simulations of the year that I adapted from a previous lesson I did several years ago. Essentially, you travel with a group throughout Europe and are given a travel log. You roll the dice and pull tickets out of a bag. If the students pull a red ticket they have contracted the plague in that town. After each group has made it to their destination (or if they pass away on their quest) they write a detailed postcard as the exit ticket. This requires a lot of planning and set up but I have been doing this activity for several years and have had a lot of success. Here is the link I originally used to adapt the material. Best of luck. Hope all is well. 

http://livinginmedievaleurope.weebly.com/the-black-death-simulation.html

My students also love the World Zone Cafe. I completely agree with your assessment. The postcard idea is a little dated. I remember you posted about the Columbus trial before. Can you remind me what source you use for that activity? I would like to test that out next year. 

Hi Adam Esrig , I like the adaptations you made for this activity. I love doing this activity, but have learned a few things along the way. First, none of my students had written a postcard before, so I had to teach the basics - addressing the card and simple formatting. I asked students to take on the persona of the traveler, but allowed them to write as if they had met the person along the way. Students always worked with a partner, and, depending on their ability level at the time, we often did one together in class to ensure students understood the process. One thing they all loved to do was to add an illustration to the card. I kept a postcard wall in my classroom with the collection of cards I received from stuents over the years so we created one in the hallway to showcase student postcards (both sides).

I can't wait to see what your students do. Anytime students have an opportunity to show creativity while doing some writing is a great day in my class!

Agreed - markers and writing any day of the week is a win. We'll see how they come out but a display may be in order for my room as well. 

Thanks for this Adam.  I forgot about this activity and this post is a nice reminder Also, that's a helpful adaptation you made. I like the idea of keeping it a little broader.  Good timing too, I have a few weeks before I get to exploration. 

I'm generally not a fan of activities that ask students to pretend to be someone else and write diaries/postcards/letters from that imagined perspective. When adapting, modifying, or replacing an activity, I think it's important to consider what the actual purpose of the original activity is first. So, let's take a look:

In this activity, students will read travel accounts from thirteenth- and fourteenth-century missionaries and merchants, and then write a postcard from the perspective of one of them. This should help students practice their skills of avoiding presentism and having historical empathy. Furthermore, reviewing these travel accounts should help them better understand networks of production and distribution at this time, and the communities that gathered around them.

The first sentence is just a summary of the activity and doesn't tell us why students are doing this. The second sentence emphasizes two aspects of historical thinking this activity is supposed to promote: avoiding presentism and practicing historical empathy. The third sentence highlights students better understanding the three frames. So, from that, we can come up with the following list of lesson goals:

1. Students practice avoiding presentism.
2. Students practice historical empathy.
3. Students understand networks, production and distribution, and communities of 13th and 14th century Afro-Eurasia.

I'm not convinced this activity actually achieves any of these. It's arguably okay for point three, though that's mostly because the postcard is really just a summary of the travels (with added layers of first-person creative writing that, I'd argue, detract from the history rather than support it). The activity certainly does nothing for presentism or historical empathy.

As a replacement, I like the SHEG Ibn Battuta lesson. I think it accomplishes the third goal far more successfully and can be easily modified to included more or different excerpts at your discretion.

Re: 1 and 2, I've written before about my love of the Reacting to the Past games; they are an example of students roleplaying to better understand the different perspectives of the time. There isn't a game available that I see related to this specific topic but the goals of addressing presentism and historical empathy are easily met by incorporating other Reacting games if you see fit. Note that these are multi-day, often multi-week long events, so plan accordingly.