Days 1-3

Focus: Introduction to ancient Egypt inquiry and addressing the first essential question

Sources Used:

Source A: Map of ancient Egypt, Kush, and Israel – with overlays of the flood plains and largest cities

Source B: Environmental Factors and Human Settlement in Egypt and Kush (Excerpt from the textbook History Alive! The ancient World)

Source C: The Gift of the Nile (Excerpt from the textbook The World: Volume 1)

Activities:

1. Brainstorm students’ prior knowledge about ancient Egypt.Then, unpack essential questions: (1) Why did people settle in ancient Egypt and why did life flourish there? (2) What was life like for ordinary people in ancient Egypt?
2. Use map of ancient Egypt with overlays of flood plains and largest cities on big screen to make predictions and to confirm/disconfirm predictions about where big cities develop. Go through cycle of predicting and confirming where people settled in relation to the flood plains through partner and whole group share.
3. Closely read two print texts with multiple purposes (i.e. asking and answering our own questions, gathering information for essential question #2), focusing on identifying corroborating details to support a claim about why people settled in ancient Egypt (essential question #1).Discuss why it is important to notice details that are corroborated by multiple sources.
4. Construct a list of reasons why people settled in ancient Egypt and why life flourished there. Write a claim about why people settled and why life flourished there, using evidence from the 3 sources.

Classroom Products:

• Our Questions about Egypt Chart
• Sources Historians Use chart