25 Sep Working with Evidence

Based on the examination of the primary source documents (textbook chapter 7 “Working with

Evidence: Travelers’ Tale and Observations” & booklet chapter 7 “Thinking through Sources” Life and

Travel on the Silk Road”), what can we learn from sources and those who created them, why do you think

those journeys and the record of those journeys are important? What led to those economic and cultural

interactions? What those documents tell us about the life at that time-was it transformed in any way?

Would it be better for the traveler to practice the same or a different faith as the society he or she visited?

What profession should the traveler ideally practice? Should the traveler be a monk? A merchant? An

ambassador? A tourist? What are the advantages and disadvantages of each? Would it be better for the

traveler to be a man or a woman? Why? How long should the travelerstay in the culture? Should he or she

settle into a single city or tour widely? What sort of information would the ideal traveler likely be able to

convey to a historian? What type of information would even the ideal traveler be unlikely to convey?

Explain how the evidence might have affected your traveler’s predictions, whether true or false?