ACTIVITY: Traveler Postcards

Time to write home! Craft a postcard from the perspective of a someone who traveled the world in the thirteenth or fourteenth century.

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Traveler Postcards Excerpts

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In this activity, you 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 will help you practice the skill of avoiding presentism and having historical empathy. Furthermore, reviewing these travel accounts will help you better understand exchange networks at this time, and the communities that gathered around them.

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