Chapter 14: East and South Asia "Marco Polo"

Introduction
Students have read that in 1297 Marco Polo wrote an account of a trip he may have made to China, where he met the emperor Kublai Khan. They also learned that the Mongol rulers of China came into closer contact with Europe and the Middle East because of a lack of trust between the rulers and their Chinese subjects.

Lesson Description
Students will go to the Marco Polo Web site. They will then answer four questions about what they have read.

Instructional Objectives
1. Students will learn why there have always been doubts about whether Marco Polo really went to China.
2. Students will analyze how Marco Polo's book influenced others.

Student Web Activity Answers
1. His descriptions are often fanciful and impossible to believe; he may have only described the places to which other people had gone.
2. He included second-hand reports of areas that he had not visited, such as Japan and Madagascar.
3. It was translated into many languages, excited Europeans' imaginations, and encouraged the idea of geographic exploration. Christopher Columbus was known to have owned and annotated a copy of the book.
4. Students' answers will vary. Some students may feel that since his father had been there, and because he was gone a long time from home, and because he would not recant his story, he must have made the trip. Others may feel that even then he would want to protect his reputation, and that too much of the account is questionable.

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