Lesson 2 — Using Each Kind: Describe One Past Event

Summary

Learners use a primary source and a secondary source together to describe one past event: the Indian Ocean voyages of Zheng He (1405–1433). A worked example pairs an eyewitness account (Ma Huan) with a modern history book, then learners choose an event and write a two-source note — this unit’s first portfolio artifact.

Objectives

• Use a primary source and a secondary source, each, to describe one past event. (D08.S1.06.01)

Connection

When you tell about something that happened — a storm, a festival, an accident — you can tell it two ways: as someone who saw it, or as someone who heard about it and looked into it. Both are useful, and they sound different. A historian does the same thing: a primary source is the voice of someone who was there; a secondary source is the voice of someone who studied it later. Today you use both, together, to describe one real event from the past.

Materials

• Zheng He two-source poster
• Two-source event cards (three events)
• Describe-with-two-sources note

Preparation

• Print or draw the Zheng He two-source poster.
• Copy the three event cards and a two-source note for each learner.
• Arrange a circle for the worked example and a flat space for writing.

Facilitator note

This lesson is written to the learner (“you”). The skill to build is describing one past event using both kinds of source, and noticing what each adds. Model the Zheng He example fully, then let learners choose an event and write. Guard against “the primary source is true, the secondary is not”: both can be accurate or mistaken; the point is that they come from different places and do different work. The three event cards are deliberately global — Great Zimbabwe (Southern Africa), the 1324 pilgrimage of Mansa Musa (West Africa), and the 1857 rebellion in India (South Asia) — so no single people’s story is the default. This lesson produces the unit’s primary-versus-secondary source note portfolio artifact. See docs/facilitation.md.

Procedure

1. Gather (5 min). Recall from last lesson: a primary source is made at the time by someone who was there; a secondary source is made later by someone who studied the evidence. Today you put both to work on one event.
2. Worked example: Zheng He (15 min). Read the poster. The event is the voyages of Zheng He, a Chinese admiral who led huge fleets across the Indian Ocean between 1405 and 1433 — to Southeast Asia, South Asia, Arabia, and the coast of East Africa. The primary source is the account of Ma Huan, an interpreter who sailed with the fleet and wrote down what he saw — the people, the ports, the animals. The secondary source is a modern book, The Treasure Fleets, written by a historian centuries later who studied Ma Huan’s writing and other evidence to explain the voyages. Notice what each adds: Ma Huan gives the feel of being there; the modern book gives the big picture.
3. Choose an event (5 min). Pick one of the three event cards. Each card gives one primary source and one secondary source about a real past event.
4. Write your two-source note (15 min). On your note, answer three prompts: What was the event? What does the primary source tell you? What does the secondary source add? Use the words of the sources, and note how the two voices differ.
5. Share and check (5 min). With a partner, read one of your prompts aloud. Does your partner agree that you have used one primary and one secondary source?
6. Close (5 min). A single past event can be described many ways. When you use both kinds of source, you get closer to a full picture. Keep this note — it is the first page of your portfolio.

Differentiation

• Support: Provide sentence starters (“The event was…; the primary source says…; the secondary source adds…”) and scribe where needed; use only the Zheng He example.
• Extension: Add a third line to your note: “What could the primary source show that the secondary source could not — and the other way around?”

Assessment

• Formative (portfolio/observation): Can the learner describe one past event using a primary source and a secondary source, and name what each contributes?
• Self-check: The learner asks, “Did I use one primary and one secondary source, and can I say what each one added?”

Home connection

Tell someone at home about Zheng He’s voyages — first as Ma Huan saw them, then as a modern historian explains them — and ask which version felt different and why.

Resources

• The voyages of Zheng He (1405–1433), in which Chinese fleets sailed the Indian Ocean as far as East Africa, are documented in primary and secondary sources; Ma Huan’s eyewitness account, Yingya Shenglan, is translated and studied by historians (see, e.g., the work of J.V.G. Mills and later scholarship). Overviews appear in the UNESCO “Maritime Silk Road” project (https://www.unesco.org/en/silk-road) and the British Library (https://www.bl.uk/). The 1324 pilgrimage of Mansa Musa is described in the writings of the contemporary Egyptian scholar al-Umari and later histories (see the British Museum, https://www.britishmuseum.org/). Great Zimbabwe is documented through archaeology and UNESCO World Heritage listing (https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/364/). The 1857 rebellion in India is documented in British and Indian records and in later scholarship. Dates are approximations that scholars revise as new evidence appears.