Lesson 4 — Finding Change and Continuity in Another Society

Summary

Learners apply change and continuity to a second society, choosing among three cards — Māori settlement in Aotearoa, the first century of Japan’s Edo period, and Ming China — and record one change and one continuity in a note. This becomes the unit’s hundred-year change-and-continuity portfolio artifact.

Objectives

• Describe change and continuity over a period of about a hundred years in one society, giving an example of each. (D08.S1.06.02)

Connection

You practiced change and continuity on one society — the Songhai and Timbuktu. Now you do it on a society you choose, the way a historian picks a place and asks: over this hundred years, what became different, and what stayed the same? It is the same skill you use when you notice that your own street has a new shop (change) but the same corner tree (continuity) — turned toward the past.

Materials

• Society cards (Māori settlement, Edo Japan, Ming China)
• Change-and-continuity note
• Pencils

Preparation

• Copy the three society cards and a note for each learner.
• Review the card facts so you can retell them aloud.
• Arrange a circle for retrieval and a flat space for writing.

Facilitator note

This lesson is written to the learner (“you”). This is the application and retrieval step of the change-and-continuity skill: learners recall the Songhai example, then apply the frame to a society of their own choosing. The three cards are deliberately from three regions — Oceania (Aotearoa), East Asia (Japan and China) — and each centers the society’s own life, not outside conquest. For each society, change and continuity are both present; a learner’s job is to find one of each with reasons. This lesson produces the unit’s change-and-continuity note portfolio artifact. See docs/facilitation.md.

Procedure

1. Gather and recall (5 min). Without looking at your notes, tell a partner one example of change and one of continuity from the Songhai hundred years. This is retrieval — pulling it from memory.
2. Meet the three societies (10 min). Read the three cards. Māori settlement in Aotearoa (about 1300–1500): ancestors of the Māori voyaged across the Pacific and settled Aotearoa (New Zealand); they adapted crops and life to a colder land, while whakapapa (genealogy) and oral tradition carried their history forward. Edo Japan (1600–1700): after long wars, peace arrived; cities like Edo grew and new roads connected the land, while rice farming and family and community life stayed steady. Ming China (about 1368–1500): a new dynasty rebuilt the land, printed books, and sent fleets across the Indian Ocean, while farming, family, and classical learning continued.
3. Choose and record (20 min). Pick one society. On your note, write the society and the hundred years, then fill two boxes: one change (what became different) and one continuity (what stayed the same) — each with a reason.
4. Share and check (10 min). With a partner, read your note. Does your partner agree that your change is a real change and your continuity a real continuity for that society?
5. Close (5 min). You can now hold two truths at once about any place: it changes, and it carries on. Keep this note — it joins your portfolio.

Differentiation

• Support: Use one society card with sentence starters (“One thing that changed was…; one thing that stayed the same was…”) and scribe where needed.
• Extension: Choose a second society and write one change and one continuity for it too, then name one similarity between the two societies’ stories.

Assessment

• Formative (portfolio/observation): Can the learner name one change and one continuity for a chosen society, with a reason for each?
• Self-check: The learner asks, “Is my change really a change, and my continuity really a continuity — and can I explain why?”

Home connection

Tell someone at home the hundred-year story of the society you chose — one change and one continuity — and ask what changed and what stayed the same in your own family over a similar span.

Resources

• Māori settlement of Aotearoa and the centrality of whakapapa are documented in Māori oral tradition and in New Zealand’s national collections (see Te Ara — the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, https://teara.govt.nz/). The Edo period of Japan (1603–1868), including the growth of Edo and early Tokugawa peace, is standard in Japanese history (see the Tokyo National Museum, https://www.tnm.jp/). The Ming dynasty (1368–1644), including the Zheng He voyages and printing, is standard in Chinese history (see the Palace Museum collections, https://en.dpm.org.cn/). Dates are approximations that scholars revise as new evidence appears; the change-and-continuity idea, not the exact year, is what matters here.