Objectives: The student will be able to:

1. understand that the voyages of the explorers initiated changes and exchanges, both good and bad, that changed the world forever.
2. identify on charts, contributions that were exchanged between the "new" and "old" worlds.
3. write a paragraph describing one of the contributions from objective two, and how that contribution affected the culture into which it was introduced.
4. use literature to identify the negative effects that exploration had on Native Americans.

Description of lesson/activities:

1. Students will continue to use research skills previously developed in Unit I, and Lesson 2 of this unit to identify and record the contributions made to both European and Indian cultures as a result of the voyages of the explorers. (Students may have already gathered some of this information while reading the biographies mentioned in Lesson 3 of this unit.) Students will use the accompanying charts entitled "To the Americas" and "From the Americas" to record this information.
2. Students will write a paragraph, using correct paragraph form to describe one of the contributions mentioned in number one above, and how it affected the particular culture into which it was introduced.
3. The teacher should use the book entitled Morning Girl , by Michael Dorris as a class read-aloud. This book is set on a Bahamian island in l492 and tells the story of two children who belong to the Taino, the Arawak-speaking tribe who inhabited the Bahamian island where Columbus first arrived in l492. The author wrote the book in time for the quintencentenary celebration of Columbus's voyage. Dorris says that he wrote the book to give the Taino at least an imagined voice to suggest that they were more than just a small tribe that Columbus and his crew managed to wipe out in one generation with the diseases they brought to the island.

Resource for Lesson 4:

Dorris, Michael. Morning Girl . (New York: Hyperion Books, 1992).