🚀 go-pugleaf

I'm writing this request for a student teacher who is teaching the middle
ages to high school students.  So far they have investigated castles and
the nobility.  He plans to also study knights, monks, and peasants.
Towards the end of the unit they will more explicitly focus on the power
relationships between these layers of society and try to understand the
consequences of the social/political organization of the time.  He plans
to lead into the crusades partly from the issue of power, looking at needs
emerging from the shifting balance of power between these classes.

He is not familiar with resources in this area and in particular needs
help finding compact stories/readings which capture the flavor of the time
as well as provide good information which can be used to substantively
discuss the period.  He's looking for stories because they can offer a
memorable structure on which to hang the basic historical information.  He
does not have a textbook and has been lecturing/discussing.  With more
time something like a simulation might have made sense.

Any recommendations for materials or lesson content that could be
immediately retrieved and used?

Should he be introducing some other topics in the 3-4 days he has left?

-- steve

Stephen Weimar
Education Consultant: (http://forum.swarthmore.edu/~steve/)
        - Geometry Forum Project, 800-756-7823, http://forum.swarthmore.edu/
        - Student Teacher Supervision, Swarthmore College, (610) 328-8344
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