Writing



Grade: 6

Unit: Mesopotamia – Writing System Day 16, Pacing Guide 5/2003

VSC Standards: People of the Nations and World 2.A.1: Describe characteristics that are used to organize people into cultures, History 5.1.a.: Identify the characteristics of a civilization, such as social hierarchy, government, and writing system, Social Studies Skills 6.C.d: Pose questions that elicit higher order thinking responses (hypothesis), Social Studies Skills 6.A: Read to learn and construct meaning about social studies.

Technology Connection: mesopotamia.co.uk

Concept: Examine the culture of ancient Mesopotamia through its writing system and a hero legend - Gilgamesh.

Text/Instructional Materials: AMAD, p. 159-163 (writing) and Legend of Gilgamesh – “The Luring of Enkidu”, p. 167 and attached handouts, clay, paper clips, paper plates

Student Outcome: Students will develop a hypothesis of why Sumerians changed from pictographs to cuneiform writing and read an example of their writing: the legends of Gilgamesh.

|Purpose |Activity |Suggested |

| | |Time |

|Anticipatory Set |Write question on board: Why did Sumerians invent the first writing? What |10 min. |

|Communicate Outcomes |needs did it satisfy? | |

|Pre-Assessment |Have the students write down a hypothesis: Why did the Sumerians change from | |

| |pictographs to cuneiform (wedge-shaped writing)? | |

| |Tell students that they will conduct an experiment to prove/disprove their | |

| |hypothesis. | |

| |Draw four pictographs on overhead and have students compose a sentence using | |

| |them. Ask four or five students. Each sentence should be different, | |

| |illustrating the concept that pictographs were often misinterpreted. | |

|Introduce new concept(s), content or skills and |Provide handouts giving information about cuneiform and showing various |20 min. |

|guided/independent practice |pictographs and an alphabet or read about it in the text, World p. 109 or AMAD| |

|Demonstration |p. 159-163. | |

|Lecture |Students flatten a piece of clay and make a clay tablet. (Paper plates work | |

|Reading |well as a work surface, clay that doesn’t harden will work every year, and | |

|Simulation |paper clips make a stylus.) | |

| | | |

| |Have students practice writing a sentence using the pictographs on clay. They | |

| |give the clay tablet to a neighbor to interpret. (The neighbor will probably | |

| |interpret it differently than the writer.) The student then turns the tablet | |

| |over and writes a sentence in cuneiform using the attached alphabet. Their | |

| |neighbor should correctly interpret the sentence. | |

| | | |

| |The student now has the ability to conclude that pictographs were harder to | |

| |draw than the cuneiforms lines, were harder to make the picture look like the | |

| |example and were misinterpreted because one picture stood for many words. The | |

| |teacher may also want to point out the problem with expressing emotions and | |

| |feeling with pictures. | |

| | | |

| |The students now decide if they proved or disproved their hypothesis and | |

| |summarize their conclusion in a reflective journal write. | |

|Making Connections |Teacher explains that one of the greatest legacies of cuneiform writing was the|30 min. |

|Application |fact that Mesopotamians wrote down their legends and myths for us to enjoy. | |

|Transfer |Introduce the concept of a hero and ask for examples in today’s world. | |

| |Examples might be Superman, X-Man, Spiderman, Wonder Woman. | |

| |Ask the students what characteristics these figures have in common – in other | |

| |words what does our culture consider hero qualities? | |

| |Introduce the hero Gilgamesh by reading one of his stories. The “Luring of | |

| |Enkidu” is included in AMAD p. 164 - 167. | |

|Assessment of Proficiency |Have students write a newspaper article about “Enkidu in the News” in which |20 min. |

|Re-teaching as necessary |they detail the reaction of the townspeople to his arrival or some other aspect| |

| |of the legend using the 5 W’s – Who, What, Where, When, Why. | |

|Closure |Stories of a hero like Gilgamesh and Enkidu illustrate the values of the |15 min. |

|Relevance to outcome |culture that wrote them. Have students understand that we can read these | |

|Relevance to past and future learning |stories and understand the culture of the people of Mesopotamia because we were| |

| |able to decode their writing. For homework, read about Henry Rawlinson, | |

| |another hero, who dangled from a cliff for 12 years to decode cuneiform. | |

| |Students then fill out the worksheets, practicing their summarizing and main | |

| |idea skills. | |

Kate de Barros/ Magothy River School/revised 8/2004

Solving the Mystery of Cuneiform

The ancient Sumerians invented the writing that is known as cuneiform. People that came after them, the Akkadians, Assyrians and Babylonians expanded and modified the cuneiform. As time went on, it fell out of use and became a “dead” language. After a while, no one seemed to know what the language meant. As you read the article below, write a one-sentence summary of the main point of each paragraph. Then put your sentences together in a final summing up paragraph.

| Hundreds of ancient clay tablets were found in the Middle East | |

|over the years. The wedge-shaped marks on the tablets puzzled | |

|scholars because they couldn’t decode them and figure out what each | |

|mark meant. For more than 2,000 years the meanings of the cuneiform | |

|remained a mystery. | |

| About 500 feet up a side of a cliff in Iran some carvings and | |

|writing was found. There seemed to be three different kinds of | |

|writing. The messages were written in the cuneiform of Sumer, the old| |

|Persian language, and the Elamite language. Scholars could read the | |

|last two languages, but not the cuneiform. | |

| The missing clue was discovered by a young British officer named | |

|Henry Rawlinson. In 1835, Rawlinson decided all three messages said | |

|the same thing. He then decided to copy the thousands of markings | |

|chiseled on the cliff rock. | |

| In spite of the danger of dangling from ropes on a 500 foot cliff| |

|side, Rawlinson worked for twelve years translating the meanings of | |

|the languages. | |

Now, you need to look at your summary sentences and put them all together in a paragraph that completely summarizes this article. You need a topic sentence and a concluding sentence. Remember to indent.

Title:

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E. Downer, K. de Barros/MRMS/2004

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