When Christopher Columbus landed, he found many things to comment on. Have your class read this letter that he wrote to Luis de Sant Angel in 1493. The text is split up into sections. Each section is paired with two to three document-based questions for pupils to consider and answer.

Concepts

christopher columbus, explorers

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Additional Tags

christopher columbus, luis de sant angel, discovery of america, dbq, social studies

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Instructional Ideas

• Work through the text together; have individuals read a chunk, respond to the questions, and then discuss each section with a partner or the class
• Set up a reading task and require pupils to mark the text to encourage a deeper understanding

Classroom Considerations

• The document is relatively long, so you may wish to make a class set

Pros

• The chunking of the letter effectively scaffolds the assignment, allowing students time to respond to the questions and reread previous passages before moving on with the reading

Cons

• Because of the way the columns line up, the formatting may seem strange at times; however, if you read one page at a time, the text flows together fine

Common Core

RH.6-8.1 RH.6-8.6 RH.9-10.6 RH.11-12.1 RH.11-12.2 RH.11-12.6