Abstract

The city of Timbuktu was often referred to as the “City of Gold”, as it has a kind of mythical status around it. Timbuktu is located in West Africa, modern day Mali, and is on the southern edge of the Sahara Desert. The city got its nickname for being a booming trade hub in Western Africa, that connected the Trans-Saharan trade, to the rest of West Africa. However, on top of being a trade hub, Timbuktu was also the biggest center of education and religious study in West Africa during its “golden age”. As a result of this, Timbuktu is home to thousands of Manuscripts that tell us this history, long before European intervention occurred in the region. Today there is a massive effort to find and preserve these manuscripts. It is Timbuktu’s legacy as a learning city that I will be looking into in this I.S. I find the topic of Timbuktu and its manuscripts fascinating, and overall, a topic that see very little discussion in classrooms today. I will talk about history of the city during the time of different West African empires, the role of Islam, and go into detail about the city’s manuscripts.

The second part of this I.S is a unit plan for the Manuscripts of Timbuktu, that could be taught in an African history, or world history class at the middle school and high school level. The design of the unit would go as follows. Each chapter about Timbuktu and its manuscripts would be its own lesson in the unit. With each lesson getting its own lesson plan designed by the College of Wooster's education department. At the end of the unit, I will have a final assessment that would be used to assess students understanding. The end goal is to have an interesting and functional unit that could be put applied in the classroom.

Advisor

Pozefsky, Peter

Department

History

Keywords

Timbuktu, West Africa, Lesson Plan, Manuscripts

Publication Date

2024

Degree Granted

Bachelor of Arts

Document Type

Senior Independent Study Thesis

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