This week in class we focused solely on our Silk Road projects. The projects are due on Monday, November 1, so that is why we spent so much class time on it. My journey is coming along nicely, and I am putting in the finishing touches.

The hardest part for me was choosing a path for my character to travel on. As I was researching, I found a lot of interesting cities that I wanted my character to visit. I made a separate project on Google Earth for the purpose of putting places on the map. I was able to find many cities that could be possible sites on my character’s journey. However, many of the places were hundreds and sometimes thousands of miles apart. I could not use all of them on the journey since it would be an unrealistically long path. After considering the different options for a reasonable journey, I was able to find two cities that would be good starting and ending points for my character’s journey.

From my research, I got to learn about the geography of the area where my story is set. I learned the names of some rivers and deserts. Google Earth also lets me see what the terrain looks like in terms of whether it is sandy, rugged, or flat.

The history of the cities my character stops at is very interesting. Several of the cities that my character stops at were major cities along the Silk Road for long periods of time. Their geographic locations played a part in that in addition to what goods they traded. Most of my sites were controlled by different empires at different times in history. Even reading about the history outside of the time period of my story was engaging. The distribution of wealth and power in the world has shifted since then, and I liked learning about times in history when other parts of the world were much more wealthy and influential than they are today.

Creating the story was a fun part of the project. Although I incorporated facts into the story line, there was a large amount of freedom in what would actually happen in the story. I decided to tell my story in first person and capture my character’s thoughts at different points along the way. Also, I was able to create the different stops in Google Earth without much trouble. I liked being able to use a tool that I had not not known how to use before this project.

Towards the end of the project, I found a great source with lots of information which I did not see earlier. This source was much more interesting than the other sources I found and sparked a genuine interest in the different aspects of the Silk Road that my other sources did not. After I finish my project, I will likely go back and revisit that source purely for learning purposes. Learning for myself is important, beyond the scope of the project itself. Reading the information after the project will be to enhance my knowledge and have fun!