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KentuckySocial Studies Corner
★ Inquiry DBQ Series · #9

Tenochtitlan DBQ

How did the Aztecs build a great city on a lake?

How do you build a city of 200,000 people on a lake? Students solve the engineering problem themselves, then test their ideas against chinampas, causeways, and eyewitness accounts.

Grade 7World Civilizations 600–1600Google Slides3 class periods

License: one teacher and their own students.

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What's included

  • Teacher presentation (17 slides) with speaker notes
  • Full DBQ packet (27 pages): hook, background essay, documents with analysis questions, sourcing organizer, bucketing and outline, writing task, 4-point rubric, teacher guide with answer key and sample essay
  • Scaffolded version (10 pages): shorter excerpts, vocabulary support and sentence starters, with its own answer key

The documents

  • A chinampa diagram
  • Bernal Díaz sees the city
  • Díaz on the Tlatelolco market
  • Cortés on the causeways
  • Codex Mendoza tribute page
  • Map of the Basin of Mexico

Good to know

Class time
3 periods of 45–50 minutes
Pages
54 total
Format
Editable Google Slides
Answer key
Included

Standards: KAS Grade 7: 7.G.HE.1, 7.G.HE.2, 7.E.IC.2, 7.I.Q, 7.I.UE, 7.I.CC