Around the year 1500 B.C. a group of people from Central Asia, (modern day Russia) began to settle in the Indus Valley. These people were nomads who rode horses and raised livestock . They were proud, fierce, and deeply religious. As they settled in and began to grow crops, people started to have occupations. In each tribe people belonged to a group. In the beginning these were just occupations. You could move from group to group. This changed over time, until a person’s occupation or group depended on birth. Five rigid social classes evolved from this.
 
 

You are an employee of the "We’ll Find the Answer"- Time Traveling Company. You and your colleagues have been sent back in time to Ancient India to become a member of one of the five caste system classes. Your mission is to find out what life was like for that social group. When you return to your present time you will need to debrief, or to make a presentation, to your supervisors. You will also need to make a comparison between your caste system to a group that might be similar in the 20^th/21^st century.
 
 

1. You will be assigned to teams of five students. You

will then select the class to which you will belong.

Brahmin

Kshatriya

Vaishya

Sudra or Shudra

Untouchable or Dalit (Harijan)
 
 

2. You will need to search out your "own kind" with

whom to work.

3. Each group then researches the economic, social

and political "rules" of this class.

4. Throughout this WebQuest you will be searching

the web for specific information.

http://www.mtholyoke.edu/~dmlewis/castes.html

http://webtest.ousd.k12.ca.us/cvf/curric_library/india/india_kids.html

http://members.aol.com/Donnclass/Indialife.html#ARYAN

http://www.mrdowling.com/612-caste.html

http://www.csuchico.edu/~cheinz/syllabi/asst001/spring98/india.htm

http://www.historyofindia.com/hist_text/home.html

http://www.hindunet.org/varna/

http://www.mtholyoke.edu/~dmlewis/table%20of%20contents.html

http://www.abq-nm.com/~rotto/caste5.html

http://members.tripod.com/~sudheerb/life.html

http://www.penncharter.com/Student/india/index.html
 
 

5. The caste must come together and gather information on

their particular caste. Each member then must compose a

diary entry for the caste to which they belong. On the top

line, left side of your paper should be your name. One line

down in the center write the name of the caste to which

you belong. In your diary entry, you need to recreate a

day (or week) in the life of this caste member during this

period in history.
 
 
 
 

6. In order to create your diary entry, you need to learn

something about how you would have made a living; how

you might have related to your neighbors or people you

dealt with on a daily basis; what you might have eaten;

the clothing you might have worn.
 
 
 
 

7. In the next step you will need to create a comparison of

your caste system and a group from the 20^th/21^st century

to which you might compare it. Does this kind of group exist

in our world? If so, which group would that be? Construct

support by drawing some conclusions.

Some examples from our world might be: members of your

family and their position in the family; minority groups

( African-Americans,women, American Indians etc.);

Japanese in internment camps during W.W. II; Cuban

immigrants in Florida; police or military groups;

religious leaders: Jews in the Holocaust; members of

Congress or another governmental body, labor unions

These are just some examples. You may come up with

others

. http://www.inlink.com/~tfc/class.html

8. As a caste you may work on this together. You may

present your conclusions in an expository/comparison

paper format, a powerpoint presentation, or a panel

drawing format.

http://www.bitbetter.com/powertips.htm
 
 

9. You will come together as the original work colleagues

from number 1 above to prepare your information on your

caste by creating a visual display of your research for

your company supervisors. Using poster board each

individual from the five different castes will help create this

display. It needs to be colorful, neat and informative on all

five castes.
 
 

http://www.mtholyoke.edu/~dmlewis/castes.html

http://webtest.ousd.k12.ca.us/cvf/curric_library/india/india_kids.html

http://members.aol.com/Donnclass/Indialife.html#ARYAN

http://www.mrdowling.com/612-caste.html

http://www.csuchico.edu/~cheinz/syllabi/asst001/spring98/india.htm

http://www.historyofindia.com/hist_text/home.html

http://www.hindunet.org/varna/

http://www.mtholyoke.edu/~dmlewis/table%20of%20contents.html

http://www.abq-nm.com/~rotto/caste5.html

http://members.tripod.com/~sudheerb/life.html

http://www.bitbetter.com/powertips.htm

http://www.inlink.com/~tfc/class.html

http://www.penncharter.com/Student/india/index.html

Bothwell, J. The First Book of India. New York: Franklin Watts,1975.
 
 

This WebQuest assignment will be evaluated as follows:

1. Diary Entry (Individual Grade) = 50%

2. Caste System/20^th Century Comparison (Individual

Grade) = 20%

3. Visual Display (Group Grade) = 20%

4. Oral Presentation (Group Grade) = 10%
 
 

Through this WebQuest you should have gained a better
understanding of life in ancient India under the caste system and what that caste system is like today.
You should also reflect on how present day families, workers
minority groups,have not always been granted equal rights.

In making this statement we realize that within our society there can be found some similarities and differences to Ancient India. Have we come so far, from this way of life so many thousands of years ago, in the way we treat others? Do we still need to make changes in our society, and if so, what do those changes need to look like?
 
 

This WebQuest supports the following Language Arts Goals:

http://www.isbe.state.il.us/ils/english/english.html

Goal 5: Use Language Arts to acquire, assess and

communicate information.

5.A.3a: Identify appropriate resources to

solve problems or answer questions

through research.

5.C.3a: Plan, compose, edit and revise

documents that synthesize new meaning

gleaned from multiple sources.

5.C.3b: Prepare and orally present original work

supported by research.

5.C.3c: Take notes, conduct interviews, organize

and report information in oral, visual

and electronic formats.

This WebQuest also supports the following Social Science Goals:

http://www.isbe.state.il.us/ils/socscience/social.html

STATE GOAL 16: Understand events,trends, individuals

and movements shaping the history of Illinois, the

United States and other nations.

16.B.3a (W) Compare the political characteristics of

Greek and Roman civilizations with

non-Western civilizations, including the

early Han dynasty and Gupta empire,

between 500 BCE and 500 CE.

16.E.3a (W) Describe how people of the Huang He,

Tigris-Euphrates, Nile and Indus river

valleys shaped their environments during

the agricultural revolution, 4000 – 1000

BCE.

STATE GOAL 18: Understand social systems, with an emphasis on the United States.

18.B.3a Analyze how individuals and groups interact

with and within institutions (e.g., educational,

military).

18.A.3b Explain how social institutions contribute to

the development and transmission of

culture.

18.C.3b Explain how diverse groups have

contributed to U.S. social systems over time.