Who gets blamed?

Lesson plan

3 class periods of about 45 minutes.

1. Day 1 · 45 min

   Seasons, ghosts and the poor

   1. 5 minutes: Write the unit question on the board: Why do epidemics produce scapegoats? Explain that a scapegoat is a person or group blamed for a disaster they did not cause.
   2. 10 minutes: Open Discourse on Epidemic Qi, and a Brother's Letter and read its History tab together. Note that Cao Zhi was a prince and that the essay survives only in quotations written down centuries later. Its intensity is Low: deaths in a few lines, nothing graphic.
   3. 15 minutes: Pairs read passages [1] to [8] on the Read tab with the source's worksheet. They list the two explanations Cao Zhi sets against each other, and who he says fell sick and who did not ([5] and [6]).
   4. 10 minutes: Read passage [9], from his brother Cao Pi's letter, aloud. Four court writers died. Ask how the letter changes the way we use Cao Zhi's claim that few of the rich fell sick.
   5. 5 minutes: Exit note: whom or what does Cao Zhi blame, and whom does he laugh at in [8]?

2. Day 2 · 45 min

   Messina and Catania

   1. 5 minutes: The Plague Comes to Messina and Catania is High intensity: it describes symptoms, the abandoned sick and the unburied dead. Before reading, tell students that 27.3 and 29.11–29.12 describe the sick closely, that today's questions don't need those passages, and that anyone may skip them.
   2. 10 minutes: Read the History tab together. Note that the author lived in Catania, took one party's side, and disliked Messina and Palermo.
   3. 15 minutes: Groups read 27.1–27.10 and 29.7–29.10 and trace the plague's path: where it started, where it spread, and how people tried to escape it. They mark every place where someone is driven out, refused or shunned.
   4. 10 minutes: Compare how Messina treated the Genoese (27.4) with how Catania treated the people of Messina (29.8–29.9). Ask what each city's choice shows about fear and blame.
   5. 5 minutes: Exit note: name one passage where the chronicler's dislike of Messina may shape the story, such as 28.3 or 29.3.

3. Day 3 · 45 min

   Choices under fear

   1. 20 minutes: Run the activity from the chronicle's teacher notes. Groups take the Genoese sailors, the families of Messina, the notaries and priests, the townspeople of Catania, or the Patriarch, and write a short statement explaining their choices in their own words, citing passages.
   2. 10 minutes: Groups read their statements. The class decides which choices were reasonable and which were cruel, and gives a reason for each.
   3. 5 minutes: Set the two sources side by side. Cao Zhi blames the seasons; the chronicler blames the Genoese, God's anger and the sins of Messina. Ask which explanations point at a group of people, and what happened to that group.
   4. 10 minutes: Students answer the unit question in a paragraph: Why do epidemics produce scapegoats? They use evidence from both sources and give passage numbers.

Read these sources

In this order. Each opens in Hearth Library with the original beside plain English, and a History tab on who made it and how far to trust it.

1. 1

   Discourse on Epidemic Qi, and a Brother's Letter

   Cao Zhi, 217–218. Accessible.

   Very short and plain; needs only the notes on qi and yin and yang.

   Questions, key terms and an activity

   qi

   the vital breath or energy that Chinese thinkers saw in the body and the world

   yin and yang

   paired opposite forces, such as dark and light or cold and heat; their balance, and the right order of the seasons, was thought to keep the body and the world healthy

   epidemic

   an outbreak of disease that spreads quickly through many people at once

   talisman

   a written charm believed to keep away evil spirits or disease

   commoner

   an ordinary person, not a noble or an official

   clan

   a large extended family sharing one surname and ancestors

   sable

   the dark, costly fur of a small animal related to the weasel

   1. Comprehension According to Cao Zhi, who died in the epidemic of 217, who seldom fell sick, and what caused it?
   2. Analysis Cao Zhi rejects one explanation and offers another. What evidence does he give for his own explanation, and what does he leave unexplained?
   3. Analysis (reliability) Cao Zhi was a prince, and his essay survives only in quotations made centuries later. Compare his claim that few of the rich fell sick with his brother's letter. How should the letter change the way we use the essay as evidence?
   4. Connection Read Zhang Zhongjing's Preface to the Treatise on Cold Damage. Cao Zhi says the epidemic of 217 struck mostly the poor, while Zhang, writing of the decade after 196, says he lost two of every three members of his large clan, most of them to Cold Damage. These are different epidemics and different families. What does each account suggest about who died, and why might two writers of the same era place the blame so differently?

   Activity Students stage a short hearing set in 217. One team argues, as Cao Zhi does, that disordered seasons caused the epidemic; a second team argues for ghosts and spirits, as the people he mocks did. A panel of judges asks each team what evidence it has, including Cao Pi's letter, and who might disagree, then writes a one-paragraph verdict on which team used evidence better.

   For teachers · Worksheet for this source

2. 2

   The Plague Comes to Messina and Catania

   Anonymous of Catania, 1348–1361. Moderate.

   Plain storytelling, but long and full of places and church terms; the notes explain the ones that matter.

   Questions, key terms and an activity

   chronicle

   a record of events set down year by year

   galley

   a long ship rowed by oars, often with sails, used for war and trade in the Mediterranean

   relic

   the body, or part of the body, of a saint, or an object linked to a saint, kept and honored in a church

   notary

   an official who drew up and witnessed legal documents such as wills

   excommunication

   cutting a person off from the church and its sacraments

   bubo

   a painful swelling of a gland in the groin, armpit, or neck; the mark of bubonic plague

   1. Comprehension Trace the plague’s path in these chapters. Where did it start, where did it spread, and how did people try to escape it?
   2. Analysis The chronicler gives two kinds of explanation, natural (breath, touch, infected air) and religious (God’s vengeance, demons, saints). Find examples of each. Does he see them as competing?
   3. Analysis (reliability) The chronicler lived in Catania and disliked Messina. Which passages might that have shaped? Which details is he most likely to have seen for himself?
   4. Connection Compare how Messina treated the Genoese with how Catania treated the people of Messina. What does each city’s choice tell you about fear and blame?

   Activity In small groups, students choose one group in the chronicle (the Genoese sailors, the families of Messina, the notaries and priests, the townspeople of Catania, the patriarch). Each group writes a short statement explaining its choices in its own words, then the class discusses which choices were reasonable and which were cruel, and why.

   For teachers · Worksheet for this source

To finish

Come back to the question: Why do epidemics produce scapegoats? Ask students to answer it with evidence from at least two of the sources, and to say which source they trust most and why.

Standards

Students weigh rival causes of an epidemic in a mock hearing and ask how a chronicler's dislike of Messina shapes whom he blames.

Go further

Other units

The healer's burden · Governments, quarantine, and consent · Explaining disease before germs · Faith and catastrophe · After the plague · Case study: smallpox · Reading sources critically

Encyclopedia

Corrupted air (miasma) · The Black Death

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