An Inquiry Lesson into the Origin Story of the Inca

RATIONALE
Topic:
This inquiry lesson is placed within a World Cultures and Geography of the
Western Hemisphere curriculum. The overarching objective of this unit within the
curriculum is teach students about the ancient civilizations of Latin America. One of
those civilizations is the Inca civilization. Another major goal of this unit is that students
begin to understand how the physical geography of the Andes mountains is linked to
the culture of the Inca people. Take, for example, that the agricultural method of the
Inca people was using terraces because they live in the mountainous environment of
the Andes mountain range. Terraces allowed the Inca to create flat land for growing
crops by building step like structures down the side of mountains. Furthermore, one
reason why archeologist believe Inca cities like Machu Picchu are high up in the
mountains is because the Inca peoples highest god was the Sun God, Inti. By reading
the creation story of the Inca student become familiar with various aspects of the Inca
culture. Within in the Garcilasos creation story appears images and ideas of the Sun
God, hills/mountains, the need to find land to farm and the Inca social structure. Thus,
creation stories can be a useful to to learn about the values and core beliefs of a
society.
As a result of this lesson student also learn how we know about the past. More
specifically how historians come to learn about the Inca civilization. Students begin to
realize the challenge of learning about the Inca civilization because there is no written
record because the Inca people did not have a written language. Therefore we must

rely on what other social scientist such as archeologist. We also can learn from
narratives that are not completely from the Inca point of view.
Question:
The CHQ for this lesson is: Can we trust the Inca creation story as told by
Garcilaso de la Vega? Essentially, I would like students to use various documents to
assess if we can trust Garcilasos retelling of the Inca creation story with complete
accuracy. Because I am asking to student to evaluate the trustworthiness and accuracy
of a retelling of an event student must use historical thinking tools to come upon an
answer to the CHQ. By placing the Inca creation story in the historical inquiry format
students are given conflicting pieces of evidence that both confirm and challenge
Garcilasos accuracy. Hence, students begin to utilize various historical thinking skills
such as sourcing, close reading and corroboration to investigate the CHQ. Student
become historians themselves as they begin to uncover the validity of Garcilasos Inca
creation story, instead of just memorizing facts about the Inca people. Furthermore,
student end the lesson by making a historical argument that is supported by the
evidence found in the inquiry lesson.
By learning about El Inca Garcilaso de la Vega and the creation story he wrote
students learn that history is more than just names and dates. Student begin to see the
complexity of learning about the past. Furthermore, close-reading and contextualization
allows students to gain possible insights into the Inca cultures. The students begin to
realize that because Garcilasos identity and background is so complex (he is mestizo),
it influences his record of history. Furthermore students are also challenged by the fact
that the Inca people did not have a written method of communication. Therefore

Garcilasos account of the creation story is a valuable but possibly flawed piece of
evidence. Students will participate in the thoroughly engaging work of trying to piece
together a story from the past without have been there or experience it themself.
Students:
This lesson is planned for 6th grade social studies class. At the start of this
lesson the students only had little knowledge of the Inca civilization. There are a few
paragraphs on the Inca civilization in their textbooks that they had read the night before.
Students knew about the Inca being located in the Andes mountains but were not
familiar with specific people people such as Garcilaso de la Vega. They were also not
familiar with the Inca creation story. However, the students had read the creation story
of the Maya people so they are familiar with how creation stories are insightful when
learning about a different culture.
Students might find the structure of the activity difficult because they have never
participated in an inquiry lesson before. Also students might have trouble reading the
different documents and understanding the separate arguments that each author is
making. I am hoping the the graphic organizer will help with this. I have modified the
sources so that students can more easily access the written content of this inquiry.
However, one source is a video which will help students gain somewhat of an
understanding of the creation story before they read Garcilasos primary source
document.
The students in my 6th grade class are very strong writers. They often write can
write a lot and fill a page. However, the structure of their writing and the historical
thinking imbedded in their writing is not developed the assessment at the end of this

lesson asks student to become better structured writers with clear historical thinking
utilized in their argumentation. The short answer questions, graphic organizers and
whole classroom discussions will be used as formative assessment to see if students
actually understand the content of this inquiry. I will walk around the classroom to
ensure that students.
Learning goal:
In this lesson I want students to work on the skill of sourcing. Although students
will most definately come into contact with other historical thinking skills such as
close reading, contextualization and corroboration. I want the emphasis of this
lesson to be sourcing. This is because I think the juxtaposition of a primary
source, with a museum document, internet blog and historical book is an
interesting one. This will be students first interaction with the concept of sourcing.
Hence I will model it for them in this lesson. I will be really looking for the use of
sourcing in their essays. The graphic organizer scaffold will help students
develop this skill.