Mali Empire · about 1235-1255

Sundiata and the founding of Mali

A boy who could not walk grew up to unite the Mande peoples and found the Mali Empire. Students hear the epic of Sundiata as the griots tell it and ask how much oral history can tell us about the past.

Teach it live New Open on the map
Length
45 minutes
Ages
10–13
On the map
3 steps, AD 1200 to AD 1300
Live lesson
7 rounds, 3 on the map
Worksheet
Two A4 pages, with Classroom
You need
A projector; phones for live

Live lesson · new in Classroom

Teach it live. The class answers on their phones.

Put the board on the projector. Students join with a six-digit code, no account needed, and tap the map: where was the frontier, where did the grain come from. Their pins drop in together when you reveal, and the closest student takes the round.

€19 per month: every lesson live, every worksheet, cancel anytime. Rome at its height runs live for free.

A live lesson on the projector: the class's pins on the map around Alexandria, the closest students listed beside it A student's phone: the question and a map to tap
7 rounds
3 places to find on the map, quiz questions, a class vote and a one-line answer.
About 15 minutes
Run it as the map step, or to open the discussion. You move on with the space bar.
A report
Every answer, per student and per round, to read back or print after the lesson.
1

Introduction

5 min

Read aloud

A boy who could not walk grew up to unite the Mande peoples and found the Mali Empire. Students hear the epic of Sundiata as the griots tell it and ask how much oral history can tell us about the past.

By the end of the lesson, students can

  • Locate the Mande heartland on the upper Niger and the battlefield of Kirina.
  • Retell the main events of the epic of Sundiata in the right order.
  • Compare oral tradition with written sources and name one strength and one weakness of each.
2

Explore the map

12 min

Project the map, or let students follow on their own devices. Each step opens the map at the right year and place.

a

AD 1200

The Mande heartland

Open the map in 1200 and find the label Mali on the upper Niger, with Ghana to its north. This is the Mande homeland where Sundiata grew up. Which river runs through it?

Open this view on the map
b

AD 1235

Play the story

Open Stories and play Mali and the Golden King. Stop at the first chapter, Sundiata founds Mali. On which two goods does it say Mali was built?

Open this view on the map
c

AD 1300

Mali grows

Drag the time slider from 1200 to 1300. How does the size of Mali change? Which older empire disappears from the map?

Open this view on the map
3

Class discussion

14 min

Pick two or three. They run from what happened to why it mattered.

  1. In the epic, Sundiata could not walk as a child. Why do you think griots keep this part of the story?
  2. Griots have memorized and passed on this history for more than 700 years. What are the strengths and weaknesses of oral history?
  3. Sundiata won by uniting many Mande clans. Why might an alliance beat a single strong king?
  4. The Kurukan Fuga charter is known from oral tradition, not from a document written in the 1230s. How should historians treat it?
  5. Why do people in Mali, Guinea and Senegal still tell the story of Sundiata today?
4

Game round

9 min

Play one round of Rule History as Mansa Musa, who ruled Mali a few generations after Sundiata. Discuss: what did Mansa Musa inherit from the empire Sundiata built, and what did he add?

Open Rule History
5

Worksheet

5 min

This worksheet comes with Classroom

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