Process

Step 1. Your Merchant House

The head merchant will assign you and a partner to one of the eight merchant houses. In order to prepare for your assignment, you should complete the PartnerRequest3-23-10 and present it to the head merchant.  The head merchant will then carefully consider your request and make an assignment.  Once you have been assigned to a house, be sure to get you know your merchant partner, and determine the various strengths you have between you.

Step 2. City/Product Assigned

The merchant will now assign you a city as well as a product from that city. The cities are Baghdad, Chang’an, Damascus, Delhi, Ferghana, Kashgar, Rome, or Turfan.  Your partner will also be assigned a city and a product.  Once you have learned about your city and your product using the links attached to the pages for each city listed above, you will get together with your partner to complete your research and form your business proposal.  To prepare, take notes about your city and your product using this attached handout SilkRoadNotetaking3-22-10 (doc).

Step 3. Write Proposal

Before you leave for your assigned city, each team will write a business proposal and present it in the form of a PowerPoint to the royal family in hopes of earning sponsorship from them to start your business on the Silk Road. Earning this funding from the royal family will make the difference in starting your own business.  Use the following organizers to prepare you and your partner for this VERY IMPORTANT presentation: a)  BusinessProposalPromptDraft-3-22-10 (doc), b)  Silk Road project-storyboard (doc),  c) Directions on how to save powerpoint (2) (doc), and d) Rubric-Silk Road Project (doc).