Poland - Christopher Columbus (Columbus and the "Discovery of the New World")

Abstract

The topic of the module concerns various methods of presenting the historic figure of Christopher Columbus in literature, popular culture and school textbooks. The choice of articles from popular science magazines used in the module allows the students to familiarize themselves with various theories concerning the life of that great explorer, as well as various points of view regarding his role in the world's history. The main part of the module is based on a Polish article presenting a critical analysis of theories about Columbus' Portugal origin and his kinship with Polish king Ladislaus of Varna. However, the suggested tasks are also based on articles concerning Columbus that were published in German, British, Swedish and Spanish magazines. In addition, for some tasks students need to individually search the Internet for information and refer to other sources of knowledge concerning the explorer that are available to them: school textbooks, dictionaries, encyclopaedias, iconography and both feature and popular science films. The module's construction allows the students to learn about various perspectives and points of view concerning the origin of Christopher Columbus and his role in history, but also, most importantly, to improve their critical analysis competences in relation to information from both traditional and multimedia sources, as well as effective processing of that information in order to form their own conclusions and opinions.