How can we help students compare two pre-colonial African kingdoms?

This Cunning Plan details an enquiry that I developed in order to achieve two curricular goals: to diversify our historical content and to help students to improve their disciplinary thinking and writing about similarity and difference. The enquiry addresses medieval Africa, specifically the East African kingdom of Aksum (approximately 300 BCE to the eighth century CE) and the West African kingdom of medieval Ghana (approximately 300 CE to the thirteenth century CE)...