Inspire imagination with these Marco Polo writing prompts

Since Marco Polo was such a prolific writer it only seemed appropriate to have a few Marco Polo writing prompts to go with our Marco Polo unit.  So grab your pencil, your fancy tea-dyed paper, and get ready for these homeschool writing assignments.

(At the end of the post, I’ll have a printable with all of these for you, as well as a rubric for grading them)

Getting ready for our Marco Polo writing prompts

I had this post all written and ready to be published and then decided I should share where we got some of our information.  First, we read our Mystery of History 2* text for our basic information, then we took turns reading different books from our Marco Polo reading list.  For the Day 1 and 2 we speculated based off our Marco Polo mapwork.  For Day 3, we based it off our visit to the Market.  Day 4 and 5 were based off of the readings I mentioned earlier.

Marco Polo writing prompt 1

You are a sailor on Marco Polo’s ship traveling from Italy over to the Middle East.  Describe your day and what it feels like.  Make sure to include any sounds you hear as you travel over the water.  Maybe you see a pod of dolphins swimming next to your ship.  Or one of the sailors has gotten sick and you hear him coughing.  Today I am particularly looking for interesting nouns.

Marco Polo writing prompt 2

Marco Polo had to cross the entire expanse of the Middle East before getting over to China.  Most of this travel was done on camels through the desert.  Describe what it felt like to travel on camel.  Include as many words describing your sense of touch as you can.  What does the sand feel like?  What is the weather like?  Are the days different from the nights?

Marco Polo writing prompt 3

When Marco Polo reached China he was confronted with many new sights and smells he had never experienced before.  Explain what it was like for Marco Polo as he walked through the market.  What smells did he encounter?  One of the things Marco Polo was famous for bringing back from China were spices.  What spices did he smell as he walked through the market?

Marco Polo writing prompt 4

Marco Polo is meeting Kubla Kahn, what is that like?  Does he feel overwhelmed, impressed?  What are his emotions?  Focus on Marco Polo’s emotions as you write this journal entry, and how he feels.

Marco Polo writing prompt 5

Choose either one of the people you have learned about or one of the locations and write a descriptive journal entry.  Make sure to include several adjectives describing the person or place you have chosen.

Marco Polo writing prompt and rubrics printable

These are super bare bones, because these Marco Polo writing prompts weren’t designed to be used to go through the full writing process, I am not focusing on grammar or any details like that for each prompt, just did it get the main idea of the prompt.