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Social StudiesActivity Worksheet

GRADE LEVEL: Eighth

Course Title: U.S. History to Reconstruction

Strand: I. History

Topic: Time and Chronology

Grade Level Standard: 8-1 Evaluate time and chronology of United States history

to Reconstruction.

Grade Level Benchmark: 1. Construct and interpret timelines of people and events

from the history of the United States through the era of Reconstruction and

from the history of other regions of the world. (I.1.MS.1)

Learning Activity(s)/Facts/Information

1. Read horizontal or vertical linear charts.

2. Interpret horizontal or vertical charts.

3. Create timelines of significant people and events and interpret what those timelines mean.

4. Given a list of historical events from the study of American History, students will construct both a vertical and horizontal timeline to represent the information.

Resources

Text

Library

Computer

Internet

New Vocabulary: Vertical chart, linear chart, timeline, era

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GRADE LEVEL: Eighth


Strand: I. History

Topic: Time and Chronology

Grade Level Standard: 8-1 Evaluate time and chronology of United States history

to Reconstruction.

Grade Level Benchmark: 2. Describe major factors that characterize the following

eras in United States history: The Meeting of Three Worlds (beginnings to 1620),

Colonization and Settlement (1585-1763), Revolution and the New Nation (1754-

1815), Expansion and Reform (1801-1861) and Civil War and Reconstruction (1850-

1877). (I.1.MS.2)


1. Define an era as a fixed point in time.

2. Write/explain major events that took place in each era.

3. Research events in each area and know cause and effect.

4. Describe the significant people or locations events took place.

5. Given one historical era, create a poster depicting the significant events of an era.

Resources

Text

Internet

Library

New Vocabulary: Significant, era, chronology

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GRADE LEVEL: Eighth


Strand: I. History

Topic: Comprehending the Past

Grade Level Standard: 8-2 Develop a comprehension of United States history to

Reconstruction.

Grade Level Benchmark: 1. Use narratives and graphic data to describe the settings

of significant events that shaped the development of the United States as a

nation during the eras prior to Reconstruction. (I.2.MS.1)Learning Activity(s)/Facts/Information

1 Read narratives (books, speeches, news articles), i.e., Intolerable Acts, Declaration of Independence, US Constitution, Monroe Doctrine, Compromise of 1850, Emancipation Proclamation.

2. Read/interpret graphic data, i.e., taxation records, population data, migration records.

3. Construct graphic data after reading a narrative.

4. Summarize graphic data orally.

5. After reading a narrative, students will do a poster to construct graphic data as a representation of their reading.

Resources

Charts

Graphs

Computer

Text

Narratives

New Vocabulary: Significant events, graphic data, narrative

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GRADE LEVEL: Eighth


Strand: I. History



Reconstruction.

Grade Level Benchmark: 2. Identify and explain how individuals in history

demonstrated good character and personal virtue. (I.2.MS.2)


1. Define good character or personal virtue.

2. Identify individuals from the study of American history who demonstrated good character/personal virtue, i.e., Harriet Tubman, Samuel de Champlain Bartoloment de Las Cases, Squanto, Anne Hutchinson, Ben Franklin, Thomas Paine, Patrick Henry, Abe Lincoln.

3. Identify individuals from the study of American history who did not demonstrate good character/personal virtue.

4. Write a poem describing a significant figure from the study of American history telling why this person did or did not demonstrate good character/personal virtue.

Resources

Text

Handouts

Internet

Computer Media

Library

New Vocabulary: Good character, personal virtue

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HARRIET TUBMANTHE MOSES OF HER PEOPLE

Harriet Tubman was born in 1820 in a cold, dark, windowless slave shanty on the Bucktown plantation owned by Edward Brodess in Dorchester County on Maryland's Eastern Shore. She was the daughter of black slaves, Benjamin Ross and Harriet Green, and was originally named Araminta by her master. As she defied slavery and its customs, she later changed her name to Harriet, after her mother.

During her childhood Harriet sustained a serious head injury when an angry overseer tossed a two pound weight at her, striking her in her forehead. This injury nearly killed her and that caused her to have sudden, periodic sleeping seizures her entire life. The injury left an ugly scar that throughout her life, reminded her of the horrors suffered as a slave. Being raised as a slave, she had to perform extremely hard work, and as such she acquired unusual strength. Because she was forced to work as a slave, Harriet did not have the opportunity to attend school. She did, however, possess an innate intelligence with remarkable foresight and judgment. As time passed, and when fully recovered from her injury, her master, Brodess, hired her out to work on neighboring farms. This allowed her some independence, and the opportunity to earn small amounts of money. Some of the work Harriet would do was cut and split wood, drive oxen, and haul logs. By this work, Harriet grew quite strong in physical strength.

When a master hired out a slave, the slave would pay the master part of their earnings. For male slaves, the cost was one hundred dollars a year, and for female, sixty dollars. In time, Harriet earned enough money not only to repay her master the sixty dollars, but also enough to buy her own pair of oxen.

Normally, female slaves at a young age were forced to marry a mate chosen by their masters. Because of her injury, Harriet was spared this tradition. However, Harriet, now in her twenties was getting too old to remain unmarried. Having worked and earned her

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own money, she attracted a free black man named John Tubman, who also worked odd jobs at various plantations. Although marrying a free man was quite unusual for a slave, they permitted Harriet and John to marry. Although forced to do so by her mother, Harriet in 1844, at the age of twenty-four, married John Tubman.

Having married a free man, Harriet thought of nothing but to one day be free herself. Interestingly, they should never have enslaved Harriet. One day, determined to trace her roots, she hired a lawyer at the cost of five dollars to trace the will of her mother's first master. In doing so, a will was found that gave her mother, Harriet Green, to an heir named Mary Patterson. The will provided that Ms. Green was to serve Mary Patterson until Patterson was forty-five years old. However, Patterson died before reaching this age, and was unmarried. Because there was no provision in the will concerning Harriet Green upon Patterson's death, she was therefore free. Unfortunately, no one told Ms. Green of this right, consequently she and her children remained enslaved. Harriet Tubman, now armed with this information was now more than ever determined to be free.

Having spent her first twenty-nine years as a slave plantation hand, in 1849, upon the death of her master, she learned that she was to be sold to the Deep South. Determined not to be sold, Harriet, along with her two brothers, escaped. Guided by the North Star on her journey to freedom, she was also aided by the Underground Railroad, which was a secret network of safe-houses created to help escaping slaves. Two of the principle "conductors" of the Underground Railroad who aided Harriet were Ezekiel Hunn and Thomas Garrett, both of Delaware.

Along the journey, her two brothers returned to Maryland, but Harriet continued and arrived in Philadelphia, changed her name to Harriet, and worked for about a year to earn money. She then left Philadelphia and returned to Maryland. Once in Maryland she disguised herself as a man in an attempt to find her husband to bring him back north with her. Upon finding her husband, she found that he had married another. Devastated by this news, she set her mind and determination devoting her life to freeing slaves.With her newfound freedom obtained in Philadelphia, where slavery was outlawed, Harriet found little solace in her freedom, while the masses of her race remained enslaved. Consequently, she spent the next ten years serving as a "conductor" on the Underground Railroad. She made more than twenty trips into the South and rescued about three hundred Negroes from slavery. In her rescue efforts, Harriet would move these persons from the South to a secret station near Wilmington, Delaware, to freedom in Philadelphia. On her journeys, she usually started Saturday night, because this would give her more than a day's start before the owners discovered that their slaves were missing the following Monday morning. At times along the way to freedom, some of those she rescued would become frightened and want to turn back. Harriet would not hear of this. Often she would admonish those wanting to turn back at gunpoint, saying, "Live North, or die here." She also carried opium with her on her journeys to quiet crying babies.

Upon arriving at her destination, she frequently worked as a cook, dressmaker, or a laundress to earn money to help sustain the fugitive slaves. Both black and white

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abolitionists praised her as the "Moses of her people." She became widely respected, and was honored by such noteworthy persons as Frederick Douglass, Susan B. Anthony and Ralph Waldo Emerson. Similarly, slave holders and other proslavery advocates also hated her in the South, and as well in the North by anti-abolitionists. Once in April 1860, in Troy, New York, the police had captured a runaway slave by the name of Charles Nalle. It was Harriet who led a group that freed Nalle, and in doing so, they attacked Harriet and severely beat her. Still, possessing courage and confidence, she avoided capture.

Despite the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 that provided for harsh treatment, nor the forty-thousand dollar bounty on her for her arrest, dead or alive, could stop Harriet. In 1857, she performed an inconceivable mission of freeing both her aged parents. Now free, she took her parents to a home in Auburn, New York; land that Harriet purchased earlier from William H. Seward.

In 1858, Harriet traveled to Canada, where she had the opportunity to meet John Brown. A friendship developed, by which Brown referred to her as "General Tubman," and said, "Harriet is one of the bravest persons on this continent." Harriet approved of and provided support for Brown's plan to seize the government arsenal at Harper's Ferry, West Virginia. However, due to circumstances beyond Harriet's control, she was unable to recruit others to join Brown, nor was she able herself to join. Upon Brown's defeat and hanging, Harriet was deeply saddened. She regarded Brown as the "Savior of her people."

When the Civil War began, she, without delay asserted her right to participate. Armed with a letter from John Andrew, the governor of Massachusetts, she traveled to Hilton Head, South Carolina, where she reported to General David Hunter. Here she worked in the Union Army as a scout, spy, nurse, and cook. She continued this activity throughout the war, and in 1865 near the war's end, she briefly worked at a freedman's hospital in Fortress Monroe, Virginia.

Upon the end of the Civil War, she continued her mission and concern for the Negro masses. In North Carolina she worked hard and tirelessly to establish schools for the hundreds of freedmen.

In 1869 Harriet married Nelson Davis, a black Civil War veteran. Additionally, she had a book of her own, titled, Scenes in the life of Harriet Tubman (1869) that she dictated to Sarah Hopkins Bradford who wrote it for her. They printed and sold this book with help from Gerrit Smith, Wendell Phillips, and some of her Auburn friends and neighbors. With the royalties from her book, she was able to pay off the mortgage on her house in Auburn.

During this time she applied for a pension for her wartime service, however the government showed her much less gratitude than she deserved. Finally, after thirty years of trying to collect her pension, Congress, with the support of former Secretary of State William H. Seward, awarded her the trifle amount of twenty dollars a month.

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Private citizens helped and contributed money for the support of the Harriet Tubman Home for Indigent and Aged Negroes in Auburn. In her later years, Harriet continued to work for the women's right's movement, as well as her continued work with aged and indigent Negroes. On March 10, 1913, Harriet Tubman died of pneumonia. A full military service was provided for her. They buried Harriet with full military honors in Fort Hill, Auburn.

In 1914, the Cayuga County Historical Society Association built a tablet in her memory and in recognition of her service, in a ceremony delivered by Booker T. Washington. Additionally, in further recognition of her tireless service the United States Postal Service issued a stamp in her memory. They issued this thirteen cent stamp depicting her image in Washington, D.C. on February 1, 1978, as the first stamp in a "Black Heritage Series."

Harriet Tubman was a woman of greatness who represented nearly a century of struggle and difficulties fighting slavery toward her goal of social justice.In 1886, Sarah Hopkins Bradford, who had written Harriet's book for her in 1869, issued an expanded version titled, Harriet Tubman, The Moses of her People. They reprinted this book in 1961.

Today, the Brodess plantation no longer exists, but there is a historic marker noting the former site of Harriet's birthplace. The Harriet Tubman Coalition, Inc., hosts guided tours, by appointment only to major sites of interest in and around Bucktown and Cambridge. These include the historic marker, the Bazzel Methodist Episcopal Church, the Stanley Institute, Waugh United Methodist Church, the Harriet Tubman Park, and the Scenic Long Wharf. This wharf is the site where Harriet arrived when she rescued her sister whom they were auctioning outside the courthouse, a few blocks away on Historic High Street.

http://www.aboutfamouspeople.com/article1002.html

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GRADE LEVEL: Eighth


Strand: I. History



Reconstruction.

Grade Level Benchmark: 3. Use historical biographies to explain how events from the

past affected the lives of individuals and how some individuals influenced the

course of history. (I.2.MS.4)


1. Read, research, and discuss historical biographies from American history (i.e., George Washington, Annie Oakley, Fredrick Douglas, Ben Franklin, Abe Lincoln).

2. Describe how famous and everyday people influenced the course of historical events.

3. Describe how past events influence affected people’s lives.

4. Students will choose one person from their study of American history and write a journal entry from that person’s point of view describing how he/she changed the course of history.

Resources

New Vocabulary: Biographies

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FREDERICK DOUGLASSby John T. Marck

The life of the famous abolitionist and journalist, who emerged as a major anti-slavery force, and a supporter of women's rights.

Frederick Douglass was born Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey in February 1818. He was born on a farm on Lewiston Road, Tuckahoe, near Easton, in Talbot County, Maryland. Frederick was the son of an unknown white father, and Harriet Bailey, a slave who was a part African and Native American. Frederick was born a slave on the great plantation owned by the Lloyd family. At times, they referred to him as Frederick Lloyd. When he was eight years old, he was separated from his mother and never saw her again.

As a child, Frederick was legally classified as real estate or property rather than as a human being. He experienced much neglect and cruel treatment, and hard work brought on by the tyranny toward slaves. Resistance by slaves usually resulted in even more cruel treatment. However, in Frederick’s case it paid off. By fighting back toward his cruel master, Colonel Lloyd, and following a failed escape attempt, he was sent to Baltimore as a house servant at the age of eight. In Baltimore he learned to read and write with the assistance of his mistress, although was mostly self-taught. Having now learned to read and write he soon began to conceive of his freedom. Frederick was fortunate in that the Lloyd family often would severely whip slaves who were hard to manage or who tried to escape, then sent them to Baltimore, only to be sold to a slave trader, as a warning to all other slaves.

Upon the death of his master, Frederick was returned to the country as a field hand. Here, he conspired with six other fellow slaves to escape. Their plan a failure, and betrayed by another, he was placed in jail. His new master, being a tolerant sort, arranged for his release from jail and returned him to Baltimore. Again, in Baltimore, Frederick learned the trade of a ship carpenter, and in time, was permitted to hire his own men.

On September 3, 1838, Frederick made another escape attempt, and this time was successful. He traveled to New York, changed his last name to Douglass, and married a free black woman named Anne Murray, whom he had met in Baltimore earlier. Together they moved to New Bedford, Massachusetts, where Frederick worked as a laborer.

In search of a new career, Frederick read Garrison’s Liberator, and in 1841 attended a convention of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society in Nantucket. One of the attending abolitionists overheard Douglass speaking with some of his black friends. Impressed, this man asked Douglass to speak at the convention. Although reluctant, he

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did so, and although he stammered, his speech had a remarkable effect. As a result, and to his surprise, they immediately employed him as an agent to the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, and a new career was born.

In his new position, he participated in the Rhode Island campaign against the new constitution that proposed the disfranchisement of blacks, which denied them the right of citizenship and the vote. He was the main figure in the famous "One-Hundred Conventions," of the New England Anti-Slavery Society. Here he was mobbed and beaten and forced to ride in "Jim Crow" cars and denied overnight accommodations. ("Jim Crow" refers to the "legal" repression of slavery or segregation). Yet through this all, he remained and saw the planned program to the end.

Douglass possessed a strong physique, being more than six feet tall, with a strong constitution and an excellent speaking voice. Because of this, those who heard him speak, began to doubt his story of having ever been a slave, and that he was basically self-taught. Because of these doubts, Frederick wrote his Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. However, a friend, Wendell Phillips, advised Douglass to burn the book because he recounted his life as a slave, and Phillips believed releasing it would re enslave Douglass. Douglass refused and published the book in 1845. However, to avoid any possible consequences, he traveled to Great Britain and Ireland. He remained there for about two years where he had the opportunity to meet and get to know the English Liberals. In this environment, they treated him as a man and an equal for the first time in this life. This resulted in improving his character and self-esteem. From this experience, he truly started to believe that freedom, not only physical, but social equality and economic and spiritual opportunities were possible.

In 1847, he returned to the United States, and having enough money, he bought his freedom and established a newspaper dedicated to his race. Many of his white abolitionist friends disagreed with his views in this newspaper, and others believed that the ability to purchase his freedom was in fact condoning slavery. However, Douglass, upon learning these criticisms, handled them in a practical manner.

Douglass went on to establish his newspaper, the North Star, and published it for seventeen years. Furthermore, he lectured, was a supporter of woman suffrage, took an active part in politics, and helped Harriet Beecher Stowe establish an industrial school for black youth. He also met with John Brown, and counseled him. Upon Brown’s arrest, the Governor of Virginia attempted to arrest Douglass as a conspirator. To avoid arrest, Douglass fled to Canada, then England and Scotland, where he again lectured.

With the outbreak of the Civil War, additional opportunities came his way, by which he passionately fought against slavery as its major cause. He assisted in convincing black men to join the Union army, and he helped in recruiting for the 54th Massachusetts colored regiment, offering his own sons as the first recruits. Twice during the war, President Lincoln invited him to the White House to discuss important matters concerning the black soldiers in the Union Army.

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Following the Civil War in 1877, Douglass was appointed as United States Marshall for the District of Columbia by President Hayes, and in 1881, President Garfield appointed him Recorder of Deeds for the District of Columbia.

In 1884, Douglass married again. His second wife was Helen Pitts, a white woman, which brought about much criticism. Concerning this, he maintained his sense of humor by saying, "my first wife was the color of my mother, and my second wife, the color of my father." In 1891, President Harrison appointed Douglass as Minister-Resident and Consul-General to the Republic of Haiti, and as Charge d’affaires for Santo Domingo.

On June 22, 1894, Douglass gave an address at the Sixth Annual Commencement of a Colored High School in Baltimore, Maryland. In his address, Douglass said: "The colored people of this country have, I think, made a great mistake, of late, in saying so much of race and color as a basis of their claims to justice, and as the chief motive of their efforts and action. I have always attached more importance to manhood than to mere identity with any variety of the human family..." "We should never forget that the ablest and most eloquent voices ever raised in behalf of the black man’s cause were the voices of white men. Not for race, not for color, but for men and for manhood they labored, fought, and died. Away, then, with the nonsense that a man must be black to be true to the rights of black men."

Frederick Douglass died on February 20, 1895. Active to the end, on the day he died, he attended a woman-suffrage convention.

Copyright© John T. Marck. All Rights Reserved. This article and their accompanying pictures, photographs, and line art, may not be resold, reprinted, or redistributed for compensation of any kind without prior written permission from the author.


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GRADE LEVEL: Eighth


Strand: I. History

Topic: Analyzing and Interpreting the Past

Grade Level Standard: 8-3 Analyze and interpret United States history to

Reconstruction.

Grade Level Benchmark: 1. Use primary and secondary records to analyze significant

events that shaped the development of the United States as a nation prior to the end

of the era of Reconstruction. (I.3.MS.1)Learning Activity(s)/Facts/Information

1. Look at/handle primary and secondary sources of American history (diaries, newspapers, speeches, biographies, etc.).

2. Differentiate between a primary and secondary source.

3. Determine contributions of primary and secondary sources to American history.

4. Students will research a primary source and orally report to the class its significance.

Resources

Handouts

Text

Computer

Library

New Vocabulary: Primary resources, secondary resources

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CHIEF JOSEPH SPEECH

Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce (1840?-1904) was known to his people as "Thunder Traveling to the Loftier Mountain Heights." He led his people in an attempt to resist the takeover of their lands in the Oregon Territory by white settlers. In 1877, the Nez Perce were ordered to move to a reservation in Idaho. Chief Joseph agreed at first. But after members of his tribe killed a group of settlers, he tried to flee to Canada with his followers, traveling over 1500 miles through Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and Montana. Along the way they fought several battles with the pursuing U.S. Army. Chief Joseph spoke these words when they finally surrendered on October 5, 1877.

“Tell General Howard I know his heart. What he told me before, I have it in my heart. I am tired of fighting. Our Chiefs are killed; Looking Glass is dead, Ta Hool Hool Shute is dead. The old men are all dead. It is the young men who say yes or no. He who led on the young men is dead. It is cold, and we have no blankets; the little children are freezing to death. My people, some of them, have run away to the hills, and have no blankets, no food. No one knows where they are - perhaps freezing to death. I want to have time to look for my children, and see how many of them I can find. Maybe I shall find them among the dead. Hear me, my Chiefs! I am tired; my heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands I will fight no more forever.”

Chief Joseph - Thunder Traveling to the Loftier Mountain Heights – 1877

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http://www.historyplace.com/speeches/joseph.htm

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http://www.historyplace.com/speeches/joseph.htm


GRADE LEVEL: Eighth


Strand: I. History

Topic: Analyzing and Interpreting the Past


Reconstruction.

Grade Level Benchmark: 2. Show that historical knowledge is tentative and subject to

change by describing interpretations of the past that have been revised when new

information was uncovered. (I.3.MS.3)


1. Read about events in American history from the view of a wide variety of non-American authors.

2. Consider a historical event from more than one point of view.

3. Create Venn diagrams depicting two diverse points of view about the same event.

4. Students will create a Venn diagram depicting two divergent points of view about slavery or controversial moments in the United States.

Resources

Text

Internet

Audio Resources

New Vocabulary: Tentative

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GRADE LEVEL: Eighth


Strand: I. History

Topic: Judging Decisions from the Past


Reconstruction.

Grade Level Benchmark: 3. Compose narratives of events from the history of

the United States prior to the era of Reconstruction. (I.3.MS.4)


1. Read narratives about historical events about United States history.

2. Retell narratives and analyze their historical significance.

3. Write historical narratives.

4. After studying a historical event, the student will write a story including all the significant events.

5. Role play – create dialogue to present to class. Students will choose: slave, soldier, settler, or other.

Resources

Text

Examples of written dialogue

New Vocabulary: Dialogue, narrative, significance

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GRADE LEVEL: Eighth


Strand: I. History


Grade Level Standard: 8-4 Judge decisions of United States history up to

Reconstruction.

Grade Level Benchmark: 1. Identify major decisions in United States history prior to

the end of the era of Reconstruction, analyze contemporary factors contributing to

the decisions, and consider alternative courses of action. (I.4.MS.1)


1 Read and discuss major decisions of United States history, i.e., Dred Scott case.

2. Identify historical factors that contributed to these decisions.

3. Identify/describe ways that things could have been done differently.

4. In groups, analyze past decisions and come up with alternative courses of action to propose to the class.

5. Research the relocation of Native Americans and determine what alternative courses of action could have been made, or choose another controversial decision the U.S. has made and do the same.

Resources

Text

Handouts

Internet

New Vocabulary: Contemporary factors, alternative courses of action

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DRED SCOTT CASE:THE SUPREME COURT DECISION

In March of 1857, the United States Supreme Court, led by Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, declared that all blacks -- slaves as well as free -- were not and could never become citizens of the United States. The court also declared the 1820 Missouri Compromise unconstitutional, thus permitting slavery in all of the country's territories.

The case before the court was that of Dred Scott v. Sanford. Dred Scott, a slave who had lived in the free state of Illinois and the free territory of Wisconsin before moving back to the slave state of Missouri, had appealed to the Supreme Court in hopes of being granted his freedom.

Taney -- a staunch supporter of slavery and intent on protecting southerners from northern aggression -- wrote in the Court's majority opinion that, because Scott was black, he was not a citizen and therefore had no right to sue. The framers of the Constitution, he wrote, believed that blacks "had no rights which the white man was bound to respect; and that the negro might justly and lawfully be reduced to slavery for his benefit. He was bought and sold and treated as an ordinary article of merchandise and traffic, whenever profit could be made by it."

Referring to the language in the Declaration of Independence that includes the phrase, "all men are created equal," Taney reasoned that "it is too clear for dispute, that the enslaved African race were not intended to be included, and formed no part of the people who framed and adopted this declaration. . . ."

Abolitionists were incensed. Although disappointed, Frederick Douglass, found a bright side to the decision and announced, "my hopes were never brighter than now." For Douglass, the decision would bring slavery to the attention of the nation and was a step toward slavery's ultimate destruction.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4h2933.html

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http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4h2933.html


GRADE LEVEL: Eighth


Strand: I. History


Grade Level Standard: 8-4 Judge decisions of United States history up to

Reconstruction.

Grade Level Benchmark: 2. Identify the responses of individuals to historic violations

of human dignity involving discrimination, persecution, and crimes against humanity.

(I.4.MS.3)


1. Identify incidents of persecution, discrimination, and crimes against humanity from the history of the United States.

2. Identify contemporary incidents of persecution, discrimination, and crimes of humanity in the United States.

3. Describe both the positive and negative reactions to past incidents of persecution, discrimination, or crimes against humanity in the United States.

4. Create a poster depicting a group that has been discriminated against in the past and include strategies to reverse the discrimination.

Resources

News Magazine

Text

Internet

New Vocabulary: Human dignity, discrimination, persecution, crimes against humanity

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GRADE LEVEL: Eighth


Strand: I. History

Topic: Judging Decisions from the Past.

Grade Level Standard: 8-4 Judge decision of United States history up to

Reconstruction.

Grade Level Benchmark: 3. Select historic decisions and evaluate them in light of

core democratic values and resulting costs and benefits as viewed from a variety

of perspectives. (I.4.MS.4)Learning Activity(s)/Facts/Information

1. Understand and be able to apply core democratic values.

2. Know basic rights/responsibilities of good citizenship.

3. Be familiar with and be able to discuss the Declaration of Independence, Constitution, and Amendments.

4. Select read/write/discuss historic decisions and judge them in terms of how well core democratic values are represented. (The Compromise of 1850 and the Fugitive Slave Act attached)

5. Students will select a historic decision and write a position paper defending the benefits of the core democratic values used.

Resources

Newspaper(past/present)

Internet

News Magazine

New Vocabulary:

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THE COMPROMISE OF 1850AND THE FUGITIVE SLAVE ACT

Henry Clay, U.S. senator from Kentucky, was determined to find a solution. In 1820 he had resolved a fiery debate over the spread of slavery with his Missouri Compromise. Now, thirty years later, the matter surfaced again within the walls of the Capitol. But this time the stakes were higher -- nothing less than keeping the Union together.

There were several points at issue:

The United States had recently acquired a vast territory – the result of its war with Mexico. Should the territory allow slavery, or should it be declared free? Or maybe the inhabitants should be allowed to choose for themselves?

California – a territory that had grown tremendously with the gold rush of 1849, had recently petitioned Congress to enter the Union as a free state. Should this be allowed? Ever since the Missouri Compromise, the balance between slave states and free states had been maintained; any proposal that threatened this balance would almost certainly not win approval.

There was a dispute over land: Texas claimed that its territory extended all the way to Santa Fe.

Finally, there was Washington, D.C. Not only did the nation's capital allow slavery, it was home to the largest slave market in North America.

On January 29, 1850, the 70-year-old Clay presented a compromise. For eight months members of Congress, led by Clay, Daniel Webster, Senator from Massachusetts, and John C. Calhoun, senator from South Carolina, debated the compromise. With the help of Stephen Douglas, a young Democrat from Illinois, a series of bills that would make up the compromise were ushered through Congress.

According to the compromise, Texas would relinquish the land in dispute but, in compensation, be given 10 million dollars – money it would use to pay off its debt to Mexico. Also, the territories of New Mexico, Nevada, Arizona, and Utah would be organized without mention of slavery. (The decision would be made by the territories' inhabitants later, when they applied for statehood.) Regarding Washington, the slave trade would be abolished in the District of Columbia, although slavery would still be permitted. Finally, California would be admitted as a free state. To pacify slave-state politicians, who would have objected to the imbalance created by adding another free state, the Fugitive Slave Act was passed.

Of all the bills that made up the Compromise of 1850, the Fugitive Slave Act was the most controversial. It required citizens to assist in the recovery of fugitive slaves. It denied a fugitive's right to a jury trial. (Cases would instead be handled by special

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commissioners – commissioners who would be paid $5 if an alleged fugitive were released and $10 if he or she were sent away with the claimant.) The act called for changes in filing for a claim, making the process easier for slave-owners. Also, according to the act, there would be more federal officials responsible for enforcing the law.

For slaves attempting to build lives in the North, the new law was disaster. Many left their homes and fled to Canada. During the next ten years, an estimated 20,000 blacks moved to the neighboring country. For Harriet Jacobs, a fugitive living in New York, passage of the law was "the beginning of a reign of terror to the colored population." She stayed put, even after learning that slave catchers were hired to track her down. Anthony Burns, a fugitive living in Boston, was one of many who were captured and returned to slavery. Free blacks, too, were captured and sent to the South. With no legal right to plead their cases, they were completely defenseless.

Passage of the Fugitive Slave Act made abolitionists all the more resolved to put an end to slavery. The Underground Railroad became more active, reaching its peak between 1850 and 1860. The act also brought the subject of slavery before the nation. Many who had previously been ambivalent about slavery now took a definitive stance against the institution.

The Compromise of 1850 accomplished what it set out to do – it kept the nation united – but the solution was only temporary. Over the following decade the country's citizens became further divided over the issue of slavery. The rift would continue to grow until the nation itself divided.

23


GRADE LEVEL: Eighth


Strand: II. Geography

Topic: People, Places, and Cultures

Grade Level Standard: 8-5 Investigate people, places, and cultures of United

States history to Reconstruction.

Grade Level Benchmark: 1. Explain why people live and work as they do in different

regions. (II.1.MS.3)


1. Identify factors in the United States that influence the way people live and work as they do. Example: climate, resources, landforms

2. Discuss how regions in the United States influence how people live and work as they do.

3. Given a region, explain why people live and work as they do in that region.

Resources

Maps

Newspaper

Textbook

Internet

New Vocabulary: Culture, society, globalization, urbanization, ethnicity, New England, Middle Colony, Southern Colony

24


GRADE LEVEL: Eighth



Topic: Human/Environment Interaction

Grade Level Standard: 8-6 Explore human/environment interaction of United States

history to Reconstruction.

Grade Level Benchmark: 1. Locate major ecosystems, describe their characteristics,

and explain the process that created them. (II.2.MS.2)Learning Activity(s)/Facts/Information

1. Identify major ecosystems on a map (Gulf Plain, Appalachian Mountains, Atlantic Plains, Central Plains, etc.).

2. Discuss the characteristics of ecosystems.

3. Identify examples of the major processes on Earth (i.e., climate, erosion, water cycle, and plant communities).

4. Discuss how these processes created the ecosystem.

5. Create a project that compares ecosystems, resources, and human environment interactions of two major United States ecosystems.

6. Given an example of an ecosystem, describe the characteristics and explain the processes that created it.

Resources

Atlas

Internet

Newspaper

Magazine

New Vocabulary: Ecosystem, ecocide, erosion, global warming, Appalachian Mountains, Central Plains, Atlantic Plains

25


GRADE LEVEL: Eighth






Grade Level Benchmark: 2. Explain how humans modify the environment and

describe some of the possible consequences of those modifications. (II.2.MS.4)


1. Identify human modifications on the environment (i.e., dams on rivers, cutting trees).

2. Discuss how humans modify the environment.

3. Discuss the possible consequences of those modifications.

4. Given a human modification on the environment in the world, explain how the modification was created, and describe the possible consequences of that modification.

Resources

Maps

Internet

Newspaper

www.pbs.org

New Vocabulary: Modification, technology, preservation, Transcontinental Railroad

26

http://www.pbs.org/


GRADE LEVEL: Eighth






Grade Level Benchmark: 3. Describe the consequences of human/environment

interactions in several different types of environments. (II.2.MS.5)


1. Discuss possible consequences of human interaction in the environment, i.e., flood control, irrigation, fur trading, deforestation.

2. Explain the consequences of the Pacific Railway Act (activity attached)

3. Students will make a project showing the potential consequences in interacting with the environment.

Resources

New Vocabulary: Emissions, smog, global warming

27

THE PACIFIC RAILWAY ACTJULY 1, 1862

(U. S. Statutes at Large, Vol. XII, p. 489 ff.)

An Act to aid in the Construction of a Railroad and Telegraph Line from the Missouri River to the Pacific Ocean. . . .

Be it enacted, That [names of corporators]; together with five commissioners to be appointed by the Secretary of the Interior... are hereby created and erected into a body corporate... by the name... of "The Union Pacific Railroad Company"... ; and the said corporation is hereby authorized and empowered to lay out, locate, construct, furnish, maintain and enjoy a continuous railroad and telegraph... from a point on the one hundredth meridian of longitude west from Greenwich, between the south margin of the valley of the Republican River and the north margin of the valley of the Platte River, to the western boundary of Nevada Territory, upon the route and terms hereinafter provided...

Sec. 2. That the right of way through the public lands be... granted to said company for the construction of said railroad and telegraph line; and the right... is hereby given to said company to take from the public lands adjacent to the line of said road, earth, stone, timber, and other materials for the construction thereof; said right of way is granted to said railroad to the extent of two hundred feet in width on each side of said railroad when it may pass over the public lands, including all necessary grounds, for stations, buildings, workshops, and depots, machine shops, switches, side tracks, turn tables, and water stations. The United States shall extinguish as rapidly as may be the Indian titles to all lands falling under the operation of this act...

Sec. 3. That there be... granted to the said company, for the purpose of aiding in the construction of said railroad and telegraph line, and to secure the safe and speedy transportation of mails, troops, munitions of war, and public stores thereon, every alternate section of public land, designated by odd numbers, to the amount of five alternate sections per mile on each side of said railroad, on the line thereof, and within the limits of ten miles on each side of said road... Provided that all mineral lands shall be excepted from the operation of this act; but where the same shall contain timber, the timber thereon is hereby granted to said company...

Sec. 5. That for the purposes herein mentioned the Secretary of the Treasury shall... in accordance with the provisions of this act, issue to said company bonds of the United States of one thousand dollars each, payable in thirty years after date, paying six per centum per annum interest... to the amount of sixteen of said bonds per mile for each section of forty miles; and to secure the repayment to the United States... of the amount of said bonds... the issue of said bonds... shall ipso facto constitute a first mortgage on the whole line of the railroad and telegraph...

28

Sec. 9. That the Leavenworth, Pawnee and Western Railroad Company of Kansas are hereby authorized to construct a railroad and telegraph line... upon the same terms and conditions in all respects as are provided [for construction of the Union Pacific Railroad].... The Central Pacific Railroad Company of California are hereby authorized to construct a railroad and telegraph line from the Pacific coast... to the eastern boundaries of California, upon the same terms and conditions in all respects [as are provided for the Union Pacific Railroad].

Sec. 10 ...And the Central Pacific Railroad Company of California after completing its road across said State, is authorized to continue the construction of said railroad and telegraph through the Territories of the United States to the Missouri River... upon the terms and conditions provided in this act in relation to the Union Pacific Railroad Company, until said roads shall meet and connect...

Sec. 11. That for three hundred miles of said road most mountainous and difficult of construction, to wit: one hundred and fifty miles westerly from the eastern base of the Rocky Mountains, and one hundred and fifty miles eastwardly from the western base of the Sierra Nevada mountains... the bonds to be issued to aid in the construction thereof shall be treble the number per mile hereinbefore provided... and between the sections last named of one hundred and fifty miles each, the bonds to be issued to aid in the construction thereof shall be double the number per mile first mentioned...

http://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/resources/archives/five/railact.htm

29

http://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/resources/archives/five/railact.htm


GRADE LEVEL: Eighth



Topic: Location, Movement, and Connections

Grade Level Standard: 8-7 Acquire location, movement, and connections of United


Grade Level Benchmark: 1. Locate and describe major economic activities and

occupations of major world regions and explain the reasons for their locations.

(II.3.MS.1)Learning Activity(s)/Facts/Information

1. Study the major economic activities and occupations in the regions.

2. Discuss the reasons for the location of these economic activities and occupations.

3. North vs. South Economic Influences (1860) Northern “cities” Southern “towns” (activity attached)

4. Students will create a project to locate and describe major economic activities and occupations of U.S. regions and explain the reasons for their locations.

Resources

Internet

Textbook

New Vocabulary: Industry, agriculture, cash crop, urbanization

30

THE ECONOMICS OF THE CIVIL WARRoger L. Ransom, University of California, Riverside

The Civil War has been something of an enigma for scholars studying American history. During the first half of the twentieth century, historians viewed the war as a major turning point in American economic history. Charles Beard labeled it "Second American Revolution," claiming that "at bottom the so-called Civil War ? was a social war, ending in the unquestioned establishment of a new power in the government, making vast changes ? in the course of industrial development, and in the constitution inherited from the Fathers" (Beard and Beard 1927: 53). By the time of the Second World War, Louis Hacker could sum up Beard's position by simply stating that the war's "striking achievement was the triumph of industrial capitalism" (Hacker 1940: 373). The "Beard-Hacker Thesis" had become the most widely accepted interpretation of the economic impact of the Civil War. Harold Faulkner devoted two chapters to a discussion of the causes and consequences of the war in his 1943 textbook American Economic History (which was then in its fifth edition), claiming that "its effects upon our industrial, financial, and commercial history were profound" (1943: 340).

In the years after World War II, a new group of economic historians -- many of them trained in economics departments -- focused their energies on the explanation of economic growth and development in the United States. As they looked for the keys to American growth in the nineteenth century, these economic historians questioned whether the Civil War -- with its enormous destruction and disruption of society -- could have been a stimulus to industrialization. In his 1955 textbook on American economic history, Ross Robertson mirrored a new view of the Civil War and economic growth when he argued that "persistent, fundamental forces were at work to forge the economic system and not even the catastrophe of internecine strife could greatly affect the outcome" (1955: 249). "Except for those with a particular interest in the economics of war," claimed Robertson, "the four year period of conflict [1861-65] has had little attraction for economic historians" (1955: 247). Over the next two decades, this became the dominant view of the Civil War's role industrialization of the United States.

Historical research has a way of returning to the same problems over and over. The efforts to explain regional patterns of economic growth and the timing of the United States' "take-off" into industrialization, together with extensive research into the "economics" of the slave system of the South and the impact of emancipation, brought economic historians back to questions dealing with the Civil War. By the 1990s a new generation of economic history textbooks once again examined the "economics" of the Civil War (Atack and Passell 1994; Hughes and Cain 1998; Walton and Rockoff 1998). This reconsideration of the Civil War by economic historians can be loosely grouped into four broad issues: the "economic" causes of the war; the "costs" of the war; the problem of financing the War; and a re-examination of the Hacker-Beard thesis that the War was a turning point in American economic history.

31

Economic Causes of the WarNo one seriously doubts that the enormous economic stake the South had in its slave labor force was a major factor in the sectional disputes that erupted in the middle of the nineteenth century. Figure 1 plots the total value of all slaves in the United States from 1805 to 1860. In 1805 there were just over one million slaves worth about $300 million; fifty-five years later there were four million slaves worth close to $3 billion. In the 11 states that eventually formed the Confederacy, four out of ten people were slaves in 1860, and these people accounted for more than half the agricultural labor in those states. In the cotton regions the importance of slave labor was even greater. The value of capital invested in slaves roughly equaled the total value of all farmland and farm buildings in the South. Though the value of slaves fluctuated from year to year, there was no prolonged period during which the value of the slaves owned in the United States did not increase markedly. Looking at Figure 1, it is hardly surprising that Southern slave-owners in 1860 were optimistic about the economic future of their region. They were, after all, in the midst of an unparalleled rise in the value of their slave assets.

A major finding of the research into the economic dynamics of the slave system was to demonstrate that the rise in the value of slaves was not based upon unfounded speculation. Slave labor was the foundation of a prosperous economic system in the South. To illustrate just how important slaves were to that prosperity, Gerald Gunderson

32

(1974) estimated what fraction of the income of a white person living in the South of 1860 was derived from the earnings of slaves. Table 1 presents Gunderson's estimates. In the seven states where most of the cotton was grown, almost one-half the population were slaves, and they accounted for 31 percent of white people's income; for all 11 Confederate States, slaves represented 38 percent of the population and contributed 23 percent of whites' income. Small wonder that Southerners – even those who did not own slaves – viewed any attempt by the federal government to limit the rights of slave-owners over their property as a potentially catastrophic threat to their entire economic system. By itself, the South's economic investment in slavery could easily explain the willingness of Southerners to risk war when faced with what they viewed as a serious threat to their "peculiar institution" after the electoral victories of the Republican Party and President Abraham Lincoln the fall of 1860.

Table 1

The Fraction of Whites' Incomes from Slavery

State Percent of the Population That

Were Slaves

Per Capita Earnings of

Free Whites (in dollars)

Slave Earnings per Free White

(in dollars)

Fraction of Earnings Due

to Slavery

Alabama 45 120 50 41.7

South Carolina 57 159 57 35.8

Florida 44 143 48 33.6

Georgia 44 136 40 29.4

Mississippi 55 253 74 29.2

Louisiana 47 229 54 23.6

Texas 30 134 26 19.4

Seven Cotton States 46 163 50 30.6

North Carolina 33 108 21 19.4

Tennessee 25 93 17 18.3

33

Arkansas 26 121 21 17.4

Virginia 32 121 21 17.4

All 11 States 38 135 35 25.9

Source: Computed from data in Gerald Gunderson (1974: 922, Table 1)

The Northern states also had a huge economic stake in slavery and the cotton trade. The first half of the nineteenth century witnessed an enormous increase in the production of short-staple cotton in the South, and most of that cotton was exported to Great Britain and Europe. Figure 2 charts the growth of cotton exports from 1815 to 1860. By the mid 1830s, cotton shipments accounted for more than half the value of all exports from the United States. Note that there is a marked similarity between the trends in the export of cotton and the rising value of the slave population depicted in Figure 1. There could be little doubt that the prosperity of the slave economy rested on its ability to produce cotton more efficiently than any other region of the world.

The income generated by this "export sector" was a major impetus for growth not only in the South, but in the rest of the economy as well. Douglass North, in his pioneering study of the antebellum U.S. economy, examined the flows of trade within the United States to demonstrate how all regions benefited from the South's concentration on

34

cotton production (North 1961). Northern merchants gained from Southern demands for shipping cotton to markets abroad, and from the demand by Southerners for Northern and imported consumption goods. The low price of raw cotton produced by slave labor in the American South enabled textile manufacturers – both in the United States and in Britain – to expand production and provide benefits to consumers through a declining cost of textile products. As manufacturing of all kinds expanded at home and abroad, the need for food in cities created markets for foodstuffs that could be produced in the areas north of the Ohio River. And the primary force at work was the economic stimulus from the export of Southern Cotton. When James Hammond exclaimed in 1859 that "Cotton is King!" no one rose to dispute the point.

With so much to lose on both sides of the Mason-Dixon Line, economic logic suggests that a peaceful solution to the slave issue would have made far more sense than a bloody war. Yet no solution emerged. One "economic" solution to the slave problem would be for those who objected to slavery to "buy out" the economic interest of Southern slaveholders. Under such a scheme, the federal government would purchase slaves. A major problem here was that the costs of such a scheme would have been enormous. Claudia Goldin estimates that the cost of having the government buy all the slaves in the United States in 1860, would be about $2.7 billion (1973: 85, Table 1). Obviously, such a large sum could not be paid all at once. Yet even if the payments were spread over 25 years, the annual costs of such a scheme would involve a tripling of federal government outlays (Ransom and Sutch 1990: 39-42)! The costs could be reduced substantially if instead of freeing all the slaves at once, children were left in bondage until the age of 18 or 21 (Goldin 1973:85). Yet there would remain the problem of how even those reduced costs could be distributed among various groups in the population. The cost of any "compensated" emancipation scheme was so high that even those who wished to eliminate slavery were unwilling to pay for a "buyout" of those who owned slaves.

The high cost of emancipation was not the only way in which economic forces produced strong regional tensions in the United States before 1860. The regional economic specialization, previously noted as an important cause of the economic expansion of the antebellum period, also generated very strong regional divisions on economic issues. Recent research by economic, social and political historians has reopened some of the arguments first put forward by Beard and Hacker that economic changes in the Northern states were a major factor leading to the political collapse of the 1850s. Beard and Hacker focused on the narrow economic aspects of these changes, interpreting them as the efforts of an emerging class of industrial capitalists to gain control of economic policy. More recently, historians have taken a broader view of the situation, arguing that the sectional splits on these economic issues reflected sweeping economic and social changes in the Northern and Western states that were not experienced by people in the South. The term most historians have used to describe these changes is a "market revolution."

35

Source: United States Population Census, 1860.

Perhaps the best single indicator of how pervasive the "market revolution" was in the Northern and Western states is the rise of urban areas in areas where markets have become important. Map 1 plots the 292 counties that reported an "urban population" in 1860. (The 1860 Census Office defined an "urban place" as a town or city having a population of at least 2,500 people.) Table 2 presents some additional statistics on urbanization by region. In 1860 6.1 million people -- roughly one out of five persons in the United States -- lived in an urban county. A glance at either the map or Table 2 reveals the enormous difference in urban development in the South compared to the Northern states. More than two-thirds of all urban counties were in the Northeast and West; those two regions accounted for nearly 80 percent of the urban population of the country. By contrast, less than 7 percent of people in the 11 Southern states of Table 2 lived in urban counties.

Table 2

Urban Population of the United States in 1860a

RegionCounties with

Urban Populations

Total Urban Population in the

Region

Percent of Region's

Population Living in Urban Counties

Region's Urban Population as

Percent of U.S. Urban Population

Northeastb 103 3,787,337 35.75 61.66

Westc 108 1,059,755 13.45 17.25

Borderd 23 578,669 18.45 9.42

36

Southe 51 621,757 6.83 10.12

Far Westf 7 99,145 15.19 1.54

Totalg 292 6,141,914 19.77 100.00Notes:a Urban population is people living in a city or town of at least 2,500b Includes: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New

York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Vermont.c Includes: Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Nebraska, Ohio, and Wisconsin.d Includes: Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, and Missouri.e Includes: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina,

South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia.f Includes: Colorado, California, Dakotas, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah and

Washingtong Includes District of Columbia

Source: U.S Census of Population, 1860.

The region along the north Atlantic Coast, with its extensive development of commerce and industry, had the largest concentration of urban population in the United States; roughly one-third of the population of the nine states defined as the Northeast in Table 2 lived in urban counties. In the South, the picture was very different. Cotton cultivation with slave labor did not require local financial services or nearby manufacturing activities that might generate urban activities. The 11 states of the Confederacy had only 51 urban counties and they were widely scattered throughout the region. Western agriculture with its emphasis on foodstuffs encouraged urban activity near to the source of production. These centers were not necessarily large; indeed, the West had roughly the same number of large and mid-sized cities as the South. However there were far more small towns scattered throughout settled regions of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin and Michigan than in the Southern landscape.

Economic policy had played a prominent role in American politics since the birth of the republic in 1790. With the formation of the Whig Party in the 1830s, a number of key economic issues emerged at the national level. To illustrate the extent to which the rise of urban centers and increased market activity in the North led to a growing crisis in economic policy, historians have re-examined four specific areas of legislative action singled out by Beard and Hacker as evidence of a Congressional stalemate in 1860 (Egnal 2001; Ransom and Sutch 2001; 1989; Bensel 1990; McPherson 1988).

37

http://eh.net/encyclopedia/?article=ransom.civil.war.us

38

http://eh.net/encyclopedia/?article=ransom.civil.war.us


GRADE LEVEL: Eighth






Grade Level Benchmark: 2. Explain how governments have divided land and sea

areas into different regions. (II.3.MS.2)


1. Discuss how boundaries are created (i.e., physical features, lines of latitude and longitude).

2. Map of Louisiana Purchase (attached)

3. Manifest Destiny (attached)

Resources

Textbook Internet

New Vocabulary: Latitude, longitude, free state, slave state

39


GRADE LEVEL: Eighth






Grade Level Benchmark: 3. Describe how and why people, goods and services, and

information move within world regions and between regions. (II.3.MS.3)Learning Activity(s)/Facts/Information

1. Study how goods and services, people and information move within world regions and between regions.

2. Discuss why people, goods and services, and information move.

3. History of the Telegraph (attached)

Resources

Internet

Textbook

New Vocabulary: N.A.F.T.A., treaties, tariffs, taxes, telegraph, Samuel Morse

42

HISTORY OF THE TELEGRAPHby Eric Reischer

Samuel Morse and the Telegraph On May 24, 1844, eighteen letters were transmitted over two wires stretching from the Supreme Court room in the Capitol to Baltimore, Maryland. The transmission was the culmination of decades of research and development on a system which would forever change the course of history. The letters, which formed the biblical phrase "What hath God wrought," were transmitted in the form of 42 pulses of electricity which became the first public demonstration of a new language of communication known as Morse Code.The beginnings of the telegraph date back to the early 1830s, when Samuel F. B. Morse attempted to obtain a patent in Europe for a new telegraph system which would signal the location of a railroad train at a given point on the track to a receiving station at a remote point. His application was rejected, and he thus returned to the United States to continue work on a more advanced communication system for sending signals between two remote points.

Development of the telegraph system which was eventually widely adopted across the country was a collaborative effort between Morse himself, Leonard Gale, and Arthur Vail. Gale’s contribution was in the field of electromagnetics, introducing Morse’s telegraph to the concept of a multi-cell battery which, combined with several more electromagnet windings, allowed the new and improved telegraph to transmit over 10 miles of wire in early October of 1837. Vail’s contribution was to further improve and package the telegraph for easier acceptance and use outside the laboratory. The first test of the new telegraph occurred on January 6, 1838, which was from Vail’s Speedwell Iron Works in Morristown, New Jersey, to a receiving station 2 miles away. The message, "Railroad cars just arrived, 345 passengers" was transmitted using a system of dots to represent digits. Within 3 weeks of that transmission, Morse had developed a new system of dots and dashes which represented letters rather than digits, thus birthing the Morse Code as it is known today.

Less than a month after the development of the new code, Morse demonstrated the new telegraph to the President and Cabinet in Washington, DC. He attempted to persuade Congress to pass a bill to spend $30,000 to bury a telegraph line from Washington, DC to Baltimore, Maryland. However, the resolution to construct the line would not be passed until early 1843, and the eventual decision was to place the lines on the top of chestnut poles 24 feet high as opposed to burying

43

them in a pipe. Once the construction of this line was finished, the first public city-to-city telegraph transmission of "What hath God wrought" was sent to usher in the new age of communication.

Since the new communication system had the full support of the United States Congress, telegraph lines were quickly established between all major United States cities, spanning from Nova Scotia to Louisiana, and eventually spanning westward with the railroads. By the time the telegraph had reached California, it had connected nearly every corner of the country and brought the country one step closer to unity.Guglielmo Marconi and the Wireless Telegraph

When he was only 19 years old in 1895, Guglielmo Marconi began experiments in his father’s country estate in Italy and eventually succeeded in sending wireless telegraph signals over a distance of approximately one and a half miles. In doing so, Marconi took the work of Samuel Morse one giant step further and invented the first practical wireless telegraph system. His device, known simply as the "Marconi," was within 4 years being used for communication across the English Channel, and less than 2 years after that was redesigned to be powerful enough to send a communication 2,100 miles across the Atlantic Ocean. In 1907, the oceanic barrier was officially destroyed with the opening of the first commercial trans-Atlantic wireless communication service between Glace Bay, Nova Scotia, and Clifden, Ireland.

Communication using the Marconi device not only had wide terrestrial-based uses, but also possessed great maritime capabilities as well. After 1907, it was possible for a ship bearing a Marconi antenna to transmit messages to a receiving station on shore, thousands of miles away. This greatly improved the safety of sailing across the ocean, as a ship in distress could signal out a "C. Q. D.," or universal distress call, and any ship in range was required by international rules of sailing to offer any assistance it can within its capabilities. In April of 1912, when the Royal Mail Steamer ‘Titanic’ struck an iceberg and sank, it was argued that a nearby ocean liner was in close enough range to recover passengers before the ship went under, however the Marconi operator had sadly turned off his radio for the evening and never heard the call for help. This disastrous event sparked controversy which resulted in new rules for Marconi operators, such as a new requirement that the Marconi be manned 24 hours a day while at sea.

After the development of the wireless radio system, Marconi returned to research on newer and more advanced methods of wireless communication. Experimenting with shorter wavelengths, Marconi discovered that he could use the combination of a short wavelength signal and a special style antenna to send a "beam" signal a much longer distance while using much less energy than with the traditional wire system. Perfected in 1923, the system was opened for commercial use between England and Canada in 1926.

44

In 1934, after several years of research on microwave radio signals, Marconi developed and successfully demonstrated the ability to use a microwave radio beam as a vector navigation aid, and in the following year gave yet another practical demonstration of microwave radio signals, this time for a more practical and useful purpose. He proposed that by employing the principles of reflecting radio waves, you can detect the presence of large objects by listening for the corresponding "echo" of the radio burst you send out. This demonstration was the first practical application and successful implementation of radar, whose principle is still in use today on virtually every vessel at sea.

While Samuel Morse and Guglielmo Marconi both developed systems which rely on signals being transmitted in on/off, or binary form, later inventors would take this on/off system a step further and expand it to include varying signal strengths, thus giving birth to the telephone.

http://www.personal.psu.edu/users/e/m/emr150/group.html

45

http://www.personal.psu.edu/users/e/m/emr150/group.html


GRADE LEVEL: Eighth






Grade Level Benchmark: 4. Describe the major economic and political connections

between the United States and different world regions and explain their causes and

consequences. (II.3.MS.4)Learning Activity(s)/Facts/Information

1. Identify the economic and political connections between the United States and the world regions (i.e., trade alliance, multinational companies, defense treaties).

2. Discuss causes and consequences of these connections.

3. Treaty of Paris (activity attached)

Resources

Internet

New Vocabulary: Treaty, tariffs, negotiations, Americanization

46

TREATY OF PARIS (1783)

The Treaty of Paris of 1783, signed on September 3, 1783, formally ended the American Revolutionary War between the Kingdom of Great Britain and the Thirteen Colonies in North America who had rebelled against British rule in 1776. Great Britain signed ancillary treaties with France and Spain as the Treaties of Versailles of 1783.

Painting by Benjamin West depicting John Jay, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Henry Laurens, and William Temple Franklin. The British commissioners refused to pose, and the picture was never finished.

SummaryThe treaty contained the following terms:Recognizing the thirteen colonies as the United States of America [Article 1];

Establishing the boundaries between the United States and British North America [Article 2];

Granting fishing rights to United States fishermen in the Grand Banks, off the coast of Newfoundland and in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence [Article 3];

Recognizing the lawful contracted debts to be paid to creditors on either side [Article 4];

United States Congress will "earnestly recommend" to state legislatures to recognize the rightful owners of all confiscated lands "provide for the restitution of all estates, rights, and properties, which have been confiscated belonging to real British subjects." [never implemented, Article 5];

United States Congress will prevent future confiscations [Article 6];

Prisoners of war on both sides are to be released and all property left by British army in the United States unmolested (including "Negroes") [Article 7];

Great Britain and the United States were each to be given perpetual access to the Mississippi River [Article 8];

Territories captured by Americans subsequent to treaty will be returned without compensation [Article 9];

Ratification of the treaty was to occur within six months from the signing by the contracting parties [Article 10]

47

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Treaty_of_Paris_portrait_by_Benjamin_West.jpg

The agreementThe treaty document was signed by David Hartley (a member of the British Parliament representing the British Monarch, George the Third), John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and John Jay (representing the United States).

On September 3, Britain also signed separate agreements with France, Spain, and the Netherlands which had been negotiated earlier. In the treaty with Spain, Britain recognized Spanish rule over several territories seized by the Spaniards during the war. The colonies of East and West Florida were ceded to Spain without any clearly defined northern boundary, resulting in disputed territory resolved with the Treaty of Madrid (1795). Spain also reclaimed the island of Minorca and the Bahama Islands while Britain retained Gibraltar. The treaty with France mostly reinforced earlier treaties, guaranteeing fishing rights off Newfoundland.

The American Continental Congress ratified the treaty on January 14, 1784. Britain ratification occurred on April 9, 1784 and ratifications exchanged on May 12, 1784. Although Britain's ratification and the exchange were not within the six-month deadline specified by the treaty, this had no effect on the honoring of the treaty. The delay was partly caused by transportation difficulties.

http://en.wikepedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Paris_(1783)

48

http://en.wikepedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Paris_(1783


GRADE LEVEL: Eighth



Topic: Regions, Patterns, and Processes

Grade Level Standard: 8-8 Analyze regions, patterns, and processes of United


Grade Level Benchmark: 1. Draw a sketch map of the world from memory.

(II.4.MS.1)


1. Practice making examples of sketch maps.

2. Draw sketch maps using map elements (i.e., proportion or relative size, relative distance, orientation, label).

Resources

Internet

New Vocabulary: Compass, proportion

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GRADE LEVEL: Eighth



Topic: Global Issues and Events

Grade Level Standard: 8-9 Be informed by global issues and events of United


Grade Level Benchmark: 1. Describe how social and scientific changes in regions

may have global consequences. (II.5.MS.1)Learning Activity(s)/Facts/Information

1. Discuss social and scientific changes in regions have global consequences (i.e., revolutions, conquistadors, exploration Industrial Revolution, agrarian reform, movement toward democracy, Pan-American Highway, imperialism, environmental destruction, vaccination programs, the spread of AIDS, eradication of disease, computer technology, standard time, use of communication devices, GIS, GPS, vulcanization, rainforest).

Resources

New Vocabulary: Nuclear energy, natural resources, AIDS, vaccine

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GRADE LEVEL: Eighth


Strand: III. Government

Topic: Purposes of Government

Grade Level Standard: 8-10 Demonstrate purposes of government in United States


Grade Level Benchmark: 1. Describe how the federal government in the United

States serves the purposes set forth in the Preamble to the Constitution. (III.1.MS.1)Learning Activity(s)/Facts/Information

1. Discuss and explain the purposes of government set forth in the Preamble to the Constitution.

2. Explain how the federal government serves the purposes set for in the Preamble of the Constitution.

3. Given a purpose of government set forth by the Preamble to the Constitution, students will describe how that purpose is provided for by the federal government.

4. Powers of Government (activity attached)

Resources

Textbook

Online search sites

New Vocabulary: Government, Preamble to the Constitution, the Constitution, executive, judicial, legislative

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POWERS OF GOVERNMENT

DESCRIPTION Using a memory/matching game, students learn about the powers of the federal and state governments (Delegated, Reserved, and Concurrent Powers).

GOALSFor students to recognize and explain the differences between the state and federal powers of government.

OBJECTIVES 1. Students will be able to explain the difference between Delegated Powers,

Reserved Powers, and Concurrent Powers. 2. Students will be able to identify examples of Delegated Powers, Reserved

Powers, and Concurrent Powers.

MATERIALS 1) overhead projector 2) note cards listing powers of government (attached)

VOCABULARY1. Delegated Powers (federal) - The power given to the federal government by the

constitution. 2. Reserved Powers (state) - The powers set aside by the constitution for the states

or for the people. 3. Concurrent Powers (shared) - A power that is shared by the federal government

and the states.

PROCEDUREAnticipatory Set"How many of you know why your parents fill out two forms of taxes in the spring? Paying taxes is a power of the federal and state governments. Today we will be learning about powers that the federal government has and powers that are reserved for the state governments. Also, we will be discussing the powers that the federal and state governments share."

Lesson Focus: Powers of Government On the overhead, display a transparency which lists the three vocabulary words with their definitions (Delegated Powers, Reserved Powers, and Concurrent Powers). Discuss the definitions of these terms. Then inform the students that they will be playing a memory/matching game which will help them understand the different powers of government. Divide the class into three groups, with one group representing the Delegated Powers, one group representing the Reserved Powers, and the third group representing the Concurrent Powers.

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http://www.eduref.org/Virtual/Lessons/Social_Studies/US_Government/GOV0201.pdf

[Author's Note: I had nine students in the Delegated group, nine students in the Reserved group, and six students in the Concurrent group. However, you may need to adjust these numbers depending on your class size.]

Each group receives a stack of note cards. Listed on each note card is one power of government held by that group. Each student in the group takes a note card. Starting with the Delegated Powers, ask one student to stand and read the power listed on his/her note card. Continue with the rest of the students in that group. (If students do not understand the meaning of a particular power, take a moment to explain it.) After the Delegated Powers have spoken, then have students in the Reserved group do the same. Conclude with students in the Concurrent group.

Next, inform students that you will be calling on them at random to ask about a power of government. (The teacher should have a master list of the powers of government.) State a power of government, and ask a student if it is a Delegated, Reserved, or Concurrent power. Continue until every student has had one opportunity to answer. (Variation: Instead of asking individual students, split the class into teams (groups of four, perhaps). Start with one power of government, and ask the first group if the power is Delegated, Reserved, or Concurrent. Students have 20 seconds to discuss with one another before providing the group answer. If the group is correct, then the group gets a point. If the group is incorrect, then the next group has a chance to answer. The group with the most points wins.)

Closure: Each student will complete a short writing assignment. Students will choose one power of government (can be from any group: Delegated, Reserved or Concurrent) that has affected their lives or their family's lives the most. (Example: Students can write about how their parents are required to pay taxes and how this affects their parents' lives.)

ASSESSMENT Observe students' participation during the memory/matching activity, noting any powers of government which seem difficult for students to understand. Collect students' writing assignments to check for accuracy and completeness.

USEFUL INTERNET RESOURCE* Ben's Guide to US Government for Kids For topics related to this lesson, click on grades "6-8" and then select "National versus State Government."http://bensguide.gpo.gov/

http://www.eduref.org/cgi-bin/printlessons.cgi/Virtual/Lessons/Social_Studies/US_Government/GOV0201.html

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http://bensguide.gpo.gov/

Powers of Federal and State Governments Federal or Delegated Powers: To regulate interstate and foreign trade To coin and print money To conduct foreign relations To establish post offices and roads To raise and support armed forces To declare war and make peace To govern American territories and admit new states To pass naturalization laws and regulate immigrations To make all laws necessary and proper to carry out its powers

State or Reserved Powers: To regulate trade within the state To establish local governments To conduct elections To determine voter qualifications To establish and support public schools To incorporate businesses To make marriage laws To license professional workers To keep all powers not guaranteed to the federal government

nor prohibited by the states

Shared or Concurrent Powers: To collect taxes To borrow money To establish courts To charter banks To enforce laws and punish law breakers To provide health and welfare to the people

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GRADE LEVEL: Eighth






Grade Level Benchmark: 2. Distinguish between representative democracy in the

United States and other forms of government. (III.1.MS.2)


1. Discuss the differences between a representative democracy in the United States and other forms of government, i.e., three branches of government, court system, military, etc.).

2. Compare and contrast the representative democracy in the United States to the English Monarch at the time of the Constitution was written.

3. Creating a Government (activity attached)

Resources

Internet

Textbook

New Vocabulary: Representative democracy, oligarchy, monarchy, dictatorship

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CREATING A GOVERNMENT

OVERVIEW Understanding the process of creating a government and how a certain form of government might be chosen for a country can be difficult. This activity illustrates one possible method of choosing a government and encourages students not only to learn the differences between various forms of government, but also to understand how different groups of people might vary in their choices.

OBJECTIVESStudents will be able to:1. Define several forms of government.2. Point out the pros and cons of each form of government and how different groups

might perceive themselves to be best served by different forms of government.3. Illustrate a meeting called by various groups during which the options for a plan of

government are discussed and voted on.

ACTIVITIES AND PROCEDURES1. Various forms of government are introduced and defined.

A. Dictatorship or Absolute MonarchyB. OligarchyC. Direct DemocracyD. Representative Democracy

Idea - Students can be asked to identify the different forms of government in their school, home, church, etc. Point out that it is unusual to find a pure type of government in operation.

2. Outline an imaginary country, Borka, which consists of four different areas and is seeking to form a new government.a. Duda - over half the population with 800,000 people. Most are prosperous

farmers and self-sufficient, independent people who value practical education as it applies to their way of life.

b. Lakali - the merchants of Borka, 300,000 in number. Successful trading has made them rich and most are well-educated. They are quite smug.

c. Kan-Kan - 400,000 goat and sheep herders who are shy and peaceful. They border a very warlike country and distrust most everything and everyone foreign. Not much interested in education, they are interested in unity only to get food from Duda and financial help from Lakali.

d. Woodzi - the small tribe, only 100,000, live in small bands as nomadic hunters. They are scorned by others because of their backward ways.

3. Explain to students that fate has made them inhabitants of this region and each student is a delegate of one of the tribes. Each will draw a name to see which tribe he/she belongs to. (One-half the class = Duda; 1/5 = Lakali; 1/4 = Kan-Kan; the

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remaining are Woodzi) Their job is to meet to choose the best form of government to unite Borka.

4. Students read the descriptions of the four tribes, paying special attention to their tribe.

5. Keeping in mind the facts pertaining to their tribe, they meet to answer the following questions. A secretary should keep track of each choice and reason for that choice.a. Since Borka needs leadership to unite it, would a dictatorship, oligarchy or

representative democracy be best? Why?b. Borka needs schools, hospitals and highways and money for these projects must

be raised through taxes. Which form of government could most quickly pass tax laws and collect the money? Why?

c. The people might rebel if they think the taxes are unfair. Which form of government would be most likely to pass tax laws which the people would support? Why?

d. The Kan-Kan and Woodzi fear attack from their hostile neighbor. They want a government that could protect them on short notice. Which form of government could organize the quickest defense, yet still be accepted by these two tribes? Why?

e. Borka needs a good plan for development and modernization. The planners should be educated and experienced. With what form of government will Borka get the best planners? Why?

f. Which form of government can best end discrimination against the Woodzis? Why?

g. If a representative democracy is chosen, would you support equal representation from each tribe or representation based on population? Why?

6. Each tribe's delegates select a representative to the Borkan Assembly. These representatives then meet and debate each question, remembering to concentrate on the reasons for their tribe's choices. The representatives then vote. A tally should be kept on the board. The form of government with the most votes will be adopted as Borka's new government.

TYING IT TOGETHER1. Dropping their tribal roles, students should objectively consider whether the form of

government chosen will be supported by all of the Borkan people as well as which form they feel would be best and why? They can also consider if it was fair to have just one representative from each tribe at the Assembly.

2. Students should check the U. S. Constitution to see how it resolved these issues.

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GRADE LEVEL: Eighth






Grade Level Benchmark: 3. Explain how the rule of law protects individual rights and

serves the common good. (III.1.MS.3)


1. Discuss examples of how the rule of law protects individual rights and serves the common good.

2. Discuss what happens when the rule of law is violated.

3. Explain how the Bill of Rights protects individual rights and protects the common good.

4. Actions and Laws (activity attached)

Resources

Internet

Newspapers

Text

New Vocabulary: Rule of law, common good, Bill of Rights, due process

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ACTIONS AND LAWS

OVERVIEW Laws affect every aspect of our everyday lives.

OBJECTIVE(s)1. Students will be able to recognize that laws impact every aspect of life.2. That laws bring order into society.3. That laws control human behavior.4. That without laws there could be no civilization as we know it.

MATERIALSTeacher materials—large picture of automobile and wallet or purse.Student materials—wallet or purse

ACTIVITIES AND PROCEDURES1. Wallet-purse activity: Each student is asked to take three items from their purse or

wallet. Students then discuss laws that may relate to each item. Every item has at least an indirect relationship to the law.

2. The car activity: Students discuss various laws necessary to own and operate a car.

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GRADE LEVEL: Eighth






Grade Level Benchmark: 4. Explain the importance of limited government to protect

political and economic freedom. (III.1.MS.4)Learning Activity(s)/Facts/Information

1. Discuss an example from colonial America that shows how people lost their political or economic freedom because the government had too much power.

2. Given an example from early American history, explain how limited government protected political and economic freedom.

3. Political Freedoms (activity attached)

Resources

Text

Internet

New Vocabulary: Colony, politics, economies, limited government, checks and balances, federalism

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POLITICAL FREEDOMS

BENCHMARK CLARIFICATIONLimited government refers to a form of government based on the principle that government should perform only the functions that the people have given it the power to perform. The powers of the government are usually written down in a constitution. The United States possesses a limited government. Students will explain the importance of limited government in protecting political and economic freedom.

INSTRUCTIONAL EXAMPLEHave each student make a list of political freedoms guaranteed to every U.S. citizen (they can refer to the Constitution if necessary). After each freedom is listed, have students explain why that freedom is guaranteed to each citizen. For example, a student might write “freedom of the press” and explain that it is necessary to keep information open, honest, and accessible to everyone so that we have an informed population in our country. Once they have completed their lists, conduct a class discussion where students can share their ideas and clarify any questions that they might have. After this is done, discuss the following question:

Why is limited government important to protect political and economic freedom?

RESOURCESJanet Reno, Attorney General of the United States, et al. Appellants v. American Civil Liberties Union et al. http://supct.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/96-511.ZO.html (July, 2000)

ASSESSMENT EXAMPLEUsing the Supreme Court Case of Reno v. ACLU (or any other Supreme Court case that involves the potential limiting of political and economic freedom), have students (in pairs) discuss the causes, purposes, and facts of the case (it deals with federal legislation to regulate pornographic material on the Internet). Then have each student, individually, respond to the following questions:

1. Use at least two examples from the case to explain how limited government protects political freedom.

2. Use at least two examples from the case to explain how limited government protects economic freedom.

3. Why is it important that the government should have limited powers in order to protect political and economic freedom?

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http://supct.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/96-511.ZO.html

Scoring RubricBenchmark(III.1.MS.4) Apprentice Basic Meets Exceeds

Explain the importance of limited government to protect political and economic freedom.

Provides one example from the case explaining either how limited government protects political or economic freedom, but does not explain the importance of limited government to protect political and economic freedom.

Provides one example (respectively) from the case explaining how limited government protects political and economic freedom, and explains the importance of limited government to protect political and economic freedom.

Provides two examples (respectively) from the case explaining how limited government protects political and economic freedom, and explains the importance of limited government to protect political and economic freedom.

Provides three examples (respectively) from the case explaining how limited government protects political and economic freedom, and explains the importance of limited government to protect political and economic freedom by citing an example.

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GRADE LEVEL: Eighth



Topic: Ideals of American Democracy

Grade Level Standard: 8-11 Acquire ideals of American Democracy to American

Reconstruction.

Grade Level Benchmark: 1. Identify the essential ideas expressed in the Declaration

of Independence and the origins of those ideas, and explain how they set the

foundation for civic life, politics, and government in the United States. (III.2.MS.1)


1. Explain the origins of the core democratic ideas and values expressed in the Declaration of Independence.

2. Explain how these core democratic ideas and values laid the foundation for civic life, politics, and government in the United States.

3. Discuss the relationship between the ideas expressed in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

Resources

Internet

Text

New Vocabulary: Core democratic values, Declaration of Independence, civic life, Magna Carta

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GRADE LEVEL: Eighth



Topic: Ideals of American Democracy


Reconstruction.

Grade Level Benchmark: 2. Describe provisions of the United States Constitution,

which delegates to government the powers necessary to fulfill the purposes for

which it was established. (III.2.MS.2)


1. Describe how the United States government is organized to fulfill the purposes of government, i.e., protect health and safety, establish ordinances for the greater good of the community, collect taxes (when collecting taxes their role is that everyone plays their taxes).

2. Create a chart that will show how the provisions in the Constitution fulfill the purposes of government.

3. The United States Constitution as a Living Document (activity attached)

Resources

Text

Internet

New Vocabulary: Purposes of government (health protection, safety, taxation), ordinances

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THE UNITED STATES CONSTITUTIONAS A LIVING DOCUMENT

ABSTRACTThis unit builds the constitutional foundation for the study of nineteenth century American history. Students examine the structure and functioning of the United States government under the Constitution through the principles of checks and balances, separation of powers, federalism, limited government, and popular sovereignty. In exploring what life would be like without government, students learn about the purposes of government, the social contract theory of government, and the meaning of a constitutional form of government. They examine primary and secondary sources to understand the problems faced by the new nation under the Articles of Confederation. After constructing and debating possible changes to the Articles of Confederation, students simulate a constitutional convention to work out the various compromises achieved by the framers. They then investigate each branch of government with particular focus on the powers, limits, structure, and function of each using both current and historical examples. Through an interpretation of its text as well as historical events and court cases students analyze how the Constitution fulfills the purposes for which it was created. In examining the protections afforded by the Bill of Rights and the purposes for its inclusion in the Constitution, students explore its place in their daily lives. They explore situations in which the principles of the rule of law and limited government operate to protect individual rights and serve the common good. The unit culminates with a discussion of why the Constitution is considered a “living document.” FOCUS QUESTIONS1. Which amendments to the Constitution best represent American ideals?2. How well did the Constitution solve problems encountered under the Articles of

Confederation?3. Why is the Constitution described as a “living document?”

BENCHMARKSStudents will:

describe philosophical beliefs that influenced the creation of the United States Constitution and explain how they set the foundation for civic life, politics, and government in the United States (I.1.MS.2, III.2.MS.1).

engage each other in conversations which attempt to clarify national issues faced by the Framers when they drafted the U.S. Constitution using primary and secondary sources (I.3.MS.1, VI.2.MS.1).

explain how the federal government in the United States serves the purposes set forth in the Preamble to the Constitution (III.1.MS.1).

explain how the rule of law and limited government protect individual rights and serve the common good (III.1.MS.3, III.1.MS.4).

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describe provisions of the United States Constitution which delegate to government the powers necessary to fulfill the purposes for which it was established (III.2.MS.2).

explain the means for limiting the powers of government established by the United States Constitution and how the Constitution is maintained as the supreme law of the land (III.2.MS.3, III.4.MS.2).

examine the role of the United States government in regulating commerce as stated in the United States Constitution (IV.5.MS.2).

distinguish between civil and criminal procedure (III.3.MS.1). ASSESSMENT TASKS1. In writing, use the social contract theory of government to explain the meaning of a

constitutional form of government. Include a description of the five principles characteristic of the United States Constitution (checks and balances, federalism, limited government, popular sovereignty, and separation of powers) and identify an example of each within the text of the United States Constitution. Using historical or present-day examples, explain how at least two of these principles set the foundation of civic life, politics, or government (I.1.MS.2, III.2.MS.1).

2. Participate in discussion of a national issue involved in drafting the United States

Constitution using primary and secondary sources, and evaluate in writing how well the Framers resolved the issue (I.3.MS.1, VI.2.MS.1).

3. In writing, identify the purposes of government set forth in the Preamble to the

United States Constitution and specify a provision in the Constitution that grants power necessary to accomplish each purpose. Identify at least two examples of events from history or the present day and explain how the principles of the rule of law and limited government act to protect individual rights and serve the common good (III.1.MS.1, III.1.MS.3, III.1.MS.4, III.2.MS.2).

4. Construct a graphic organizer that explains how the United States Constitution limits

the powers of government through its system of separation of powers and checks and balances (III.2.MS.3, III.4.MS.2).

5. Use legal cases and news reports to explain the constitutional role of the United

States government in regulating commerce. (IV.5.MS.2). 6. Describe in writing the difference in standards of proof between civil and criminal

cases (III.3.MS.1).

KEY CONCEPTS amendment Articles of Confederation checks and balances federalism limited government popular sovereignty

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separation of powers

CONNECTIONSEnglish Language ArtsStudents practice interpretive reading when analyzing the text of the Constitution and summaries of federal court decisions. English Language Arts/ TechnologyStudents can reflect upon the wisdom of the constitutional protections of patents for inventors and copyrights for authors. MathematicsStudents can ponder the intentions of the Framers in granting Congress the powers to coin money and to fix the standard of weights and measures.

INSTRUCTIONAL RESOURCESStudent ResourceAnatomy of a Murder: A Trip Through Our Nation’s Legal Justice System. Morley, Michael, Chris Stiner, and Michael Hammer. 1995-2001. ThinkQuest, Inc. 6 May 2001 http://tqd.advanced.org/2760/. Free Speech. The American Civil Liberties Union. 6 May 2001 http://www.aclu.org/issues/freespeech/hmfs.html. Jenkins, Stephen, and Susan Spiegel. Excel in Civics: Lessons in Citizenship. Eagan, MN: West Publishing Company, 1985. 19-36, 71-94. Lesson 1: Why Do We Need a Government? The Center for Civic Education. 6 May 2001 http://www.civiced.org/wtp_ms01_sb.html. Some Landmark Supreme Court Rulings. Ed. Morley, Michael, Chris Stiner, and Michael Hammer. 1995-2001. ThinkQuest, Inc. 6 May 2001 http://tqd.advanced.org/2760/cases.htm. United States House of Representatives. 6 May 2001 http://www.house.gov/. United States Senate. 6 May 2001 http://www.senate.gov/. The White House. 6 May 2001 http://www.whitehouse.gov/history/index.html. Teacher Resource Bjornlund, Lydia. The U.S. Constitution: Blueprint for Democracy. San Diego, CA: Lucent Books, Inc., 1999. Commager, Henry S., ed. Selections from The Federalist: Hamilton, Madison, Jay. Wheeling, IL: Harlan Davidson, Inc., 1949.

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http://www.whitehouse.gov/history/index.html

http://www.senate.gov/

http://www.house.gov/

http://tqd.advanced.org/2760/cases.htm

http://www.civiced.org/wtp_ms01_sb.html

http://www.aclu.org/issues/freespeech/hmfs.html

http://tqd.advanced.org/2760/

Creating A Bill of Rights. Ed. Jamie Fratello Staub. 12 July 1998. The Academy Social Studies Curricular Exchange, Columbia Education Center. 6 May 2001 http://ofcn.org/cyber.serv/academy/ace/soc/cecsst/cecsst214.html. Davidson, James West, Pedro Castillo, and Michael B. Stoff. The American Nation Teacher’s Edition. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2000. 112-167. Fischer, Margaret E. Teaching Today’s Constitution: A Contemporary Approach, 3rd Edition. Culver City, CA: Social Studies School Service, 1987. 4-8, 42-51. Hofstadter, Richard, ed. Great Issues in American History Volume II: From the Revolution to the Civil War, 1765-1865. New York: Random House, 1969. 75-139. How an Idea Becomes a Law. Ed. Wanda Kehl. 12 July 1998. The Academy Social Studies Curricular Exchange, Columbia Education Center. 6 May 2001 http://ofcn.org/cyber.serv/academy/ace/soc/cecsst/cecsst087.html. Jenkins, Stephen, and Susan Spiegel. Teacher’s Guide to Accompany Excel in Civics: Lessons in Citizenship. Eagan, MN: West Publishing Company, 1985. 19-27, 47-62. Landmark Supreme Court Cases. nbsp; Street Law and the Supreme Court Historical Society. 30 Nov. 2001 nbsp; http://landmarkcases.org. Lesson 1: Why Do We Need a Government? The Center for Civic Education. 6 May 2001 http://www.civiced.org/wtp_ms01_tg.html. Reorganizing The Bill of Rights. Ed. Scott Wallace. 12 July 1998. The Academy Social Studies Curricular Exchange, Columbia Education Center. 6 May 2001 http://ofcn.org/cyber.serv/academy/ace/soc/cecsst/cecsst089.html. Search and Seizure. Ed. Lynn MacAusland. 12 July 1998. The Academy Social Studies Curricular Exchange, Columbia Education Center. 6 May 2001 http://ofcn.org/cyber.serv/academy/ace/soc/cecsst/cecsst026.html. We the People…do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America, Book 1. Calabasas, CA: The Center for Civic Education, 1986. 3-11, 25-31, 61-69, 101-106.

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http://ofcn.org/cyber.serv/academy/ace/soc/cecsst/cecsst026.html


http://www.civiced.org/wtp_ms01_tg.html

http://landmarkcases.org/




GRADE LEVEL: Eighth



Topic: Ideals of Government


Reconstruction.

Grade Level Benchmark: 3. Explain means for limiting the powers of government

established by the United States Constitution. (III.2.MS.3)


1. Study how the checks and balances system outlined in the Constitution limited the power of government.

2. Using the teaching activity, Power Plays: Delegated, Shared, Reserved (Active Learning, pp. 23-27), have students simulate the U.S. Constitutional Convention. They will be determining what powers to give to the federal government so that it does not become too powerful. After completing the teaching activity, have students respond to the following question in class discussion:

Why would the Framers of the Constitution want to limit the powers of the federal government?

Resources

Text

Internet

New Vocabulary: Impeach, Judicial Branch, Executive Branch, Legislative Branch, bill, amendment

70


GRADE LEVEL: Eighth



Topic: Democracy in Action

Grade Level Standard: 8-12 Evaluate democracy in action in United States history

to Reconstruction.

Grade Level Benchmark: 1. Distinguish between civil and criminal procedures.

(III.3.MS.1)


1. Civil or Criminal Procedures (activity attached)

Resources

Text

Newspaper

Internet

New Vocabulary: Civil, criminal, government

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CIVIL OR CRIMINAL PROCEDURE

BENCHMARK CLARIFICATIONA civil procedure (or civil action) can be brought by a person who feels wronged or injured by another person. In contrast, a criminal procedure regulates public conduct and sets out duties owed to society for wrongdoing. In other words, a criminal procedure is a legal action brought by the government against a person charged with committing a crime, whereas a civil procedure is a legal action brought by an individual or group against another. An example of a civil procedure is a lawsuit for recovery of damages suffered in an automobile accident, and an example of a criminal procedure would be a lawsuit to convict an alleged murderer. (Paraphrased from Street Law, p. 11).

INSTRUCTIONAL EXAMPLEIn a teacher-led discussion, have students make suggestions of different types of crimes (i.e. theft, robbery, auto accidents, assault, etc.), and list those suggestions on the chalkboard (or overhead transparency). Then, have students create a two-column chart showing the crime (column one) and determine whether it would fall in to the category of civil procedure, criminal procedure, or both (column two). The teacher may have to clarify hypothetically, who the crime took place against. For example, if the students suggest an automobile accident, the teacher can suggest that it was the students’ car that received the damage. After class discussion, have students respond to the following item in 2-3 sentences:

What is the difference between civil and criminal procedure? Explain.

ASSESSMENT EXAMPLEHave students write a short story about some people in their city who get involved in all of the following legal situations: (1) an auto accident; (2) throwing a rock through a school window; (3) breaking a contract they signed; and (4) carrying a concealed weapon. Have them underline once each legal situation that involved criminal procedure, and underline twice each situation that involved civil procedure. If they think one situation could be both civil and criminal, have them explain briefly after the story justifying their choice. (Paraphrased from Street Law: A Course in Practical Law: Test Bank with Authentic Assessment, p. 9).

SCORING RUBRIC

Benchmark(III.3.MS.1) Apprentice Basic Meets Exceeds

Distinguish between civil and criminal procedure.

Writes a story fitting the above criteria, incorrectly identifies two or more civil or criminal procedures, and explains situations that might be both unsatisfactorily.

Writes a story fitting the above criteria, incorrectly identifies one civil or criminal procedure, and explains situations that might be both adequately.

Writes a story fitting the above criteria, correctly identifies all civil and criminal procedures, and explains situations that might be both satisfactorily.

Writes a story fitting the above criteria, correctly identifies all civil and criminal procedures, and provides an insightful and thoughtful explanation to situations that might be both.

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GRADE LEVEL: Eighth



Topic: Democracy in Action

Grade Level Standard: 8-12 Evaluate democracy in action in United States history

to Reconstruction.

Grade Level Benchmark: 2. Identify disparities between American ideals and realities

and propose ways to reduce them. (III.3.MS.2)


1. Define and discuss ideals contained in the United States Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.

2. Select a reform issue from the mid-1800s. In an essay trace the issue’s status from its origin to the present day, identify any disparities between American ideal sand realities from the past and present, and propose ways to reduce them.

3. American Ideals (activity attached)

Resources

Text

Internet

New Vocabulary: American ideals, suffrage, oppression, disparity

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AMERICAN IDEALS

BENCHMARK CLARIFICATIONAmerican ideals refer to those ideals presented in the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution, and the U.S. Bill of Rights. They are also referred to as the core democratic values. Some examples include life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, equality, liberty, and justice. Students are to identify the differences between what the American ideals are, and how well they are actually practiced in the real world. Then, they will need to suggest various ways to reduce the differences between theory and practice.

INSTRUCTIONAL EXAMPLEIn a class discussion, have students define the word “equality.” Help them determine what the best definition of this word is in relation to American ideals. For example, does it mean equality of opportunity or equality of results? Should everyone get the same thing? Should every person in the class get the same grade or should they have the same opportunity to earn their grade? The teacher should clarify questions and provide further input.

Have students think of a situation in life where an American ideal is called into question. For example, should colleges be required to accept applicants on the basis of race (affirmative action)? Or, should the United States force other countries in to particular actions when these other countries should have the liberty to decide for themselves (as stated in our Declaration of Independence)?

Students will respond to the following questions:1. Using one of the situations that you came up with, explain how this causes a

problem between American ideals and reality?

2. Explain two ways that these problems can be reduced.

ASSESSMENT EXAMPLEHave each student research and locate a real story about discrimination in the United States from the time frame of one of their units of study and answer the following questions:

1. Did the discrimination cause a problem between American ideals and reality? How?

2. Explain two realistic ways that this problem could have been or could be reduced or solved.

74

SCORING RUBRICBenchmark(III.3.MS.2) Apprentice Basic Meets Exceeds

Identify disparities between American ideals and realities and propose ways to reduce them.

One question is answered with a reason.

Both questions are answered with reasons.

Both questions are answered with well reasoned and supported statements.

Both questions are answered with well reasoned and supported statements. More than two realistic ways are included for question number two.

75


GRADE LEVEL: Eighth



Topic: American Government and Politics

Grade Level Standard: 8-13 Apply American government and politics to

Reconstruction.

Grade Level Benchmark: 1. Evaluate information and arguments from various

sources in order to evaluate candidates for public office. (III.4.MS.1)


1. Define and discuss sources of information to use to evaluate candidates, i.e., newspapers, and information from political parties, assessments by political organizations, endorsements, and independent analysis by citizen groups, internet, family members, friends, radio ads, and posters.

2. Define and discuss criteria for selecting the best candidate.

3. Given two sources of information about political candidates, tell which source you would use and explain why.

Resources

Text

Internet

Newspaper

Media clips

New Vocabulary: Judicial review, nationalism, political party, Monroe Doctrine, neutrality

76


GRADE LEVEL: Eighth



Topic: American Government and Politics

Grade Level Standard: 8-13 Apply American government and politics to

Reconstruction.

Grade Level Benchmark: 2. Explain how the Constitution is maintained as the

supreme law of the land. (III.4.MS.2)Learning Activity(s)/Facts/Information

1. How is the power divided between the three branches of government? Make a three column chart, label each column with three branches, identify the differences between each branch, and discuss the way the branches function.

2. Distribute copies of the teaching activity “Outlining the Constitution” (pages 26-27 of The Constitution: Past, Present, and Future) for students to complete individually. This activity helps students to outline the main points, powers, and duties listed in the U.S. Constitution. After completing this activity, discuss (and review) the main points with students. Then, using class discussion, answer the following questions: a. Would it be constitutional if the Governor of the State of

Michigan decided to make a trade agreement with the Prime Minister of Canada? Why or why not?

b. Could the President decide to send U.S. troops abroad during peacetime? Why (specifically), or why not?

c. Can a person be imprisoned without just cause (habeas corpus)? Why or why not?

d. What makes the Constitution the supreme law of the land?

Resources

Internet

Text

Copy of Constitution

New Vocabulary: Propaganda, primary, secondary

77


GRADE LEVEL: Eighth



Topic: American Government and World Affairs

Grade Level Standard: 8-14 Demonstrate American government and world affairs

to Reconstruction.

Grade Level Benchmark: 1. Describe means used by the United States to resolve

international conflicts. (III.5.MS.2)Learning Activity(s)/Facts/Information

1. Identify ways to resolve conflict, i.e., ignore conflict, war, embargos, appeasement, negotiations, mediation, treaties, international tribunal (U.N.), world court, and economic pressure.

2. Identify ways in which the United States resolved conflicts in the world.

3. Given a current conflict between two nations of the world, describe means the United States could use to resolve the conflict.

4. Use current events and compare to past conflicts. Have students come up with different ways those conflicts could have been handled. Where would we be today?

Resources

Internet

Text

Newspapers

New Vocabulary: Conflict, embargos, appeasement, negotiate, mediate, treaties

78


GRADE LEVEL: Eighth


Strand: IV. Economics

Topic: Individual and Household Choices

Grade Level Standard: 8-15 Gather individual and household choices of United


Grade Level Benchmark: 1. Use economic reasoning when comparing price, quality,

and features of goods and services. (IV.1.MS.1)


Students need to assess the information that they receive everyday. In order to make intelligent and well reasoned choices they must have the skills to obtain, compare, and analyze this information. By developing economic reasoning skills and applying economic knowledge students will be able to make effective choices in the global market of today and tomorrow. The economically literate citizen is an effective participant in this market place.

1. Using pizza (or any other product), have students give examples of price and non-price competition. First have them brainstorm all the types and brands of pizza available in their area. List these on the board and devise categories for them such as “best tasting”, “best value”, “best looking”, etc. Have the students research the price for the various pizzas. Finally have them make a chart of ten pizzas comparing them for price, taste, attractiveness and value. Tabulate the results of their charts and announce the winning pizza. An actual taste test would also be a fun culminating activity.

Resources

New Vocabulary: Economic reasoning, price, quality goods, services

79


GRADE LEVEL: Eighth






Grade Level Benchmark: 2. Evaluate employment and career opportunities in light of

Economic trends. (IV.1.MS.2)


1. Discuss the effects of globalization on employment and career opportunities in the United States.

2. Given an economic trend, students will evaluate employment and career opportunities in the global market.

Resources

New Vocabulary: Employment, career, economic trends, globalization, global market

80


GRADE LEVEL: Eighth






Grade Level Benchmark: 3. Analyze the reliability of information when making

economic decisions. (IV.1.MS.3)


1. Analyze advertisement materials.

2. Discuss advertisement materials to distinguish fact from fiction by using the following reliability factors: Who wrote the materials? Why did they write the material? What actions did they expect from the writing? What evidence did they provide?

3. Given two advertisements, the students will judge which is more reliable by analyzing the information based on the reliability factor.

Resources

New Vocabulary: Reliability, advertisement, fiction

81


GRADE LEVEL: Eighth



Topic: Business Choices

Grade Level Standard: 8-16 Explain how businesses in the United States confront

scarcity.

Grade Level Benchmark: 1. Using a real example, describe how business practices

profit, and a willingness to take risks, enabled an entrepreneur to operate.

(IV.2.MS.1)Learning Activity(s)/Facts/Information

1. Discuss how entrepreneurs take risks to make a profit.

2. Discuss how entrepreneurs use Business Practices to ensure the success of their company.

3. Given a real business, students will describe how the business practice used and a willingness to take risks contributed to the profit of the company.

Resources

Internet

Textbook

New Vocabulary: Business practices, profit, risk, entrepreneurs

82


GRADE LEVEL: Eighth





scarcity.

Grade Level Benchmark: 2. Compare various methods for the production and

distribution of goods and services. (IV.2.MS.2)


1. Identify and discuss the various methods of production of goods and services in the New England states during the Colonial Period.

2. Students will create a project comparing the production and distribution of services in the Northern and Southern states before 1870.

Resources

New Vocabulary: Production, distribution, goods, services

83


GRADE LEVEL: Eighth





scarcity.

Grade Level Benchmark: 3. Examine the historical and contemporary role an industry

has played and continues to play in a community. (IV.2.MS.4)


1. Have students link the tobacco or cotton industry to: slavery – from Colonial era Civil War Amendments Tobacco company of today

Resources

Internet

Text

New Vocabulary: Industry, scarcity, production, labor

84


GRADE LEVEL: Eighth



Topic: Role of Government

Grade Level Standard: 8-17 Investigate the role of government in United States


Grade Level Benchmark: 1. Distinguish between public and private goods using

contemporary examples. (IV.3.MS.1)


1. Discuss what goods and services are public and which are private. Ask them who should determine if some goods and services should be provided publicly and what criteria should be used to make that determination. Generate a list of services. Finally, pose the following question, “If the national, state, and local governments had no power to tax, what goods and services would we have to do without?” List their answers on the board. End by discussing which public goods or services they would rather see in the hands of the private sector and why.

2. Students will correctly label goods as public or private, i.e., park systems, roads, infrastructure, schools, post office, etc.

Resources

New Vocabulary: Public goods, private goods, contemporary

85


GRADE LEVEL: Eighth






Grade Level Benchmark: 2. Identify and describe different forms of economic

measurement. (IV.3.MS.2)


1. Define and discuss examples of the different forms of economic measurement, i.e., profit and loss, employment, GDP, trade balance, stock market, inflation.

2. Students create a project that uses one or more economic measurement(s) to compare two countries in the global market.

Resources

New Vocabulary: Economic measurement, global market

86


GRADE LEVEL: Eighth






Grade Level Benchmark: 3. Use case studies to assess the role of government in the

economy. (IV.3.MS.3)


1. Describe and discuss the six roles of government in the economy:a. Insure economic growthb. Full employmentc. Price stabilityd. Economic freedome. Fair distribution of wealthf. Economic strategy

2. Given a case study, explain how government actions impacted the economy, i.e., Emancipation Proclamation, Hamilton’s National System, Louisiana Purchase.

Resources

New Vocabulary: Economic growth, employment, price stability, economic freedom, distribution of wealth, economic security, economy

87


GRADE LEVEL: Eighth






Grade Level Benchmark: 4. Distinguish different forms of taxation and describe their

effects. (IV.3.MS.4)


1. Have students compile a list of at least five different taxes in the United States (Economics in Our Times, pp. 374-377), and the different ways that the tax money is spent. For example, taxes provide for public schools, a police force, national defense, garbage collection, and snow removal. Mention that while many people do not like to pay taxes, they do like the things for which taxes provide.

Then, have students organize the information for property taxes and social security taxes in a Compare/Contrast graphic organizer (see source below). Each of the taxes they are using will be labeled as Name 1 and Name 2, respectively, in the graphic organizer. Then, students will provide three effects for each of these taxes listed. Attributes 1, 2, and 3 on the graphic organizer will be labeled effect 1, 2, and 3 (see Economics in Our Times, pp. 374-377, US State Tax Resources, and Michigan Taxes)

Resources

New Vocabulary:

88


GRADE LEVEL: Eighth



Topic: Economic Systems

Grade Level Standard: 8-18 Apply economic systems in United States history to

Reconstruction.

Grade Level Benchmark: 1. Compare the historical record of market economies in

solving the problem of scarcity. (IV.4.MS.1)


1. Define and discuss how market economies solve the problem of scarcity, i.e., triangular trade, European colonization, market economy.

2. In the United States History Focus on Economics, have the students complete lesson one, “Indentured Servitude: Why Sell Yourself into Bondage?” The students should explore the background of indentured servitude in North America. Have the students answer why someone would sell themselves into bondage and why someone would buy them as they examine examples of a contract for an indentured servant. Why did this system exist? Explain how a scarcity of workers allowed this system to prevail. Finally ask the students to brainstorm for any ideas in today’s world where someone signs a contract for labor in exchange for some future benefit.

3. Given a scenario in the United States, the student will identify how a market economy solved the problem of scarcity.

Resources

New Vocabulary: Market economies, scarcity

89


GRADE LEVEL: Eighth





Reconstruction.

Grade Level Benchmark: 2. Describe the roles of the various economic institutions

which comprise the American economic system, such as governments, business

firms, labor unions, banks, and households. (IV.4.MS.2)


1. Define and discuss the roles of various institutions, i.e., governments, business firms, labor unions, banks, and households in the United States.

2. Have each student write a story about something that they would like to own (a car, for example). Then, have them determine what they would have to do in order to buy that car. For example, they would have to work in order to earn the money necessary for a down payment, and they would have to borrow the difference from a bank in the form of a car loan. Once the money has been earned and borrowed, and the car purchased, they would have to pay off the car loan in the next several years along with interest on that loan.

Every step taken in obtaining their chosen item must be written out in their stories. After students have completed their stories, have volunteers share theirs with the class. The teacher can discuss things further with each story, and clarify any questions that the students might raise about the assignment.Once the teaching activity is completed, have students answer the following questions: How many different institutions played a role in the

purchasing of your item (or car, in the example above)? What roles did these institutions play?

Resources

New Vocabulary: Economic institution, business firms, labor unions, households

90


GRADE LEVEL: Eighth





Reconstruction.

Grade Level Benchmark: 3. Use case studies to exemplify how supply and demand,

prices, incentives, and profits determine what is produced and distributed in the

American economy. (IV.4.MS.3)Learning Activity(s)/Facts/Information

1. Provide students with $5 each (fake money, of course) and take them through an auction. The items up for auction are as follows: Kit-Kat bar (quantity = 4), Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups (quantity = 2), M&Ms (quantity = 1), and Milk Duds (quantity = 8). The teacher can use his or her own judgment on the types of candy and the quantity, but the candy chosen should be types where most students will favor one kind (i.e. M&Ms) over another (i.e. Milk Duds). Let the students see the quantity of each, but only auction them off one at a time. Also, students may merge their money if they wish, and they can also buy things and sell it to their classmates for a profit. The teacher should start the bidding at $1, and with whatever item you would like, and begin the auction.

As the auction progresses, the following should take place: 1. Higher demand for certain candy over others, 2. Higher prices for the high demand candy, and lower prices for the others, and 3. Selling and deals between students (as well as other things).

Once the auctioning is complete, illustrate the profits that the teacher would have made from the auction (assuming the candy sold for less than $1 each). Then, have students complete a reflective journal listing their views, knowledge, and opinions about the auction (see source). Make sure they make reference to how demand, prices, profits, and incentives played a role in the auction. Then, discuss the completed activity with students making connections to how these things determine what is produced and distributed in the American economy.

Resources

New Vocabulary: Supply, demand, prices, profit

91


GRADE LEVEL: Eighth




Grade Level Standard: 8-18 Apply economic system in United States history to

Reconstruction.

Grade Level Benchmark: 4. Analyze how purchasers obtain information about goods

and services from advertising and other sources. (IV.4.MS.4)


1. Discuss how do purchasers obtain information about goods and services from advertising and other sources?

2. Discuss advertisement materials to analyze the reliability of information using the reliability factors: Who wrote the materials? Why did they write the materials? What actions did they expect from the writing? What evidence did they provide?

3. Analyze how purchasers obtain information about goods and services from advertising and other sources using the reliability factors as other criteria.

Resources

New Vocabulary: Analyze, reliability

92


GRADE LEVEL: Eighth



Topic: Trade

Grade Level Standard: 8-19 Demonstrate United States trade policies to

Reconstruction.

Grade Level Benchmark: 1. Examine the role of the United States government in

regulating commerce as stated in the United States Constitution. (IV.5.MS.2)


1. Discuss the terms regulate and commerce.

2. Discuss examples of the government’s regulation of commerce.

3. Based on the power given to the government to regulate commerce, explain how they encourage or restrain trade.

4. In a teacher-led class discussion, have students suggest a list of commerce shipped in to their hometown on a weekly basis. Their responses might include groceries, clothing, automobiles, or toys. Have them think of all the goods and services available that are brought to (and available) in their city. Once an exhaustive list has been compiled, discuss the role of the United States government in regulating this commerce. Ask students the following questions: 1. Who is responsible for regulating these items? Why? 2. What would happen if the Mayor (or City Council) of

your city decided to let you bring any goods in to town that you wanted? Explain.

Resources

New Vocabulary:

93


GRADE LEVEL: Eighth



Topic: Trade

Grade Level Standard: 8-19 Demonstrate United States trade policies to

Reconstruction.

Grade Level Benchmark: 2. Describe the historical development of the different

means of payment such as barter, precious metals, or currency to facilitate

exchange. (IV.5.MS.3)


1. Discuss how various means of payment facilitate exchange.

2. Explain why earlier systems of exchange are still in existence around the world.

3. Have students study the economic history of their own area or another country that they are presently investigating. An example of this is given in the lesson “Old Money: The Economic History of the Oldest City, St. Augustine, Florida.” Have students list in order the very first forms of exchange. As they follow the history of the area they should add to their list, keeping the items in chronological order. Once they have completed at least four items on their list, have the students write a paragraph on what they discovered and why things changed economically.

Resources

New Vocabulary:

94


GRADE LEVEL: Eighth


Strand: V. Inquiry

Topic: Information Processing

Grade Level Standard: 8-20 Apply information processing in United States history

to Reconstruction.

Grade Level Benchmark: 1. Locate and interpret information about the natural

environments and cultures of countries using a variety of primary and secondary

sources and electronic technologies, including computers and telecommunications

where appropriate. (V.1.MS.1)


1. Define and discuss primary and secondary sources of information, i.e., oral history, artifacts, photos, diaries, maps.

2. Practice acquiring and interpreting appropriate sources of information, i.e., periodicals, census materials, databases, reference works, interviews, multimedia, etc.

3. Practice using primary and secondary sources to interpret information.

4. Practice gathering information from electronic technologies.

Resources

Text

Library

Computer

Internet

New Vocabulary: Natural environments, primary and secondary sources, telecommunications, electronic technologies

95


GRADE LEVEL: Eighth


Strand: V. Inquiry



to Reconstruction.

Grade Level Benchmark: 2. Use traditional and electronic means to organize social

science information and to make maps, graphs, and tables. (V.1.MS.2)


1. Discuss more complex graphs, maps, and tables, i.e., multiple bar and line graphs, pie graphs, climographs, population and pyramid graphs and choropleth maps.

2. Practice using computer software programs to create graphs, maps, and tables.

3. Discuss and practice using flowcharts and diagrams to illustrate inputs, outputs, and other aspects of physical and human systems, i.e., food webs, eco-systems, political systems, and atmosphere.

4. Practice using index cards, portfolios, and outlines as a means of note-taking.

5. Given social science information about early U.S. history, the student will use computer software to create the appropriate graphic display of data.

Resources

Computer

Internet

New Vocabulary: Traditional, social science

96


GRADE LEVEL: Eighth


Strand: V. Inquiry



to Reconstruction.

Grade Level Benchmark: 3. Interpret social science information about the natural

environment and cultures of countries from a variety of primary and secondary

sources. (V.1.MS.3)Learning Activity(s)/Facts/Information

1. Define and discuss primary and secondary sources.

2. Discuss and practice the process of drawing inferences from social science information, i.e., using maps to recognize spatial associations and relationships, interpreting information from map overlays, etc.

3. Given a variety of primary and secondary source information about Early American History, the students will make correct inferences about the natural environment and cultures of those countries.

Resources

New Vocabulary: Social science, spatial associations

97


GRADE LEVEL: Eighth


Strand: V. Inquiry

Topic: Conducting Investigations

Grade Level Standard: 8-21 Create an investigation of United States history to

Reconstruction.

Grade Level Benchmark: 1. Pose a social science question about a culture, world

region, or international problem. (V.2.MS.1)


1. Define and discuss a U.S. History social science question, i.e., an open ended social science question is one that requires social science knowledge and skills.

2. Practice posing social science questions using the K.W.L. format when given expository social science information, i.e., environmental, conflict resolution, religious persecution, origins/impact of Civil War, cultural diversity.

3. Practice formulating clearly stated questions, i.e., from the W in the KWL format.

Resources

KWL chart

www.NCPA.org

New Vocabulary: Pose (a question), culture, region, expository

98

http://www.NCPA.org/


GRADE LEVEL: Eighth


Strand: V. Inquiry



Reconstruction.

Grade Level Benchmark: 2. Gather and analyze information using appropriate

information technologies to answer the question posed. (V.2.MS.2)


1. Discuss where to locate information on the web.

2. Practice using information technology to gather information (i.e. media center, interviews, historians).

3. Practice reading the material for information (i.e. journals, dairies, or interviews).

4. Given a social studies question related to the United States, the student will gather and analyze appropriate information on the question posed.

5. Sort and classify information.

6. Draw a conclusion.

Resources

New Vocabulary: Classify, conclusion

99


GRADE LEVEL: Eighth


Strand: V. Inquiry



Reconstruction.

Grade Level Benchmark: 3. Construct an answer to the question posed and support

their answer with evidence. (V.2.MS.3)


1. Define and discuss evidence.

2. Practice answering social studies questions posed about United States events using evidence.

Resources

New Vocabulary: Evidence, events, construct, support

100


GRADE LEVEL: Eighth


Strand: V. Inquiry



Reconstruction.

Grade Level Benchmark: 4. Report the results of their investigation including

procedures followed and possible alternative conclusions. (V.2.MS.4)


1. Report the results of their investigation, i.e., PowerPoint presentation, essay, documentation, graphics, etc.

2. Practice reporting procedures used in investigations, i.e., posing a question, gathering information, analyzing the information, summarizing the information, drawing a conclusion.

Resources

New Vocabulary: Investigation, alternative

101


GRADE LEVEL: Eighth


Strand: VI. Public Discourse and Decision Making

Topic: Identify and Analyze Issues

Grade Level Standard: 8-22 Identify and analyze issues in United States history to

Reconstruction.

Grade Level Benchmark: 1. State public policy issues and their related ethical,

definitional, and factual issues as questions. (VI.1.MS.1)


1. Define and discuss ethical issues, i.e., moral issues.

2. Define and discuss definitional issues, i.e., agreement on meaning.

3. Define and discuss factual issues, i.e., contradicting factual information.

4. Practice stating the ethical issues as questions.

5. Practice stating definitional issues as questions.

6. Practice stating factual issues as questions.

7. Given a public policy affecting people in the U.S., the students will state as questions, 1 ethical, 1 definitional, and 1 factual issue about which people disagree.

Resources

New Vocabulary: Public policy, ethical, factual

102


GRADE LEVEL: Eighth



Topic: Identify and Analyze Issues


Reconstruction.

Grade Level Benchmark: 2. Trace the origins of a public issue. (VI.1.MS.2)


1. Have students compile a list of public issues. Their list can contain issues such as crime, delinquency, tax rates, women’s rights, or candidates for election. In pairs, students will pick a public issue to research. Each pair will research one issue, and will report on the following questions: a. What are the origins of this public issue?b. How does this issue affect the U.S. today? Allow

appropriate time for research.

Then, have each student pair present their findings.

2. Given a U.S. public issue, the student will design a flow chart to trace the origin.

Resources

New Vocabulary: Origins, public issue

103


GRADE LEVEL: Eighth



Topic: Identifying and Analyzing Issues


Reconstruction.

Grade Level Benchmark: 3. Explain how culture and experiences shape positions

that people take on an issue. (VI.1.MS.3)


1. Define and discuss where and when you live affects how you experience the world, i.e., slavery, statehood, religion.

2. Define and discuss how your experience affects your decisions.

3. Given a U.S. issue, the student will explain how his/her experiences have shaped their position on the issue.

Resources

New Vocabulary: Culture, public policy

104


GRADE LEVEL: Eighth



Topic: Group Discussion

Grade Level Standard: 8-23 Adapt group discussion in United States history to

Reconstruction.

Grade Level Benchmark: 1. Engage each other in conversations which attempt to

clarify and resolve national and international policy issues. (VI.2.MS.1)


1. Define and discuss policy issues.

2. Define and discuss policy issues of the U.S. following the rules of group discussion, i.e., using Core Democratic Values, making accurate and relevant statements, asking pertinent questions.

3. Practice responding appropriately during discussions, i.e., inviting the contributions of others, acknowledging the statements of others, tactfully challenging the accuracy, logic, relevance, or clarity of statements made by others.

4. Given a U.S. public policy issue, the student will engage each other in conversation which attempt to clarify and resolve issues employing the rules of group discussion.

Resources

New Vocabulary: Public concern, clarify, resolve

105


GRADE LEVEL: Eighth



Topic: Persuasive Writing

Grade Level Standard: 8-24 Demonstrate persuasive writing in United States


Grade Level Benchmark: 1. Compose an essay expressing decisions on national and

international policy issues. (VI.3.MS.1)


1. Define and discuss a public policy issues.

2. Discuss what it means to take a position on an issue.

3. Practice using the Core Democratic Values to take a position on an issue concerning national and international policy issues of the U.S.

4. Practice taking a stand on an issue concerning the western hemisphere.

5. Use data to support the position.

6. Use prior social studies knowledge to support the position.

7. Given a U.S. public policy issue, the student will write a clear unambiguous essay using Core Democratic Values to support his/her position.

Resources

New Vocabulary: Unambiguous, justify, anticipate, oppose

106


GRADE LEVEL: Eighth


Strand: VII. Citizen Involvement

Topic: Responsible Personal Conduct

Grade Level Standard: 8-25 Employ responsible personal conduct in United States


Grade Level Benchmark: 1. Use laws and other ethical rules to evaluate their own

conduct and the conduct of others. (VII.1.MS.1)


1. Define and discuss ethical behaviors, i.e., legal, doesn’t infringe on rights of others, doesn’t harm the health, safety or welfare or the community, consider Core Democratic Values.

2. Discuss how one acts in a virtuous and ethical responsible way.

3. Given a scenario that shows the actions of a group of people, evaluate those actions using laws and other ethical rules.

4. Role Play – Boston Tea Party and/or Dred Scott case.

Resources

Text

Internet

New Vocabulary: Virtuous, ethical, infringe

107


GRADE LEVEL: Eighth


Strand: VII. Citizen Involvement

Topic: Responsible Personal Conduct

Grade Level Standard: 8-25 Employ responsible personal conduct in United States


Grade Level Benchmark: 2. Engage in activities intended to contribute to solving a

national or international problem they have studied. (VII.1.MS.2)


1. Discuss a national (i.e., crime rate, illegal immigration, literacy rate) or international problem (i.e., terrorism, military invasions, nuclear proliferation).

2. Discuss solutions for each problem.

3. Discuss the selection and research of a problem.

4. The student will explain a national or international problem and list two ways that the issue could be solved.

Resources

Text

Internet

New Vocabulary:

108

mathematics · web view4. discuss how these processes created the ecosystem. 5. create a project...

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