Students will understand that both the United States and Teton Sioux were powerful nations in the early 1800s.
Students will understand that trade encounters, with both Euro-Americans and other Indigenous nations, were an important aspect of Plains Indian society.
This activity aligns to Common Core Literacy Standards in History/Social Studies:
RH.6-8.2. Determine the central ideas or information of a primary or secondary text.
RH.6-8.5. Determine how a text presents information.
Step 1. Hand out the John Ordway Describes Meeting the Teton Sioux document and the Analysis Worksheet. Ask students to read the document and complete the Ordway columns of Part I and II of the worksheet. (You could analyze this document as a whole class, or ask students to work in pairs or individually.)
Step 2. Hand out American Horse's Winter Count. Ask students to read the document on their own.
Check for understanding by discussing:
what were Lakota winter counts?
what was their connection to oral history?
who provided the descriptions of the images used in the winter count?
Step 3. Ask students, in pairs or individually, to complete the American Horse column of Part I and II of the worksheet.
Step 4. Complete Part III of the worksheet, either as a whole class or in small groups of 4 (if students were working in pairs, have two pairs do this part together).
If possible, use a smartboard or other presentation tool to project the worksheet and have students share their responses.
Review key content points:
trade was a regular part of life (and the main form of interaction between Euro-Americans and Plains Indians)
Review key structure points
oral history was the primary way that the Lakota recorded and remembered their past
Euro-Americans relied more on comprehensive and highly detailed written reporting
Step 5. Deepen the discussion by posing any of the following questions:
Why does it matter how history is recorded? What difference does it make for us today? (eg. the volume of written documents from Euro-Americans compared to the oral history and winter count traditions of Plains Indians means that we hear much more from one side than the other, and we don't have a great understanding of the American Indian perspective)
Which source is more accurate? More biased? (e.g., this is an open ended question since the Lewis and Clark document is more detailed, but one-sided with some biased language).
Students will understand different aspects of life and work among the young women who worked in textile factories in Lowell, Massachusetts, during the 1830s and 1840s
Students will understand how to analyze and gather evidence from different types of primary sources
This activity aligns to Common Core Literacy Standards in History/Social Studies:
RHSS.6-8.6. Identify aspects of a text that reveal an author's point of view or purpose.
RHSS.6-8.1. Cite specific textual evidence to support analysis of primary and secondary sources.
WHSS.6-8.1 Write arguments focused on discipline-specific content.
Step 1. Hand out the cover illustration from The Lowell Offering. Ask students to complete the Lessons in Looking: The Lowell Offering Worksheet.
Step 2. After students have completed the worksheet, discuss the image from The Lowell Offering.
What was The Lowell Offering?
What are some of the details you see in the picture? What do they stand for or represent?
What do you think was the artist’s point of view about what it was like to work in the Lowell textile factories? Positive or negative?
Step 3. Hand out the Farm vs. Factory: Constructing a Paragraph Worksheet. Working in groups, students should arrange the sentences provided into a paragraph that interprets the meaning of the Lowell Offering picture. They can cut out the sentences provided and paste them into the correct order (Claim/Counterclaim, three details, Conclusion/Summary), or they can use the oversized sentences and move around the people holding them into the correct order, or they can paste the oversized sentences in order on the board or large sheets of butcher paper.
After students have finished putting the sentences in order, review an example or two as a group. Students will probably have put the supporting details in different orders, which is fine. Ask students to explain how they decided which sentence was Claim/Counterclaim and which sentence was Conclusion/Summary.
Step 4. Explain to students that now they will get to see evidence for a more negative view of factory life. Hand out A Mill Girl Explains Why She is Leaving Factory Life, A Former Mill Girl Remembers the Lowell Strike of 1836, and Farm vs. Factory: Finding and Citing Evidence Worksheet. Working individually or in small groups, students should read the two documents and fill in the Finding Evidence portion of the worksheet.
Briefly discuss the evidence they found for why Sarah Rice and Harriet Robinson had a negative view of working in the textile factories.
Step 5. Now students will write their own paragraph interpreting the evidence from Sarah Rice and Harriet Robinson. Have students complete the Citing Evidence and Writing a Paragraph sections of the worksheet.
Step 1: Have students individually fill out the War, Civil Liberties, and Security Opinion Poll. Then briefly discuss:
• Which questions were hardest to answer and why?
• How do your answers compare with the survey results?
• To what extent should Americans be willing to give up their civil iberties during times of national emergency or war?
Step 2: Have students select one of the images from the year 1919 and fill out the Image Analysis Worksheet.
Step 3: Have students read the Timeline of Key Events of the World War I Era Red Scare.
Step 4: Ask students to pretend they are one of the following characters:
• A character who is pictured or mentioned in their image
• The person who created the image
• A person reading or viewing the image in 1919
Students should use the information in the image and the timeline to write a brief story, diary entry, or letter to the editor from your character's perspective. Make up a name for your character and a date that falls sometime between 1919 and 1920.
Step 5: Have students swap their images and writing with each other and discuss similarities and differences between the images and the perspectives they represent.
Step 6: Relate the Red Scare of 1919-1920 to the Constitution by having students read the first and fourth amendments to the Constitution. Ask students to rephrase the amendments into everyday language to gauge their understanding. Ask students which key words seem most open to interpretation.
Discuss Attorney General Palmer's actions in December 1919 and January 1920 (described on the timeline). Did he violate the Constitution? As a group, decide yes or no, then compile three pieces of evidence (from the images, the timeline, and/or the Constitution) to support your position.
Ask students to think back to their initial discussion about the problems of balancing liberty and security in the current "war on terrorism." What is similar about the situation in the United States in 1919-1920 and in the years since September 11, 2001? What is different? How well have citizens and government officials learned from the past?
Step One: Create a version of the photos (Black Students Crowd into Jim Crow School in Georgia and “Studying insects in a classroom at the schoolâ€) that eliminates the title and description, so that students will look at the photos only, with no information. Project or hand out the photos.
Conduct a whole class discussion where students identify details in the photos. Once they have thoroughly explored what they see, ask them to think about what it means, and what they think the photos are of.Â
Explain that both of these photos were taken of schools in Green County, Georgia, in 1941. Discuss:
Why do you think there were separate schools for white and black students in the South in 1941?
Step Two: Hand out Examples of U.S. Laws Requiring Racial Segregation (There are two versions of this document, one is shorter and has text supports.)Â
Ask students to circle the laws that go with the photos.
Discuss:
Where did laws requiring segregated schools exist?Â
What do you think the effects of these laws were?
Explain that this entire system of racial separation enforced by state and local laws was known as Jim Crow.Â
Discuss:
What other activities and places were there laws about? Â Â
Did any of the laws surprise you?Â
Â
Students will be able to describe different viewpoints for and against immigration restriction during the early 20th century. Â
Students will cite evidence from primary sources.
This activity supports the following Common Core Literacy Standards in History/Social Studies:
RHSS.6-8.1. Cite specific textual evidence to support analysis of primary and secondary sources.
NOTE: The directions for this activity include modifications for elementary students. "MS/HS" denotes when sources or strategies are suggested for middle school and high school students only. "Elementary" indicates that the strategy or source is designated for elementary students.Â
Step 1: Project the cartoon "The Immigrant." The Power Point file contains successive slides for bringing up each of the figures one by one. The Smart Notebook file is also set up to allow you to look at one character at a time. If not using Power Point or Smartboard, ask students to focus in on one part of the cartoon at a time (teachers can facilitate this by asking students to make "viewfinders" or lenses with their hands to block out other parts of the image). If not using Power Point, the teacher may want to pass out copies of the cartoon. Â
Begin by focusing on the immigrant and his wife, his luggage, and the ships in the background. With students, discuss:
Who is he?
Where is he coming from?
Where might he be going?
What are his motivations for coming to the U.S.?
One by one, show or focus on the other six figures in the cartoon and discuss what they look like, what their signs say, and what perspective each represents. Â
Step 2: Differentiate this step according to the level of the students:
MS/HS: Divide students into groups of 6. Each group member should choose one of six characters in the cartoon to focus on and use that worksheet to analyze the evidence. All students should receive the other documents. Students should read all of the documents and find quotes/evidence supporting that character's viewpoint and cite it on their worksheets.Â
Elementary: Use the cartoon analysis worksheet to compare "Americans All!-Victory Liberty Loan" and "The High Tide of Immigration." Students are looking for examples of pro- and anti-immigration positions.
Step 3: Differentiate this step according to the level of the students:
MS/HS:Â
Have each student pick a partner with a character who represents the opposite viewpoint. The students will write a dialogue between their two characters. One character writes a sentence that begins one of two ways, depending on the point of view:
I think immigration should be restricted because...
I do not think immigration should be restricted because...
Students complete the sentences using an argument their characters would make and evidence from the documents. Students should pass the paper back and forth, writing sentences responding to each other's points, using arguments and evidence from the document. The teacher should set the number of turns passing the sheet back and forth based on the level of the students.Â
Elementary:
As an extension the the cartoon analysis, students should look through some or all of the additional documents and choose quotes from the text to support the point of view of their image. Differentiate this portion by giving more advance students higher-level text documents.Â
Students will understand how waging a "total war" altered the nature of American society.
Students will read, write, listen, and speak for critical analysis and evaluation.
Students will understand the effects of World War II at home.
Propaganda was one of many weapons used by many countries during World War II, and the United States was no exception. From posters to films and cartoons, the federal government used propaganda not only to buoy the spirit and patriotism of the home front, but also to promote enlistment in the military and labor force. Several government agencies were responsible for producing propaganda, with the largest being the Office of War Information (OWI), created in 1942. The OWI created posters, worked with Hollywood in producing pro-war films, wrote scripts for radio shows, and took thousands of photographs that documented the war effort. Worried by the increase in government sponsored propaganda, academics and journalists established the Institute for Propaganda Analysis. The Institute identified seven basic propaganda devices: Name-Calling, Glittering Generality, Transfer, Testimonial, Plain Folks, Card Stacking, and Band Wagon. [For more on the IPA and the seven devices, please see http://www.propagandacritic.com/] All of these devices were used during the war. In this activity, students will analyze World War II posters, examining the different techniques and themes used by the OWI and other branches of government.
Step 1: Poster Analysis
Before the lesson begins, the teacher should prepare packets of posters for each nation: United States, Great Britain, Nazi Germany, and Soviet Union.Â
Divide students into small groups of 3-4 students. Assign each group one of the four nations and pass out the packets to the appropriate groups. Each student should choose one poster from the packet to analyze, using the Poster Analysis Worksheet.Â
After individually analyzing posters, the groups should reconvene. Each group member should present their poster to their group members. After presentations, group members should discuss how they feel the posters work together: Is there a common theme? Are there common images? What aspects of the posters make them propaganda?
Step 2: Essay Writing
After the group discussion, students should individually write an essay about the posters. The teacher may choose one assignment from the list below or allow students to choose from among the options; the teacher may also differentiate the lesson by varying which assignment is given to each student:
Â
Compare and contrast two or more posters
Visual essay: pull together different images to tell a story; text should bridge the posters together
Responsive essay: elaborate on the emotions (anger, sadness, pride, etc.) that the poster(s) evoke
Historial writing: Historically contextualize the poster: Is there a particular event or person the poster refers to? What makes this a World War II poster? (Requires additional research)
Point of view writing: Pretend you are a person in the poster; what story do you want to convey?
Fiction writing: Make up a narrative describing the events leading up to or following the scene depicted in the poster
Â
Students will evaluate the bias and accuracy of depictions of Five Points and its residents.
This activity supports the following Common Core Literacy Standards in History/Social Studies:
RHSS.6-8.7. Integrate visual information with other information in print and digital texts.
RHSS.6-8.8. Distinguish among fact, opinion, and reasoned judgment in a text.
RHSS.6-8.6. Identify aspects of a text that reveal an author's point of view or purpose.
In general, the only work in the New World open to Irish men was unskilled, temporary, and often heavy. After the mid 1840s, Irish immigrants dominated day labor in most coastal towns and cities and formed the majority of workers on canals, railroads, and other construction projects. A visiting Irish journalist remarked in 1860, "There are several sorts of power working at the fabric of this Republic: water-power, steam-power, horse-power, Irish-power. The last works hardest of all."
Young Irish women did more than their share of heavy work. With more Irish women than men arriving in the United States and most families needing the labor of all their members, few women arriving from Ireland could afford the luxury of leisure.Â
Economic hardship was widespread among Irish immigrants. Extreme poverty sometimes forced immigrants to turn to petty crime to survive. Families lived in increasingly crowded and decaying neighborhoods. Boston's North End was one such place. New York's Five Points was another. Middle class observers, who often toured such neighborhoods to gape in wonder at the lower classes or sought to deliver relief in the form of charity or religious sermons, were shocked and offended by life in Five Points. Many conflated the terrible conditions of poverty with moral failings on the part of the neighborhood's residents.Â
Note:Â Each of the primary sources in this activity includes an analysis worksheet. The teacher can differentiate the activity by giving the analysis worksheets only to lower level students, or by giving higher-level students versions of the text documents without text supports.Â
Step 1: Tell students that in this activity they will consider how different types of evidence produce different views of the same event or place. They will look at images, census records, and travel narratives about the Five Points in the 19th century. Then students will decide whether the evidence shows Five Points as a neighborhood or a slum. In this activity, they will look at the immigrant neighborhood Five Points and how it was portrayed in various 19th century images and texts.Â
Pass out and/or project "New York State Census Page of Five Points, 1855." Discuss
What impression of the Five Points neighborhood do you get from this census page?
Is this an insider or outsider point of view?
Step 2:Â Tell students that they will now look at how different visitors and observers of the Five Points depicted it during the 19th century.
Divide students into pairs or groups of three. To each group, pass out the four additional documents and analysis worksheets (if using). Ask each group to choose one text and one image to focus on. They should carefully examine the document and complete the analysis worksheet.Â
Before moving onto the next step, the teacher may want to go through documents as a whole, asking groups to share out what they noticed from the documents they chose.Â
Step 3: If using Smartboard, project Slide 6 "Neighborhood or Slum?". Ask for volunteers to slide each document to one side or the other, depending on how it depicts the neighborhood, or somewhere in between if it presents evidence of Five Points as both slum and neighborhood.Â
If not using Smartboard, replicate by making a "spectrum" on the board by drawing a horizontal line and writing "neighborhood" on one end and "slum" on the other. Have students tape printouts of the documents along the line. Â
Conclude by discussing what kinds of biases the different sources include (or do not include). Ask students what additional sources can help us understand Five Points better (census records, archaeological evidence, first-person accounts from people who lived in the neighborhood).Â
Students will discuss how images and symbols are combined by political cartoonists to convey ideas.
Students will analyze a political cartoon about U.S. imperialism in the 1890s.Â
Step 1: Project the first slide of the Notebook file, where the elements of the political cartoon "Uncle Sam Watches Over Cuba and the Philippines" have been divided up. Ask up to three volunteers to come to the Smartboard. Each volunteer should choose two elements from the cartoon and move them above the line.Â
Step 2: For each pairing, discuss what the symbols mean and what message is conveyed by putting them together.Â
Step 3:Project the cartoon "Uncle Sam Watches Over Cuba and the Philippines." Pass out copies of the cartoon and either the U.S. Imperialism Cartoon Analysis worksheet. Have students work on Part 1 of the worksheet with a partner.
OR You can hand out “Uncle Sam Watches over Cuba and the Philippines†Analysis Worksheet. Have students complete both parts of the worksheet.
Step 4:Â If you used the U.S. Imperialism Cartoon Analysis worksheet, as a group, discuss and complete Part 2 of the worksheet.Â
If you used “Uncle Sam Watches over Cuba and the Philippines†Analysis Worksheet, as a group, discuss what students put in the venn diagram, and what they think is the cartoon's main idea.
Teachers may want to use this activity as an introduction to the activity "Creating a Cartoon of the Philippine-American War."
Students will examine primary source materials that address the impact of the railroad upon Indian life from different points of view.
Students will engage in a critical reading of an image.
Students will create a new illustration drawn from the perspectives of Plains Indians.
Step 1: Project or pass out copies of the 1872 print American Progress. Draw attention to the activities represented in the foreground, middle, and background of the print. As a class, discuss the following points and make notes on the board or in students' notebooks.Â
List the objects or people you see in the image.
List adjectives that describe the emotions portrayed in the image. What seems of significance?
Describe the action taking place in the image.Â
What does the image tell us about what happened on the Great Plains? About interaction between settlers and Indians?
What is the point of view of the artist? Does he view what happened on the Great Plains as good? bad? both? Explain.Â
Step 2: Pass out copies of "Federal Agents Offer Solutions for 'Solving the Sioux Problem'" and "Native American Warriors Describe the Threats to their Way of Life. As a class, read the documents aloud. After reading the documents, have students fill out the change taking place on the Great Plains and who was involved. What new information do the primary documents provide? How do they complement or contradict the perspective shown in "American Progress"?
Step 3: Pass out copies of "George A. Croffut Explains The Print 'American Progress'" and read aloud together. Be sure to point out to students that the essay originally accompanied the image "American Progress." Â Ask students to look over their original observations about the print. Ask students to share whether they would change any of their observations and explain why or why not. Â
Step 4: Divide the class into small groups. Using the text that accompanied the print written by George A. Croffut, students should discuss how, if they were Ten Bears or Sitting Bull, how they might draw an illustration of the same subject from an Indian perspective. Each group should produce a rough sketch of such an illustration. (Don't worry about artistic skill; it's the concept that's important.)
Step 5: Have each group share out their drawings. As a class, compare and discuss illustrations.Â
Students will be able to identify different parts of a political cartoon (date, title, people, symbols, labels).
Students will be able to translate a pro-imperialist political cartoon into a written/verbal argument.
Note to teacher: This activity is designed to gauge students’ abilities and challenges analyzing political cartoons. It would work best as part of a larger unit on U.S. imperialism, particularly the effects of the Spanish-American War in 1898.
Step 1: Students will need to be familiar with the following key points prior to analyzing the cartoon:
The Philippines were a territory of the United States from 1898 to 1946.
The U.S. gained the Philippines as a territory following American victory over Spain in the Spanish-American War.
It is also helpful to show students where the Philippines are located on a map, then showing the relative distance between the United States and Philippines.
Step 2: Pass out the cartoon. Read aloud or ask for a student volunteer to read the title and the description (in italics) of the cartoon. The teacher may also want to ask students to identify the source and date of the cartoon. Make sure to explain any unfamiliar words or phrases in the description or cartoon.
Step 3: Pass out the “Questions for Analysis” and go over the directions. Have students work individually to complete it.