Middle School – Everyday Americans, Exceptional Americans

Colonial Life Compare/Contrast

Jessica Kilday — Thu, 14 Nov 2013 20:12:15 +0000

Students will view three prints, one from each of three colonial regions. They will then answer questions about each of the regions to help them differentiate between the three. As a culminating assessment, students will write a letter from a colonist in one region to a colonist in another region stating the similarities and differences between the two places.

Immigrant Discrimination

Jessica Kilday — Wed, 28 Aug 2013 17:56:30 +0000

The topic of this lesson is the discrimination faced by immigrants in a post Civil War America. The students will face this discrimination first hand as they read and listen to an Irish folk song about discrimination when looking for jobs, read the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, and analyze a Thomas Nast cartoon. This lesson fits into the Industrialization unit by coming right after a lesson on reasons for increased immigration and Ellis Island.

The student will learn about immigrant discrimination by filling out a graphic organizer on each of the sources. The student will dissect three different types of sources: a song, federal law, and a cartoon to demonstrate that there are different types of primary sources.

This lesson directly relates to USII.4b: The student will demonstrate knowledge of how life changed after the Civil War by explaining the reasons for the increase in immigration, growth of cities, and challenges arising from this expansion.

Native American: Regions, Natural, Human, and Capital Resources

Jessica Kilday — Mon, 26 Aug 2013 17:44:02 +0000

This lesson will focus on the five Native American Tribes in North America (Kwakiutl, Inuit, Pueblo, Lakota, and Iroquois). The student will do research to find out the regions that the 5 tribes lived in, and the natural, human, and capital resources that each tribe used that were geographically dependent in order to survive. The Students will be broken down into expert groups to conduct research on the different Native American tribes. Students will then go back to their home groups teach the rest of the group about their particular tribe. Students will then view the primary sources and answer the close reading questions assigned to each of the pictures as a closure/formative assessment.

Declaration of Independence

Jessica Kilday — Fri, 29 Mar 2013 17:40:36 +0000

The students will investigate the tone of resentment the colonies had against Great Britain from two modes: 4 historic pictures and one contemporary video. The students should rely on their background knowledge of the time period to understand the events that led up to the writing of the Declaration of Independence and ultimately the Revolutionary War. The students will look at Jefferson’s rough draft of the Declaration and question the changes that were made. If indeed, the Declaration was meant to be read then the students will watch a video of a host of celebrities reading the Declaration. How does the tone of this video compare to the music video? Finally, the students will look at certain passages of the Declaration and note how these ideas are infused in our government today.

The Articles of Confederation

Jessica Kilday — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 19:03:01 +0000

The topic of this lesson is examining the Articles of Confederation and how they influenced the Constitution. The students will investigate several pre-determined articles to determine how they influenced the writing of the Constitution. The students will examine Articles II, III, and VIII. This is in accordance with the state standards of VA.

The learner will investigate the primary sources to understand the importance’s of the Articles of Confederation, why they failed, and how specific Articles helped shape our current form of government, the US Constitution.

Slaves and Indentured Servants

Jessica Kilday — Fri, 15 Mar 2013 18:30:27 +0000

Students will be given either a narrative by Olaudah Equiano describing his enslavement or a description of the practice of indentured servitude by Gottlieb Mittelberger. Students will be divided with half the class reading one source and half the class reading the other just prior to the lesson on Triangular Trade in the unit on Colonies. After reading the narrative, students will write a brief summary of the author’s message. Students will then answer sourcing and contextualizing questions about the narrative. Finally, after discussing the readings together as a class, students will learn the identity of both authors. Students will return to the paper on which they have been recording their answers and now create a Venn diagram of slaves and indentures servants.

The Boston Massacre: You be the judge!

Jessica Kilday — Thu, 20 Dec 2012 17:30:48 +0000

This lesson is focused on the Boston Massacre. It will be taught in a sixth grade classroom in the American Revolution unit. It will be an opportunity for students to look at a historical event from multiple perspectives using corroborating evidence. It will include group work, whole class guided reading, and an individual assessment piece where they decide who is the “blame” for the event. The lesson will use primary sources that include pictures, newspaper articles, and testimonies and have students apply the historical thinking skills of sourcing, close reading, contextualizing, and corroborating to help interpret them.

Differences among colonial regions

Jessica Kilday — Thu, 20 Dec 2012 15:11:45 +0000

Students will explore the differences among the three colonial regions of New England, Mid-Atlantic / Middle, and the Southern colonies. In small groups for each region, students will observe and note details of pictures, maps, and advertisements in order to describe each region. Students will use historical reading skills to conclude how the geography and natural environment influenced the economic specialization of each region with special attention to the early colonial era. This lesson will prepare the learner for the concept of interdependence of the colonies as a result of specialization.

Immigration: Why Come to the United States?

Jessica Kilday — Mon, 10 Dec 2012 18:46:09 +0000

In this activity, I will introduce our unit on Immigration. Our curriculum focuses mainly on the reasons for the increase of immigration in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, but the concept is also brought up again later in the year as we talk about societal changes after World War II. With this introductory activity, students will use primary sources to guide them in discovering why immigrants came to the U.S. in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The first source is the hook, in which students will use song lyrics to brainstorm reasons for immigration. The second source is an interview with an immigrant of the early 20th century. The third source is a cartoon which compares and contrasts “here” (European country) to “there” (U.S.). Using 3 different categories of primary sources allows students of varying abilities to feel comfortable participating, which is especially important for English Language Learners or Special Education students.

Analyzing Political Campaign Commercials

Jessica Kilday — Fri, 07 Dec 2012 15:04:48 +0000

In this activity, the students will analyze four political campaign commercials to understand some of the roles of political parties as well as how citizens make informed choices during elections. Two of the commercials are from the 2004 presidential election and concern the war on terror. The other two commercials are from the 1964 presidential election and concern the Cold War. The students will examine these commercials from two perspectives. One perspective is that of a presidential election campaign staff member, which will help the students to learn how campaign commercials are used as a tool to educate voters and to help candidates win elections. The students also will analyze the commercials from the perspective of a voter to further understand four ways that citizens make informed choices in elections: by separating facts from opinions, detecting bias, evaluating the source of their information and identifying propaganda.

For the assessment piece, the students will create their own campaign commercials for the 2012 presidential election. The commercials will reflect their understanding of the roles of political parties during elections and the ways in which voters make informed choices during elections.