I. Curricular Framework

Concept:

Rise of Modern America

Essential Question:

What role does the Westward movement play in the rise of modern America?

Bridge:

Literary Representation

Content:

Outcomes:

II. Standards Aligned

III. Instruction and Assessment

1. Connect: Connecting to the Concept Experientially

Objective: To foster appreciation of positive/negative forces that our ancestors faced during the rise of modern America. To foster group planning skills. To foster group interaction skills.

Activity: Scenario: You and two other people are traveling on horseback. You leave from your present home, destination West. Time of trip: one year. You have all the supplies you need. Money between the three of you, $100. It is 1850. Suggestions: maps, list of supplies, medicine, food, clothing, cooking utensils (and remember your horses' needs). Someone brings a musical instrument. What might it be? What songs would you be singing? What topics of conversation might there be around your campfires? Someone should keep a journal. What difficulties on the trip can you imagine? How would you communicate with the people back home? Check area libraries for newspapers on microfilm 1840-1850.

Assessment: Participation ñ service to the group. Finished product: routes, lists of supplies, and answers to above questions. Grade for quality of group presentation.

2. Attend: Attending to the Connection

Objective: To have students reflect together on the experience. To develop listening skills, group discussion techniques, opinion giving and empathy for our ancestors. To understand the teacher's beliefs in the importance of studying American literature and history as well as the connections between the two as a force in increasing self-awareness.

Activity: Discussion of "trips." Rules: Only one person can speak at a time. All opinions are acceptable if speaker gives reasons. Thinking out loud is acceptable. Personal statements must be written on the experience.

Assessment: Students make lists of insights gained from the experience and rank them in priority order and explain why. Grade for quality of personal statements.

Assessment, Phase One, Level of Engagement, Fascination:

3. Image: Creating a Mental Picture

Objective: To read a period piece of literature. To integrate personal reflections with the piece.

Activity: Students read "Pioneers, O Pioneers" by Walt Whitman before class. Students free- write personal reflective essays integrating their feelings from their "trip" with the poem.

Assessment: Essay on Whitman's poem; grade for analysis skills and writing ability.

Assessment, Phase Two, Seeing the Big Picture:

4. Inform: Receiving Facts & Knowledge

Objective: To listen to lectures and increase note-taking skills. To ask relevant questions. To examine facts and information. To read critically. To write analytically.

Activity: Mini-lectures accompanied by overhead transparencies: Intellectual currents of period; Social and economic problems; Assigned readings from the period (poetry, essays, and music)

Assessment: Teacher verbal checking for understanding. Quality of student notes and written summaries. Essay questions on assigned readings.

Assessment, Phase Three, Success with Acquiring Knowledge:

5. Practice: Developing Skills

Objective: To reinforce information through manipulation of materials.

Activity: Workbooks, text with chapter-end questions, studying class notes. TV-watching assignments, such as "Little House on the Prairie". Movies: "Westward Ho the Wagons" or check local theater, TV listings, and video store options for the three-week period.

Assessment: Multiple choice quiz, speeches to class by students on movies seen, TV, etc.

Assessment, Phase Four, Success with Acquiring Skills:

6. Extend: Extending Learning to the Outside World

Objective: To personalize unit material. To enhance student creativity. To enhance students' ability to find resource information and materials. To enhance students' understanding of community resources.

Activity: Planning individual personalization of material. The students are required to choose a personal learning activity that will enhance and reflect their knowledge of the material under study. This is where learning styles can easily be observed. The Imaginative Learners might choose: a play, debate, group project, art work of all kinds, letters from relative abroad, old photographs depicting the problems and freedoms of the period. The Analytic Learners might choose: an extended essay on some topic, researched and including lecture notes, another book to read and critique. The Common Sense Leaners might choose: table contour maps of wagon train routes, Indian tribes who were affected by "being in the way," railroad routes, or extra worksheets from textbook. The Dynamic Learners might choose: creative projects of all kinds, imaginary journals, songs, poetry. This step is a planning step. The students are asked to decide how they are going to personalize what they have learned. The plans are to detail steps, resources needed, finished product, and why they have chosen that particular plan.

Assessment: Individual personalization plans.

7. Refine: Refining the Extension

Objective: Enhance student ability to analyze their own plans for: 1) limits (is the scope too big or too small?) 2) details (have they been specific enough?) 3) originality (is this their own?) 4) relevance (does it tell something about the unit under study?) 5) usefulness (what will they learn?)

Activity: Students post their plan analysis or tell the class their plan analysis or write the analysis for the teacher's approval. It is extremely helpful for all the class to hear the teacher's suggestions for improving personalization activities.

Assessment: Analysis of plan, work habits, research methods.

8. Perform: Creative Manifestation of Material Learned

Objective: To complete their personal learning project. To display or explain their projects. To share what they have learned with the other students.

Activity: Students work on their projects, display them, or explain them, and share what they have learned with the other students.

Assessment: Projects graded for originality, ability to typify period under study, use of resources, and method of presentation to other students. To end the unit, the teacher inaugurates a discussion of "Where do we go from here?" This discussion would include: areas for future study, evaluative student feedback, ideas about the next Concrete Experience, etc. The discussion, the class reactions, the material still to be covered and the teacher's plans from the nucleus for the next unit.

Assessment, Phase Five,Performance, Creative Use of Material Learned: