Unit I: Reconstruction
Overarching Understanding: Governments must balance political, social and
economic factors when securing unity within a country.
Essential Questions:
• How do we bring the South back into the Union?
• How do we rebuild the South after its destruction during the war?
• How do we integrate and protect newly-emancipated black freedmen?
• What branch of government should control the process of
Reconstruction?
Performance Assessment: Due October 1, 2009
• The Wappingers School District has selected you to create a Visual
Reconstruction Glossary to help elementary school students understand the
legacy of the Civil War. In this glossary list the Reconstruction terms and
words that you have learned and explain its connection to Reconstruction.
You may use original drawings or pictures cut from magazines or newspapers to
illustrate your glossary.
Other Assessments:
• Check for understanding in Do Now and class discussions.
• Quiz on Chapter 16, sections 1 & 2. Tuesday, September 22
• Response to whether Reconstruction was a success or failure.
• Unit Test: September 30
Unit II: Western Frontier
Overarching Understanding: Governments must balance political, social and
economic factors when expanding into new territories.
Essential Questions:
• How do we resolve the clash of cultures in the American West?
• How did mining and the railroad transform the West?
• How did ranching and farming impact the West?
• How did the plight of the farmers influence the West and
American
politics?
Performance Assessment: Due October 14
• The Smithsonian Institute has decided to develop a series of maps to
help eighth graders across the United States learn about the western
frontier. It is your responsibility to develop a set of maps that clearly
explain the mining frontier, the
Plains Indians, the Indian Wars, ranching and farming and the revolt of the
farmers. In order to help you in this endeavor, the Smithsonian Institute
has provided you with a blank set of maps and key questions to answer.
Other Assessments:
• Check for understanding in Do Now and class discussions.
• Quiz on Chapter 17, sections 1-3 (October 7)
Unit Test
Unit III: The Rise of Industry
(1865-1914)
Overarching Understanding: The growth of industry made the United States
extremely wealthy, but led to a series of political, social and economic
problems.
Essential Questions:
• How did railroads fuel the growth of industry?
• What are the arguments for and against big business?
• How did the age of invention influence American society?
• How did working conditions lead to the rise of labor unions?
Performance Assessment:
Work with a partner to put together a “This Is Your Life” presentation for
one of these business figures: Cornelius Vanderbilt, Andrew Carnegie, John
D. Rockefeller, or J.P. Morgan. Use your textbook, encyclopedia, and other
library resources to gather information about the person you have chosen.
Be sure to include:
• When the person was born and when the person died.
• Early life experiences
• How this person achieved greatness
• The company started by the individual
• Philanthropy (How they used money to help others)
Other Assessments:
• Check for understanding in Do Now and class discussions.
• Quiz on Chapter 19, sections 1- 3.
• Unit Test
Unit V: The Progressive Era
1889 to 1920
Overarching Understanding: The Progressives and groups who worked along
with
them grappled with some of the toughest problems created by
industrialization. And, while these groups did not always agree and some
might argue that their goals have yet to be completely achieved, the
Progressive Movement had a powerful and lasting impact on American life.
Essential Questions:
• What was the impact of the Progressive Movement on child labor?
• What was the impact of the Progressive Movement on working
conditions?
• What was the impact of the Progressive Movement on the rise of
organized labor?
• What was the impact of the Progressive Movement on women’s suffrage?
• What was the impact of the Progressive Movement on the temperance
movement?
Overview:
This unit will ask students to explore the impact of the Progressive
Movement
on the lives of Americans from 1889 to 1920. Students will examine problems
brought on by industrialization, increased immigration and the growth of
cities. Students will investigate who the Progressive reformers were, what
they believed in, what problems they hoped to solve, and what methods they
used. Students will also assess how successful they were in solving these
problems.
Performance Assessment:
• Students will create an exhibit using photographs, cartoons, and
documents with brief and cogent explanations to convey who the Progressives
were and what they achieved to an audience of today (such as students not in
their class, parents, teachers, etc.). Each small group of students will
contribute a three-panel display focusing on one of these topics: child
labor, working conditions, the rise of organized labor, women’s suffrage, or
the temperance movement. In addition, two members of each group will “be”
historical figures who contributed to their topic, and will interact with
the
audience.
Other Assessments:
• Check for understanding in Do Now and class discussions.
• Quiz on Chapter 21, sections 1- 3.
• Unit Test:
Unit VI: American Imperialism (Ten Days)
Overarching Understanding: America’s growing power affected its relationship
with other nations.
NYS Learning Standards:
Standard 1: History of the United States and New York
Students will use a variety of intellectual skills to demonstrate their
understanding of major ideas, eras, themes, developments, and turning points
in the history of the United States and New York.
Standard 2: World History
Students will use a variety of intellectual skills to demonstrate their
understanding of major ideas, eras, themes, developments, and turning points
in world history and examine the broad sweep of history from a variety of
perspectives.
Standard 3: Geography
Students will use a variety of intellectual skills to demonstrate their
understanding of the geography of the interdependent world in which we live—
local, national, and global—including the distribution of people, places, and
environments over the Earth’s surface.
Standard 4: Economics
Students will use a variety of intellectual skills to demonstrate their
understanding of how the United States and other societies develop economic
systems and associated institutions to allocate scarce resources, how major
decision-making units function in the United States and other national
economies, and how an economy solves the scarcity problem through market and
nonmarket mechanisms.
Standard 5: Civics, Citizenship, and Government
Students will use a variety of intellectual skills to demonstrate their
understanding of the necessity for establishing governments; the governmental
system of the United States and other nations; the United States
Constitution; the basic civic values of American constitutional democracy;
and the roles, rights, and responsibilities of citizenship, including avenues
of participation.
Essential Questions:
• Why did some Americans support Imperialist policies?
• Why did America want to acquire Alaska and Hawaii?
• How did Americans respond to the Cuban Revolution?
• What was the outcome of the Spanish-American War?
• How did America increase influence in East Asia and the Pacific?
• Why did the US get involved in Latin America?
Important to Know:
Why did some Americans support Imperialist policies?
o Manifest Destiny
o Imperialism
o White Man’s Burden
o Competition w/Europe
o Military Strength
o Economic strength
Why did America want to acquire Alaska and Hawaii?
o William Seward
Seward’s Folly
Purchased from Russia
o Annexation of Hawaii
American missionaries
Sugar Planters
Pearl Harbor
Queen Liliokalani
How did Americans respond to the Cuban Revolution?
o Jose Marti
o Yellow Journalism
o U.S.S. Maine
o America Declares War
o Dewey invades the Philippines
o TR & the Rough Riders
o Cuba, Puerto Rico, Philippines, Guam
o Treaty of Paris of 1898
What was the outcome of the Spanish-American War?
o Platt Amendment
o Foraker Act
o Philippine-American War
o Anti-Imperialist League
How did America increase influence in East Asia and the Pacific?
o China
Spheres of Influence
Open Door Policy
Boxer Rebellion
Why did the US get involved in Latin America?
o Panama Canal
o Monroe Doctrine
o Roosevelt Corollary
o Dollar Diplomacy
Important Skills:
• Gather and infer information from a map.
• Analyze primary sources.
• Use Circle Maps, Flow and Multi-Flow Maps
• Listen and contribute to class discussions.
• Work with a group
Other Assessments:
• Check for understanding in Do Now and class discussions.
• Quiz on Chapter 22, sections 1- 3. Monday, Jan. 7
• Unit Test: Friday, Jan. 11
Unit VII: World War I
Overarching Understanding: World War I impacted America and transformed
Europe
NYS Learning Standards:
Standard 1: History of the United States and New York
Students will use a variety of intellectual skills to demonstrate their
understanding of major ideas, eras, themes, developments, and turning points
in the history of the United States and New York.
Standard 2: World History
Students will use a variety of intellectual skills to demonstrate their
understanding of major ideas, eras, themes, developments, and turning points
in world history and examine the broad sweep of history from a variety of
perspectives.
Standard 3: Geography
Students will use a variety of intellectual skills to demonstrate their
understanding of the geography of the interdependent world in which we live—
local, national, and global—including the distribution of people, places, and
environments over the Earth’s surface.
Standard 4: Economics
Students will use a variety of intellectual skills to demonstrate their
understanding of how the United States and other societies develop economic
systems and associated institutions to allocate scarce resources, how major
decision-making units function in the United States and other national
economies, and how an economy solves the scarcity problem through market and
nonmarket mechanisms.
Standard 5: Civics, Citizenship, and Government
Students will use a variety of intellectual skills to demonstrate their
understanding of the necessity for establishing governments; the governmental
system of the United States and other nations; the United States
Constitution; the basic civic values of American constitutional democracy;
and the roles, rights, and responsibilities of citizenship, including avenues
of participation.
Essential Questions:
• What events and factors helped cause WWI?
• What events brought America into the war?
• How did American civilians contribute to the war effort?
• How did American troops help the allies win the war?
• What were the human costs of WWI and the 1918 flu epidemic?
• How did Woodrow Wilson hope to achieve world peace?
Important to Know:
•What events and factors helped cause WWI?
o MAIN
o Central Powers
o Allies
o Nationalism
o Militarism
o Alliances
o Imperialism
o Trench Warfare
o U-boats
o Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand
•What events brought America into the war?
o Unrestricted submarine warfare
o Zimmerman telegram
o Woodrow Wilson
o Sinking of the Lusitania
o Russian Revolution
o Communism
•What social changes did the war effort help bring about?
o Selective Service Act
o American Expeditionary Forces
o General John J. Pershing
• How did American civilians contribute to the war effort?
o Women volunteers
o War Bonds
o War Industries Board
o Committee on Public Information
o Propaganda
o Espionage and Sedition Act
o Schenck v. US (1919)
•How did American troops help the allies win the war?
o Eddie Rickenbacker
o Convoy
o Belleau Wood
o Second Battle of the Marne
o Harlem Hellfighters
•What were the human costs of WWI and the 1918 flu epidemic?
o Armistice
o Flu epidemic of 1918
• How did Woodrow Wilson hope to achieve world peace?
o Fourteen Points
o League of Nations
o Treaty of Versailles
o Reparations
•What social changes did the war help bring about?
o Great Migration
o Red Scare
o Palmer Raids
Important Skills:
• Gather and infer information from a map.
• Analyze primary sources.
• Use Circle Maps, Flow and Multi-Flow Maps
• Listen and contribute to class discussions.
• Work with a group
• Critical Thinking
Other Assessments:
• Check for understanding in Do Now and class discussions.
• Quiz on Chapter 23, sections 1- 3.
Unit IX: Great Depression (Seven Days)
Overarching Understanding: How did the government react to the crisis of the
Great Depression?
NYS Learning Standards:
Standard 1: History of the United States and New York
Students will use a variety of intellectual skills to demonstrate their
understanding of major ideas, eras, themes, developments, and turning points
in the history of the United States and New York.
Standard 2: World History
Students will use a variety of intellectual skills to demonstrate their
understanding of major ideas, eras, themes, developments, and turning points
in world history and examine the broad sweep of history from a variety of
perspectives.
Standard 3: Geography
Students will use a variety of intellectual skills to demonstrate their
understanding of the geography of the interdependent world in which we live—
local, national, and global—including the distribution of people, places, and
environments over the Earth’s surface.
Standard 4: Economics
Students will use a variety of intellectual skills to demonstrate their
understanding of how the United States and other societies develop economic
systems and associated nstitutions to allocate scarce resources, how major
decision-making units function in the United States and other national
economies, and how an economy solves the scarcity problem through market and
nonmarket mechanisms.
Standard 5: Civics, Citizenship, and Government
Students will use a variety of intellectual skills to demonstrate their
understanding of the necessity for establishing governments; the governmental
system of the United States and other nations; the United States
Constitution; the basic civic values of American constitutional democracy;
and the roles, rights, and responsibilities of citizenship, including avenues
of participation.
Essential Questions:
• When the prosperity of the 1920s ended, why did Hoover struggle to
address the country’s economic problems?
• How did FDR fight the Depression?
• How did the Great Depression and the policies of the New Deal forever
change American society and government?
Important to Know:
• How did the 1920s prosperity affect different social groups?
o Herbert Hoover
o Problems in business
Goods increase, income did not.
Agricultural overproduction.
o Illusion of Wealth
Credit
Speculation
• What caused the crash of 1929 and the Great Depression?
o Economic depression
o Run on banks
• Why did the American people lose faith in Hoover?
o Private charities
o Public Works
o Bonus Army
o Hooverisms
• What were the goals of the New Deal?
o First New Deal
o First 100 Days
o Fireside chats
o Socialism
• How did the Social Security Act reflect Roosevelt’s goal in the
Second New Deal?
o Social Security Act
o Deficit spending
• What hardships did the Great Depression bring to Americans?
o Dust Bowl
o The unemployed
o Impact on women and children
• How did American culture reflect the Great Depression?
o WPA
o Grapes of Wrath
o Gone With the Wind
o Wizard of Oz
• How did New Deal policies impact American society?
o Opportunities for women
Eleanor Roosevelt
o Minorities and the New Deal
o Unions gain strength
• What were some of the legacies of the New Deal?
o A larger role for government
o Liberals and Conservatives
Important Skills:
• Gather and infer information from graphs and charts.
• Analyze primary sources.
• Evaluate primary and secondary sources (Grapes of Wrath)
• Listen and contribute to class discussions.
• Work with a group
• Critical Thinking
Other Assessments:
• Check for understanding in Do Now and class discussions.
• Quiz on Chapter 25, sections 1- 3.
• Essay on Grapes of Wrath
• New Deal poster project
• Test on Roaring Twenties and Great Depression
Extra Credit: (Project Grade)
• Brother Can You Spare a Dime Webquest
Honors Extension:
• Class will work on creating a wiki.
Unit XI: Hitting the Cold War from All Angles
Enduring Understanding: Regional conflicts around the world are caused by
ideological differences and geopolitical goals that lead to internal
divisions and new social interests.
Essential Questions:
• How did the Soviet Union expand after WWII?
• How did the Truman Doctrine and Marshall Plan help to contain
communism?
• Why did the Cold War spread to Africa and Asia?
• What was the result of the Civil War in China?
• Why did the U.S. become involved in the Korean War?
• How did Senator Joseph McCarthy increase fears of communism?
• How did the economy expand after WWII?
• How did television affect American life?
• What goals did Presidents Kennedy and Johnson have for the nation?
• How did the Vietnam War affect events at home?
Concept Objectives:
1. History: Students will develop an understanding of how and why political
boundaries are set.
2. History: Students will recognize how political power has been acquired,
maintained, used, and/or lost throughout history.
3. History: Students will develop an awareness of why armed conflicts
materialize.
4. History: Students will understand how science, technology, and economic
activity have developed, changed, and affected societies throughout history.
(Colorado State Standard
History 4)
5. History: Students learn the history of relationships among different
political powers and the development of international relations.
6. History: Students understand the history of social organization in
various
societies.
(CSS History 3.2)
7. Language Arts: Students will gain appreciation of different types of
communication through a variety of models.
8. Language Arts: Students will learn to apply thinking skills to their
reading, writing, speaking, listening and viewing. (CSS Reading and Writing
4)
9. Language Arts: Students will recognize how to read to locate, select, and
make use of relevant information from a variety of media, reference, and
technological sources
Important to Know:
1. Post WWII devastation in Europe: Marshall Plan, Bretton Woods Conference
2. Western Fear of Communist expansion: Soviet fear of Capitalist influence
3. Truman Doctrine: policy of containment
a. Formation of NATO; Warsaw Pact
b. The Iron Curtain
c. Berlin Airlift
d. Eastern European resistance
4. Korean War
a. Inchon; Chinese entry; removal of MacArthur
b. Partition of Korea; truce line of 38th parallel
5. McCarthyism: House Un-American Activities Committee, “witch hunts”
a. Hollywood Blacklist
b. Spy case: Alger Hiss, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg
6. The Eisenhower Years
a. Secret Operation; CIA, FBI, counterespionage, J. Edgar Hoover, U-2
Incident
b. Sputnik; Yuri Gagarin
c. Eisenhower’s farewell address; the military-industrial complex
7. The Kennedy Years, “Ask not what your country can do for you”
a. Cuban Missile Crisis; Fidel Castro, Bay of Pigs
b. Nuclear deterrence: “mutual assured destruction,” Nuclear test ban treaty
c. Kennedy assassination, 1963 Lee Harvey Oswald, Warren Commission
8. Space exploration: US moon landing, Neil Armstrong
9. American culture in the ‘50’s and ‘60’s
d. Levittown and the rise of suburban lifestyle, automobile -centered city
planning
e. Influence of television
f. Baby Boom generation; Rock and Roll, Woodstock
C. Skill Objectives
1. History: Students will use chronology to organize historical events and
people. (CSS
History 1.2)
2. History: Students will classify and interpret data and show an
understanding through completed definitions of terms.
3. History: Students will interpret and analyze maps of post WWII and
compare
the material with pre WWII Europe.
4. History: Students will know how to use maps, globes, & other geographic
tools to acquire, process, & report information from a spatial perspective.
(CSS Geography 1.1)
5. History: Students summarize how political power has been acquired,
maintained, used, and/or lost throughout history.
6. History: Students will locate Korea on a map.
7. History: Students will analyze the reasons for military conflict through
writing.
8. History: Students will compare the different approaches and roles of
different presidents during the Cold War.
9. History: Student will compare the race for the moon with the race to
build
more weapons.
10. History: Students will identify the characteristics of 50’s culture
through writing.
11. History: Students will analyze the role of nuclear deterrence today
compared to the 1960’s.
12. Language Arts: Students will use reading, writing, viewing and listening
skills to solve problems and answer questions. (CCS 4.2.2)
13. Language Arts: Students will make predictions, draw conclusions and
analyze what they read hear and view. (CCS 4.3.3)
14. Language Arts: Students will select relevant material for reading and
writing purposes.
(CCS 5.1.1)
15. Language Arts: Students will paraphrase, summarize, organize, and
synthesize information. (CCS 5.3.3)