Teaching the West: Day 4

This lesson, on the reasons why people moved west in the 1800s and also the hardships they found there, was by far my favorite lesson of the unit. Granted, I still have one more to go, but based on the fact that it's going to be administering a test and sharing the posters we made from this day (day 4), I think that's a pretty safe thing to say.

The most interesting thing about this lesson was that I feel like we did the least amount of planning for this day--being exhausted and working on our plans late the night before, and polishing things up the morning of--but, at least for me, it was the lesson that went the most smoothly. It didn't necessarily stick to the time constraints that I'd placed on each phase, nor did I cover certain aspects of the topic in as much detail as I would have liked, but the students were really engaged in the process and I felt like I was getting all the kids involved, not just the high-achieving ones.

The lesson began with a quick review of the day before--which natural areas did we talk about, what states have we looked at, which peoples did we say make up the population of the West. Then, we moved on (transitioning to why those people came to the West) to a lesson using primary sources/the inductive approach (I believe). We had made up a powerpoint of photographs, song lyrics, advertisements, wanted posters, and quotes from letters and diaries related to the West and why people moved there--or conversely, why people wanted to get away from the East. For each slide/source, students first commented on what they observed, and then decided whether they thought it was a reason why people went West or why people left the East. Finally, for each slide/source, we nailed down the reason behind the source and wrote it on the board. For example, the first slide was an advertisement for real estate in Kansas. I used this slide as a model/guided practice for what they should do for each slide. I noted that the slide said Kansas--which isn't part of the region we're studying, but which was considered "west" at the time because it was west of the MS river. Then I noted that it talked about real estate and homes, and that some people must have been looking to build homes. I said this was probably a reason to go west, since it mentioned Kansas. We continued on like this for each of the slides/sources. My favorite part about this approach was that any kid can do it, regardless of background, and every kid can get involved. Questions about observations ('what do you see here?') can be directed toward students who may not be able to interpret the source as well as others, but who can most certainly tell us what they see. Follow-up questions can be tacked on to that response as appropriate, and interpretation can be scaffolded. The higher-achieving kids can do more of the interpretation on their own, and can be called on when other students aren't getting it as easily.

My favorite slide was the one representing "adventure" as a reason for going out west. On the slide were two images: a "wanted" poster for the 'Wild Bunch' and an image of Buffalo Bill on a bucking horse at one of his rodeos. Students showed a lot of interest in the Wanted poster, commenting that perhaps people wanted to go west to find criminals and get a reward. Or maybe they wanted to go west to be criminals and get money that way. I feel like my shining moment during that class was when I related the attraction to danger that spurred some of the westward migration to their lives. I noted that this image showed me the danger that was present in the West, and then asked them if they'd ever done anything because it was kind of dangerous. They all said yes--one of the students who often gets off-task fiddling with stuff in his desk--gave an emphatic yes to that question. I explained that this was the same way. It was a little dangerous and some people wanted this more rugged, dangerous lifestyle.

The inductive piece of the lesson lasted a little longer than I expected--30 minutes--and I didn't even cover the hardships actually found in the West outside of a cursory overview of them and a quick glance at a diary entry from a man in CA in 1849 who talks about how you have a 1 in 1000 chance of striking it rich in CA (and says that usually you find failure, danger, and death). So I wish I'd been a little better about watching the time, so I could've given more weight to that piece of the lesson--which I think is SO important (because the West wasn't always as great as people in the East thought). However, the discussion was going so well with the sources we did get through, that I'm glad we spent that time the way we did.

For 5 or 6 minutes after the source/reason discussion, I had them create advertisement posters (individually or in small groups), using at least one of the reasons we'd written on the board, encouraging people to move West. The students were really excited about this task, and many wanted to take their posters home to work on over the weekend. I was also impressed that we were able to get all the kids working on a poster, even one student who often seems to just not be catching on. Unfortunately, I had to cut them off so we could talk quickly about the hardships, look at the last two states we had to talk about (Washington and Oregon), pass out the study guides, and give them a heads-up about the test they have on Monday.

As I said before, the students seemed to really be engaged in this lesson, and I loved that every student was able to participate in the discussion and poster-making, no matter what their ability level. It was exciting to see students working with primary sources, and it was exciting to see kids being able to relate to an event/time period 100-175 years ago. I'm extremely impressed with the way things went, and the experience makes me really want to incorporate more primary sources into my Social Studies lessons, as well as more activities like the advertisements that are accessible to all students.