Jennifer Thomas

Final Stage 3
December 9, 2013
Stage 3
* Exit cards will be given throughout the unit asking students to reflect and self-assess.
They will be given every 2-3 days*
Reflection: Exit cards will be given to the students every 2-3 days. Students will be asked to reflect
on:
1. What is something you understand well from today/so far?
2. What are you still confused about from todays lesson/so far?
3. What have you found interesting so far?
4. What is one thing you could explain to a friend?
After each PBE, students will reflect on their work:
1. What is something you wish you understood better while completing your PBE?
2. Was there something you were confused about during your PBE?
3. What is something you really liked about your PBE?
4. What are you confident you understand after completing your PBE?
Self-Assessment: Students will also be given self-assessment exit cards to think about:
1. What did you do today to help yourself stay focused?
2. How do you think you did today? Did you do your best? Why or why not?
3. What could you do to help yourself stay more focused during class?
4. What activities from the lesson are the most fun for you and help you stay focused as a
learner.
After each PBE, students will self-assess their work:
1. Did you give your best effort?
2. Did you feel well prepared to complete you PBE?
3. Did you complete everything that was asked of you?
4. Were you focused and on task throughout the completion of your PBE?

1. Ask students if they have heard of the Civil War. If students have not, proceed straight to
video. After the video, then ask students what they know about the Civil War now, and
proceed to fill out the KWL chart.
2. If students have, ask students what they know already about the Civil War. Fill out KWL
chart with what the students already know. Have chart hanging in the room for the
duration of the unit. Students will discuss with a partner, and write something they know
down on a sticky note to post on the chart.
3. Students will watch the PBS short video on the Civil War:
http://video.pbs.org/video/1832458783/. This is a really short video that discusses some
of the causes of the Civil War. It also shows many non-graphic photos taken during this
time period.
4. Students discuss one thing they learned in from the video with a partner, and write it
down on a sticky note. Students come up pair by pair, and share with the class what fact
they remembered. Students will place the sticky note in the proper column.
5. Introduce the unit to the students. Tell the students this unit is important because there
are things that happened in our past, and these things have shaped and influenced the
way our current society has developed. Students need to understand how these issues
impacted the future of their country. Tell students the essential questions and essential
Jennifer Thomas
Final Stage 3
December 9, 2013
understandings. Discuss and explain briefly the PBEs that the students will be
completing to demonstrate their understanding. Tell students they will be learning about
the causes and events that started the Civil War, and tell the students they will also be
learning about the roles influencing the attitudes and beliefs during the Civil War: slaves,
free African Americans, white plantation owners, white northern business owners or
workers, and American Indians.
6. Have students pair up with another student. Have the students do a think-pair-share on
something they want to know more about or something they have questions about. The
students will write it on a sticky and add it to the W column.
7. Students will watch this Brain Pop video:
http://www.brainpop.com/socialstudies/freemovies/civilwar/.
8. Introduce vocabulary terms that will be used in discussing the events leading up to the
Civil War and during the Civil War. Each student will create a 4-quadrent vocabulary
card for the class vocabulary book. The student will be given a specific vocabulary term.
The students will share their definitions, pictures, and explanation of the terms to the
class. After each student presents, I will add more detail and information if need be.
These will be compiled for each student so that they can reference them at any time
during the unit. (Differentiation: Process)
a. Terms include: Abolitionist, Agriculture, Antebellum, Armory, Arsenal, Cash
Crop, Confederacy, Democratic Party, Emancipation, Emancipation
Proclamation, Federalist, Industry, Mason-Dixon Line, The North, Popular
Sovereignty, Republican Party, Slavery, The South, States Rights, Territory,
Union, Industrialized, Racism, Secede, Discrimination, Rural, Manufacturing,
Tariff, Compromise, Slave Code, and Civil War
9. Vocabulary review Jeopardy game
10. Vocabulary quiz
11. After discussion vocabulary, students will watch this video:
http://www.history.com/shows/america-the-story-of-us/videos/america-
divided?m=5189719baf036&s=All&f=1&free=false.
12. Think-Pair-Share: Students pair up and discuss what was said in the video. Each pair
comes up with a cause of the Civil War and records it on a sticky note. Discuss each note
that the students put on the chart. Have this activity lead into discussing in detail about
the differences between the North and South.
13. Students will watch a video that compares the North and the South. While they watch the
video, they will take notes that compares/contrasts the North and the South.
a. http://www.teachertube.com/viewVideo.php?video_id=181857&title=Civil_War
_Notes&vpkey=7cb05d6be3
b. http://video.about.com/americanhistory/Top-5-Causes-of-the-Civil-War.htm
Jennifer Thomas
Final Stage 3
December 9, 2013
14. Use the chart from this website to compare the North and South:
http://telegraph.civilwar.org/education/curriculum/Elementary/1%20Disunion/Disunion
%20Lesson%20Package.pdf.
15. Have students get into groups of 3-4 and compare and contrast the differences between
the North and the South that were mentioned in the video.
16. After a short overview using this chart, use a Prezi to lecture students by discussing, in
depth, the differences between the North and South in slavery, culture, economies, and
political ideals.
17. Students will watch this video in order to further explain the causes of the Civil War.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCOco6-eK8M&list=PL4926D73C9307EB27
18. Students will create a tab book learning tool for the different causes/overarching themes
of reasons for the Civil War.
19. Split students into groups of 3-4 students and have them make a chart that compares and
contrasts characteristics of the North vs. the South. Students will focus on the differences
in attitudes towards the government, slavery, the differences in culture, and the
differences in the economies. (Differentiation: Process)
20. Menu time for students. (Differentiation: Process, Product, and Content).
21. Have students answer the questions in a short essay:
a. 1. Compare and contrast the different feelings and attitudes of the North and
South and how they contributed to the causes of the Civil War. Think about
differing views in government, slavery, differences in culture, and the differences
in the economies.
b. 2. How the different economies affected each sides stance on slavery?
c. 3. Which factor do you think was the biggest contributing factor of the Civil
War? - You may not just say slavery. You must say how the differences in each
side of whatever factor you choose may have caused the particular feelings and
attitudes that each side had.
22. Pair students up and have them create a poster that describes and depicts the economic,
cultural, and political differences, and differing stances on slavery. (Differentiate:
Process)
23. Review the main causes of the Civil War.
24. Quiz on the main causes of the Civil War.
25. Review of quiz. Review and add information to the KWL chart.
26. PBE #1: Interpretation: What was the biggest contributing factor of the Civil War?
27. Review and revisit the areas that students are confused about based off of exit slips thus
far.
28. Introduce, through lecture, the different roles/viewpoints influencing the Civil War:
southern whites, enslaved African Americans, northern whites, free African Americans,
and American Indians. Talk about the North vs. the South. Give overview of how
families often times had to fight against their families.
Jennifer Thomas
Final Stage 3
December 9, 2013
29. Have students complete process #1 and process #2
http://questgarden.com/45/67/6/070227071016/process.htm.
30. Break students up into groups. Each group reads a different diary from the Civil War for
kids from the Dear America book sets. Each group takes a week reading their book. They
write a summary after every other chapter and discuss the issues the person faces.
a. The Journal of James Edmond Pease: A Civil War Union Soldier
b. Escape by Night: A Civil War Adventure
c. I Thought My Soul Would Rise and Fly: The Diary of Patsy, a freed girl
d. Freedoms Wings: Coreys Underground Railroad Diary
31. Students will create a readers theater or a skit that acts out some of the things they
learned in the book they read. Students will perform these for the class and discuss with
the class what they discovered in their books. (Differentiation: Process)
32. Students will write a short journal entry that puts themselves in the shoes of 1) a white
southerner and 2) an enslaved African American
33. Read these books as a class and discuss some of the feelings and attitudes the main
characters have
a. The Silent Witness-A True Story of the Civil War
b. The Yankee at the Seder
34. Students will have menu time.
35. Students will analyze primary and secondary source documents from these websites
about the different viewpoints from the Civil War. Students will have a worksheet split
into all the different roles, and students will record the information they discover from
the documents under the category it pertains to. (Differentiation: Process)
a. http://www.civilwar.org/education/history/primarysources/#personal-
correspondence
b. http://www.civilwar.org/education/history/primarysources/
c. http://valley.lib.virginia.edu/VoS/lettersp1.html
d. http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/snhtml/snhome.html
36. Put students in groups of 3-4 to discuss the information that they found in the primary
and secondary source documents.
37. After researching and analyzing the different viewpoints of the Civil War, students will
write a short journal entry that puts themselves in the shoes of 1) a white northerner and
2) a free African American
38. Split students into 4groups of 3-4 students. Two groups will explain/create a poster
against slavery (the Northern viewpoint), and the other two groups will explain/create a
poster for slavery (the Southern viewpoint). The groups will present their posters and
why each side held the viewpoint that they did.
39. Review of the different viewpoints using giant round table: white southerner, white
northerner, free African American, enslaved African American, and American Indians.
40. Quiz on the different viewpoints of the Civil War.
Jennifer Thomas
Final Stage 3
December 9, 2013
41. Review quiz and add more information to the KWL chart.
42. PBE #2: Perspective: What are the different points of view causing the Civil War?
43. Review and revisit the areas that students are confused about based off of exit slips.
44. Introduce through lecture the different pieces of legislation that contributed to the
buildup of the tensions causing the Civil War: The Constitution, The Missouri
Compromise, The Compromise of 1850, and The Kansas-Nebraska Act. Also introduce
the different events that contributed to the tensions: Nat Turners revolt, John Browns
Raid, and Harriet Tubman/Underground Railroad.
45. Split students into 4 groups. Each group will have a different piece of legislation to
research. Each group will research their specific piece of legislation. The group will
make a poster about what they discovered and present it to the class. On the poster, the
groups must include the piece of legislation affected adding a free state vs. a slave state
and how it added toward the tension between the North and the South. Students should
also include why the legislation did not work/what the problems were with the piece of
legislation. (Differentiation: Process and Content)
46. The students will make a hide-and-show learning tool for the pieces of legislation.
(Differentiation: Process).
47. Students will watch this short video about John Brown and Bleeding Kansas:
http://www.history.com/topics/bleeding-kansas/videos#civil-wars-greatest-myth
48. Students will do a think-pair-share to discuss the main event that happened in the video.
49. Have a discussion/lecture about John Brown, Bleeding Kansas, and The Kansas-
Nebraska Act.
50. Go over PowerPoint about John Brown:
http://www.civilwar.org/education/teachers/curriculum/civil-war-
curriculum/elementary/lesson-plans-elementary.html
51. Students will watch this short video about Nat Turner:
http://www.history.com/topics/nat-turner/videos#nat-turners-rebellion
52. Have students do a think-pair-share to discuss the main event that happened in the video.
53. Have a discussion/lecture about Nat Turner and the affects that his raid had on slave laws
and slave conditions.
54. Students will watch this short video about Harriet Tubman and the Underground
Railroad: http://www.history.com/topics/nat-turner/videos#harriet-tubman-and-the-
underground-railroad
55. Students will do a think-pair-share to discuss the main ideas/events that happened in the
video.
56. Have a collection of short books about Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad.
Students will be in groups. Each group will have a book about Harriet Tubman or the
Underground Railroad. The group will read the book together, and then have a
discussion about what was in the book. Students will become an expert about the book
they read, and the groups will be split up. Each new group will have a member from each
Jennifer Thomas
Final Stage 3
December 9, 2013
of the old groups. Each group member will take a turn to discuss what they learned with
their old group.
57. Students will have their last menu time. Students will turn in their learning menus after
they are done.
58. Students will make a timeline of decisive events that led to the Civil War.
(Differentiation: Process)
59. Review the pieces of legislation: students will pair up and get a bag of facts. They will
sort the facts to each particular pieces of legislation. Students will also get a bag of facts
for Nat Turn, John Brown, and Harriet Tubman/Underground Railroad. The students will
sort these into the proper categories.
60. Review of the legislation, people, and events with Jeopardy.
61. Students will take a quiz comparing/contrasting the different pieces of legislation and
how they contributed to the tension.
62. Review quiz and add more information to the KWL chart.
63. PBE #3: Empathy: What did it feel like to be a U.S. citizen during the Civil War?
64. Review the KWL chart. See if the students have any more information to add to the
KWL chart. Have students look back through their notes, learning tools, and other
materials they have created throughout the course of the unit. Make sure all of the Ws
have been answered.
65. The students will get together in groups of 3-4 students. Students will discuss 4-5 main
things that they took away from the unit. Ask each group what they talked about.
66. Revisit all of the essential questions and understandings. Ask students why they think it
is important to truly understand the information we talked about and learned about in the
unit. Ask the students to write a letter to themselves about what they learned. Students
will reflect on the information that they have learned throughout the unit, and they will
self-assess themselves as a learner. Ask them what they liked about the unit and what
they didnt like about the unit.