Title: From your perspective, what was the most

significant effect of WE that still has ramifications for

today?
Grade: 8th Grade
Names: Ashlyn, Jenny, and Ryan
Overall Goal:
Create an engaging, interactive experience for students to grasp a full understanding on the
effects of the Westward Expansion for both the American’s point of view and the Native
American’s point of view. We start by presenting the students with various scenarios about the
topic at hand, at which they must role play through the scene and act out the designated events
from the assigned point of view. The students will be assigned to act out the roles of either the
Americans or the Native Americans during the time of Westward Expansion. Students will learn to
understand the motives, causes, and effects for each side before immersing themselves in a
more in-depth fashion through the role play. Each side deliberates between one another using
arguments and facts they are accurate to historical records and research completed on
Westward Expansion. We grade not only on performance and accuracy, but also on participation.
The team as a whole is graded based on how well they were able to defend their side, but
individual participation is taken into account. This whole lesson is meant to not only be a fun,
engaging way to learn about our country’s history, but it will also teach students verbal
communication skills, team collaboration skills, good research habits for information literacy, and
more practice on how to present an argument and defend a certain position even if it strays from
one’s personal beliefs. This will ultimately help make these students more well-rounded
individuals.

Standards Learning Objective Assessment

USH.2.4 Explain how the lives Students will be able to understand

of American Indians changed how American Indians lives changed
with the development of the due to the development of the West.
West. (Government, Individuals,
Society, and Culture)

Key Terms & Definitions:

● Westward Expansion: The process of the Americans moving westward to claim more
land for their people to settle in order to thrive and build upon.
● Louisiana Purchase: a treaty signed with France in 1803 by which the U.S. purchased
for$15,000,000 the land extending from the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains and
from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico.
 ● Manifest Destiny: the 19th-century doctrine or belief that the expansion of the US
throughout the American continents was both justified and inevitable.
● Native American: A member of any of the indigenous peoples of the western
hemisphere; especially : a Native American of North America and especially the U.S.
● Independence: The quality or state of being independent

Lesson Introduction (Hook, Grabber):

To start, we will start by pushing the desks to the side, making the students feel the feeling of
“invasion of space”, and then later describe that the feeling that they felt when we pushed their
desks is only a small visual and internal representation of how the Native Americans felt during
the Westward Expansion. To begin the lesson, our group will We will start by presenting the
students with certain scenarios, in which they will act out though a skit. We will put the students
in groups, and depending on the scenario given, they will eventually act out the roles themselves.
The Americans want land to build and thrive upon; the Native Americans are trying to protect the
lands they once occupied and survive. The students will then be assigned a position on one or
two slide.

An explanation for how you plan on getting your students engaged and excited. This
introduction should take into consideration students’ prior knowledge. In other words, you
should consider the standards from their previous grades to see what they already know. This
section should also include links to the resources you are planning on using as you describe
them. The main focus of this section is to discuss how you will get students engaged and why
you believe the activities you’ve chosen will get the students engaged.

Lesson Main:
After getting acclimated to role-playing a side, the students will be assigned into two groups, one
side tasked with defending the position of the settlers expanding to the west for the prosperity of
the U.S.A., and the other defending the side of the Native Americans who were forced out of their
home and lost almost all of their land as a result of the westward expansion. Students will be
given two days of in class time to get together with their group and research their side using
credible internet sources and sources available in the library. Students will be required to keep
list of their sources for evaluation by the teacher after the lesson. After that, the students will
have one day to get with their group and discuss how they are going to defend their side, what
each student will talk about, and how they will try to counter any questions the other side may
have. Each student will be required to speak during the debate at least twice, but other than that
the students will be graded as a team and then evaluated for their individual efforts by their
group members. After they have prepared their defenses, the next day will be used solely for the
debate. The teacher will prepare a few guiding questions in case the debate hits a lull, but other
than that they are only there to moderate and make sure all students are participating. Students
will each get 20 minutes to defend their side and answer any questions the other side have, then
the final 10 minutes will be use to bring the class together as a whole to try and answer the
question “How could westward expansion been completed in a way that was less harming to
both settlers and Native Americans?” The students will use the research they had found for their
side to now try and help the other side come to a solution for how this important event in U.S.
history could have been done in a less destructive way. If the students are having a tough time
with this part, it may be easier to assign a reflection due the next day answering this question.

Lesson Ending:

This section should describe how you plan on wrapping up your lesson, and bringing it to a close.
This could include a final, summative assessment as well.

Assessment Rubric:
Great Average Poor

Indicator Description Description Description

Team Student contributed a fair Student contributed less Student contributed little
collaboration amount of work for their team’s than other team members or nothing to their team’s
defense and talked a fair to the defense and talked defense and did not talk
(based on peer amount during the debate only a few times in the during the debate
evaluation) debate

Defense Team provided factual Team provided evidence, Team provided little to no
evaluation evidence to support ideas and but were not clear and evidence and did not
defended it in a clear and points were not defended defend it in a clear or
meaningful way strongly meaningful way

Source Team used credible sources for Team used some credible Team used unreliable
evaluation their research sources for their research sources or did not use
sources for their research

Participation Student said meaningful Student said meaningful Student did not say any
statements or asked genuine statements or asked meaningful statements or
questions at least twice during genuine questions only ask genuine questions
the debate once during the debate during the debate

Resources / Artifacts:
These should link to things you’ve actually created in support of the lesson. They should also be
reference above during the lesson (as shown above). Each team member should create one
artifact to support this lessons. Examples could include:
● Guided Research Packet
● Example presentation
● Webquest / Informational website
● Screencast
● Infographic
● Content presentation
● Informational Video
● Anything else that would help support the lesson

Differentiation:

1. Differentiation for ability levels:

This lesson can be easily adjusted to target a variety of age groups. It can also be customized to
fit different topics of argumentation. Any lesson that has to do with bringing in multiple points of
view that is to be understood by the students at hand can be used for an interactive, role-playing
activity such as this lesson. Therefore, this lesson can be used for a wide range and variety of
different levels of ability learners. Ultimately, this lesson will not only help student’s
understanding of a topic, but in turn will greatly improve any student’s presenting/communication
skills.

2. Differentiation for demographics

This lesson is open to any kind of student of any gender, race, culture, and/or sexual identity. In
fact, this lesson with its activities alone can help open students’ eyes to the points of views other
than their own. Students will be led to have a deeper understanding of other genders, races,
cultures, and more through a role play debate, depending on the specific topic being argued
between sides. The activities held within this lesson holds lots of opportunity to expose students
to views beyond their usual vision.

3. Differentiation for languages

The specific lesson we created is only in English; however, if in a setting such as a language
studies class like Spanish, German, French, etc., these activities would be a great opportunity for
students to practice their speaking skills in their specific course language. This lesson is all about
understanding the cause and effect of different points of view and communicating real opinions
held by real cultures in the past. An activity like this could be very well suited for other languages
as well.
 4. Differentiation for access & resources
If a textbook is available, I would encourage students to use its material as their main resource for
studying the point of view they will be arguing for. However, research can be done via computer
which will require internet connection and Wifi. That being said, if a student or classroom does
not have technology to their disposal, any form of text or historical non-fiction books could
provide the sources they need to understand. Technology would certainly help, but the
engagement and conversation does not take place in the form of technology itself necessarily.

Anticipated Difficulties:

Some difficulties a teacher could face would be controlling the discussion/debate so that it does
not get out of control and get off topic. It could also be difficult to have students role play
because they may feel uncomfortable in their role. The biggest difficulty that could be faced is
making sure that all of the students in each group are doing an even amount of work and
research for their team.