PBLQ (Project Based Learning Question)

Who ARE You????

Westward Expansion

My person is ______

PBLQ (Project Based Learning Question)

Why Did I Go West and what was it like IRL to live in the West? (Thesis)

Design your own cover:

L A R G E

I

R

L

Name ______Block ______

SCORE / DESCRIPTION
CATEGORY 4 / ·  The student completes all important components of the task and communicates ideas clearly.
·  The student demonstrates in-depth understanding of the relevant concepts and/or process.
·  Where appropriate, the student offers insightful interpretations or extensions (generalizations, applications, analogies).
CATEGORY 3 / ·  The student completes most important components of the task and communicates clearly.
·  The student demonstrates understanding of major concepts even though he/she overlooks or misunderstands some less important ideas or details.
CATEGORY 2 / ·  The student completes some important components of the task and communicates those clearly.
·  The student demonstrates that there are gaps in his/her understanding.
CATEGORY 1 / ·  The student shows minimal or basic understanding.
·  The student addresses only a small portion of the required task(s).
CATEGORY 0 / ·  Responses and work completed are incorrect.
BLANK / ·  No response.

Westward Expansion Who Packet SCORING RUBRIC

Self Check Score ______

or

Group check Score______

Teacher Check Score ______

Reshaping of America: 1865 to 1917

Standard: Students will be able to explain how geography and new technologies sparked growth and movement westward in the latter half of the 19th century

Learning Progression
Advanced
Proficient / I can give examples of how new technologies continue to change how people live
Proficient / I can explain how new technologies changed the way people adapt to the geographic landscape
Intermediate / I can explain how technology helped to overcome geographic barriers to expansion
Beginning / I can identify the main physical features of the western United States

Reshaping of America: 1865-1917

Standard: Students will be able to describe the impact of westward expansion on American Indians (USII. 4a)

Learning Progression
Advanced
Proficient / I can give examples of other conflicts that arise due to different perspectives (in the past,
present or in their lives)
Proficient / I can explain what happens when two cultures have a different perspective on land ownership and use
Intermediate / I can indicate on a map where Americans Indians groups were located in the western region
of the United States and the locations where pioneers wanted to settle
Beginning / I can describe the first inhabitants of the western region of the United States
NAME / WILL GO
ü / WILL STAY
ü / REASON WHY/WHY NOT
Nathan Hammond
John and Martha Lytle
Matthew and Patience Reynolds
John and Sarah Barfield
Benjamin and Selinda Prim
Otto and Anna Shippen
Azariah and Faith Davis
Richard and Jean St. Clair
Jonas Dahl

Activity #1 Who will go? Creating a Profile

What do all the people going WEST have in common?

1.

2.

3.

4.

Activity #2 Pushed or Pulled???

Economic Opportunity / Health
Social / Freedom
Political / Adventure
Social
PULL (Positive in West pulls you to the WEST)
PUSH (Negative in East pushes you out of the EAST)

1

Activity #3 Act it OUT IRL

Pick a Project Story STARTER

·  You are moving westward because of the Homestead Act. You are able to buy land cheaply in the West. 160 acres for $18.00. You have never had a chance to own your own property before. You move West and start a wheat farm because there is not a lot of rain on the Great Plains.

·  You are moving westward because you want to be a farmer. The Great Plains used to be impossible to farm, but new technology has made it easier to farm such as the steel plow and barbed wire. You will be able to sell your crops easily because of the new transcontinental railroad.

·  You are a women who moves west with her husband who is a farmer or rancher. You discover that you have a very difficult job as wife and mother in the west. You have many jobs and not enough time. Your jobs include making clothing, quilts, soap, candles, and other goods by hand. You also have to cook and preserve food for the winter, educate the children, take care of the sick and injured, help with planting and harvesting, and help to build the sod houses.

·  You are moving westward because you want to be a cattle or a horse rancher in Texas. The Great Plains used to be impossible due to low rainfall, but many have discovered that the open grasslands are great to raise cattle and or horses. You can sell your horses and or cows to people in the West, such as the US army who is battling Native Americans. However, the railroad has made it easier for you to send your cattle to the meat packing factories in Chicago where you can make $40 per cow instead of $4.oo and or to transport your horses to sell in other big cities.

·  You are moving westward to get rich. You have heard a lot of people talking about finding gold in California. You first pan for gold near Sutter’s Mill, but find nothing. Next, you become a miner for one of the companies looking for gold; it is a very dangerous job as you sometimes use dynamite to blast a deeper mine into the mountain side.

·  You are an African American Exo-duster. You used to be a slave before the Civil War. If you stay in the South, you will not be able to own land or have a lot of freedom. You are a sharecropper and soon will be deeply in debt and an economic slave. You want to move westward before this happens as you want more freedom and a chance to have the rights guaranteed to you in the 14th and 15th Amendments. You also will be able to own your own land in the West, which is something you would not be able to do in the South.

·  You are a newly arrived immigrant to American from Northern Europe. You are Irish. You hear about a job out West building the transcontinental railroad. You move West and face lot of discrimination at your new job, building the railroad from the East to the West. You work for the Union Pacific Railroad.

·  You are a newly arrived immigrant to American from China. You come first to California and try your hand at gold mining, but fail and have trouble finding a job. You then hear about a job building the transcontinental railroad. You become a railroad builder and face a lot of danger and discrimination at your new job, building the railroad. Your job is really dangerous as you are building from West to East through the Rocky Mountains and the high Sierra Mountains. Sometimes you only go 8 inches a day. You work for the Central Pacific Railroad Company.

·  You are a newly arrived immigrant to America from Northern Europe. You are Italian. You were a gun maker at home and hear that your skill was needed in the West. You move west and open a store in a boom town and are very successful.

·  You are a newly arrived immigrant to America from Eastern Europe. You are Russian. You were a shopkeeper at home and hear that your skill was needed in the West. You move west and open a store in a mining boom town. You sell shovels, clothing, food and mining supplies. You are very successful.

·  You are the second son of a farmer in the South. There is not much opportunity for you as your older brother will get the farm from your parents. You are looking for adventure and are thinking that riding a horse and rounding up cattle and or horse will be a better life for you. You move west and become a cowboy and protector of cattle or horses.

·  You are a man from New York, but did not achieve the success you were hoping for working in a bank. You travel West to work in a bank in a small town. It is robbed and the bank robbers take you to carry the bag of money. You think that this is it for you, but instead they ask you to join their gang. You are now a cowboy outlaw.

·  You are a former confederate cavalry soldier and your family farm has been destroyed. You see no point in becoming a farmer again. You instead decide to join the army in the West. There you encounter Native Americans. You are responsible for moving them off their land and onto reservations. The event that hits you the hardest physically and emotionally is the Battle of Wounded Knee.

·  You are a former Union soldier and you miss the excitement of war. You have read many dime store novels about the great American West. You think it will be exciting and challenging and you are up for the adventure. You decide to become a buffalo hunter. Hunting buffalo and selling their hides can make you lots of money. Every once in a while you think, I wonder how this impacts Native Americans?

·  You are a Native American who has been taken away from your family and sent further West to attend a boarding school. There you find out the white man wants you to be exactly like them. The fancy name for this is assimilation. You learn their language, wear their clothes and cut your hair. You look and talk like them, but never feel as if you are one of them. You miss your family.

·  You are a young Native American brave and you hear your chief say this: “I am tired of fighting. Our chiefs are killed… The little children are freezing to death. My people, some of them, have run away to the hills, and have no blankets, no food… I want to have time to look for my children, and see how many of them I can find… My heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands I will fight no more forever.”

-Chief Joseph, 1877

Activity #4 IRL WEST Story Project Research:

Using your STORY STARTER, research the following web sites and in class resources to gather your information.

Group members divide sources.

Create a google document with your information to use on your IRL West Story Project Activities #6-13.

All should view: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/general-article/west-quiz/

1.  https://familysearch.org/blog/en/pioneers-westward-expansion

2.  http://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/people/

3.  http://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/

4.  http://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/places/

5.  http://www.kidinfo.com/american_history/pioneers.html

6.  http://www.ducksters.com/history/westward_expansion/daily_life_on_the_frontier.php

7.  http://www.kidinfo.com/american_history/pioneers.html

8.  http://www.legendsofamerica.com/na-nativeamericans.html

9.  http://www.ushistory.org/us/21a.asp

10.  http://www.historynet.com/westward-expansion#articles

11.  http://picturethis.museumca.org/timeline/gold-rush-1848-1860/mining-techniques/info

12.  http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/tcrr/

13.  http://loc.gov/teachers/classroommaterials/presentationsandactivities/presentations/timeline/riseind/railroad/trans.html

14.  http://railroad.lindahall.org/essays/brief-history.html

15.  http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/general-article/tcrr-uprr/

16.  In class resource: Folders

17.  In class resource: Two textbooks

18.  Safari Videos: Log in- same as school computer

My teacher has seen my RESEARCH.

Activity #5 IRL WEST Story Project AVATAR/Character:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HikMKdl6Rnc

Little House Family

Are you a family? If you are not a family, you are part of the same group or neighbors.

What is your family name? What are the names of the members of your family?

If you are a group or neighbors, what are your names?

Create your AVATAR or “Character” for your IRL WEST STORY

My “Who” Name is ______

I am Male or Female ______

I am ______years old.

Here is how I describe my “Who” self in 10-20 sentence

West IRL STORY Project: Activities #6-13 #14 Bonus ESSAY

Activity #6 Look at me living on the Great Plains experiencing FLED GEOGRAPHY! (USII.2a)

Directions: Create a picture story about life on the Great Plains as your “Who” Person Include 6 FLED GEOGRAPHY factual details of how Geography affected you IRL. Each picture must have a sentence caption

Activity #7 Causes of Westward Expansion (USII.4a)

Activity #9 Life on the Great Plains (USII.2a)

LP3: I can explain how new technologies changed the way people could use the geographic landscape to live.

Directions: New technologies helped settlers adapt to the geography of the WEST. Explain how each invention helped your “Who” AVATAR IRL or you saw it used and helping another AVATAR.

Inventions /
Agricultural practices / Describe it
Or
Draw it / Who Used it? / IRL STORY How did the invention help you/them?
Barbed wire (1870s)
Steel plows (1840s)
Dry farming (1880s)
Sod houses (1860s)
Beef cattle raising (1860s)
Wheat farming (1830s, 1880s)
Windmills (1880s)
Railroads (1860s)

Activity #10 Pros and Cons of being “WHO” AVATAR (USII.4a)

Directions: Draw your “Who” AVATAR and put two tools that you used in your hands, label them. Complete the PRO/CON chart below. Write three detailed and complete sentences for PRO and three detailed and complete sentences for CON.

W

PROs about being______(positive)
WHY Positive Explain for each PRO. / CONs about being ______(negative) WHY Negative Explain for each CON.
1.What is positive about my life is
This is good for me because
2.
3. / 1.What is negative about my life is
This is bad for me because
2.
3.

1

Activity #11 Jigsaw Who are They? (USII.4a)

Directions: Summarize what you learned about each group. Write TWO detailed sentences for your WHO AVATAR and copy the other AVATAR sentences. .