TEP 546 Gold Rush Unit
UNIT PLAN – Understanding by Design
Unit Cover Page
Name: Breanna Misiaita, Keri Weigand, and Sherelle McKenzie
Date: January 21, 2015
Unit Title: The California Gold Rush
Grade Level: 4th
Subject: History
Time Frame: 10 Days of instructions; Each lesson will take approximately 50 minutes.
Brief Summary of Unit (Including curricular context and unit goals):The purpose of this unit is for the students to be able to explain the economic, social, and political life of the people in California during the Gold Rush. Students will be able to compare how and why people traveled to California and the routes they chose. Students will learn that men are not the only ones who were involved but that women and different ethnic groups played a huge role. Thanks to the Gold Rush, California’s economy was developing at a rapid pace.
STAGE 1 – DESIRED RESULTS
COMMON CORE State Standard(s)4.3 Students explain the economic, social, and political life in California from the establishment of the Bear Flag Republic through the Mexican-American War, the Gold Rush, and the granting of statehood.
2. Compare how and why people traveled to California and the routes they traveled (e.g., James Beckwourth, John Bidwell, John C. Fremont, Pio Pico).
3. Analyze the effects of the Gold Rush on settlements, daily life, politics, and the physical environment (e.g., using biographies of John Sutter, Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo, Louise Clapp).
4. Study the lives of women who helped build early California (e.g., Biddy Mason).
4.4 Students explain how California became an agricultural and industrial power,
tracing the transformation of the California economy and its political and cultural
development since the 1850s.
2. Explain how the Gold Rush transformed the economy of California, including the
types of products produced and consumed, changes in towns (e.g., Sacramento, San Francisco), and economic conflicts between diverse groups of people.
3. Discuss immigration and migration to California between 1850 and 1900, including the diverse composition of those who came; the countries of origin and their relative locations; and conflicts and accords among the diverse groups (e.g., the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act).
Big Ideas –
● Without the Gold Rush, California may not have grown into the agricultural and industrial power that it did after the 1850s.● The Gold Rush brought American, African American, Chinese, and Latinos to California all to find gold and opportunity for a better life. This brought many people from different backgrounds into one territory.
● California had not yet been a state when the Gold Rush happened. However, with the drastic increase in population and the changing demographics of the state, California needed to be politically settled to keep peace in the new territory.
● The need to get gold faster led to the expansion of companies creating new tools to aide in their extraction. Although these new tools made getting gold easier, they led to the destruction of the physical environment.
Essential Questions --
1. What was life like for Californians during the Gold Rush?
2. What effect did the Gold Rush have on the economic, political, and social life of Californians?
Vocabulary -- Students will know:
immigrants, ethnic groups, gold pan, rocker, long tom, stake, forty-niner, Alta California, sluice box, hydraulic mining, agriculture, gold dust, ounces
Processes & Skills -- Students will be able to:
● Organize their research and ideas with a graphic organizer for the purpose of essay writing
● Organize their research with a graphic organizer for the purpose of seeing effects.
● Successfully research through navigating websites approved by the teacher
● Work as a team - with every student having a significant role - to perform a presentation reflecting accurate research and creativity
STAGE 2 – ASSESSMENT EVIDENCE
Performance Task -- Goal, Role, Audience, Situation, Product/Performance, Standards/Criteria for SuccessG : Students (groups of 4-5) will take on the role of a specific person or group of people (merchants, farmers, miners, bankers, newspapers, doctors, etc) that were involved in the Gold Rush, research role, and perform a presentation to convince the class their role was the most or at least on of the important roles in the Gold Rush. Students will understand that history is comprehensive and there is not one role that the unfolding of history takes many people and actions.
R : Students (group of 4-5) take on the role of a historical figure/people group in the Gold Rush and research the different aspects of impact that person had on the Gold Rush. Each person in the group must have a role and speaking part. There must be at least three visuals/props (poster, costume, video, etc). They must convince their audience (classmates) their role was essential to the Gold Rush.
A : The Audience consists of the teacher and the class. Students from other groups and the teacher are the evaluators. After all of the presentations are completed, the class will vote on the order of importance based on presentation of roles in the Gold Rush. The group that wins first place earns an extra five points for their grade. Each group will be formally evaluated by the class on a rubric evaluation form. The teacher will add up all of the points, including his/her own allotted points and average the scores - that will be the evaluated groups grade.
S : Engaging Scenario: “Now that the Gold Rush is over, the President would like to thank the group/person who contributed most positively to the Gold Rush. However, he and his cabinet are having difficulty selecting the person who should be rewarded for their work. Your job is to select the group/person you think is most important and create a presentation for the President and his cabinet. Make sure the information you give is accurate. Be creative! You want your presentation to stand out. Use at least 3 visuals (poster, video, music with hand motions, costume, etc). Many people will be presenting to the President. Also, be mindful of his time, your maximum presentation time is 12 minutes.”
P : Students (groups of 4-5) will perform a 12 minute maximum presentation in front of the class in an effort to convince the teacher and class that their role was of the utmost importance to the Gold Rush. The audience is allowed to ask three questions at the end of the performance. After each performance, the audience will complete an evaluation form and pass it to the teacher.
S: Teacher and the students will use the following rubric to assess each group. (courtesy of Steve Gandy)
total points: _____
Other Evidence (journal prompts, observations, work samples, tests, quizzes, etc.)
Other evidence of learning that will be collected/monitored are the students journal entries, worksheets, drawings, organizers. Students will also be observed informally.
Student Self-Assessment (Students assess own knowledge level of content)
Students are daily assessed based on their writings in their Social Studies Notebooks and various attached assessments. Students receive constant feedback on graded work.
Stage 3 – Learning Plan
Day 1: Discovery of GoldWhere? Why? What?
● Subject and Topic: Social Studies, Gold Rush: Discovery of Gold
● Student Learning Goals:
○ Students will identify that the single most important impact on California’s population growth in the 1850s was because of the Gold Rush.
○ Students will identify and list important dates of the Gold Rush such as discovery of Gold.
● Social Studies Standards: 4.3 Students explain the economic, social, and political life in California from the establishment of the Bear Flag Republic through the Mexican-American War, the Gold Rush, and the granting of statehood.
○ Compare how and why people traveled to California and the routes they traveled (e.g., James Beckwourth, John Bidwell, John C. Fremont, Pio Pico).
Hook
● Students will answer the following prompt quick-write style:
“Imagine that you are playing at a park with some friends. You sit down in the grass to rest for a bit. You begin playing and digging in the grass when suddenly you pull out a wad of $100 bills! You continue to dig and realize there are several of these wads of cash. Write a first-person perspective story of this event.” (5-7 minutes)
● Students will share their writing with their desk partner. (5 minutes)
● I will ask students what historical event they think this activity is like. If no students can guess the California Gold Rush, I will tell them.
● We will then construct a KWL chart, filling in only the K and W sections of the chart. I will show students our Essential Questions for the unit, explaining to them that everything we learn about the Gold Rush will help us answer those questions. (15-20 minutes)
Explore & Experience
● I will tell students that today we are going to learn about the discovery of Gold and when it happened. They will create a note-page in their Social Studies Notebooks titled Gold Rush Discovery and take notes on important facts based on the mini-lecture. I will then pull up this link, from the Museum of California website, on the Screen Projector. I will not read the website word for word, but instead use the pictures and audio from the Discovery and First Finds tabs of the site. In addition, I will randomly select students by pulling popsicle sticks to read the paragraphs on the First Finds page.
● After reading each page, I will allot time for students to go back and read the page on their own and write down their important notes. However, I will model to students how to take notes (although they have had sufficient practice in previous units) through a Think-Aloud and pointing students back to essential questions and the KWL chart which are visibly posted on the Social Studies Wall. (30 mins)
Rethink, Revise, Refine
● Students have time to reflect following each reading on the interactive website that serves as our interactive lecture for the day. They also have the opportunity to evaluate their notes they desire to take from each page by seeing if it answers the essential questions or anything we wanted to learn on the KWL chart.
● Since this is an introduction day, the lesson serves to get out the essential information and context. Student understanding will be checked tomorrow in the following lesson.
Evaluate
● Students will be evaluated in this lesson based on a completion/incomplete of their Warm-Up/Freewrite activity and their note-taking.
● Their notes that they take on the lecture will be shared in the following lesson.
Tailored
● Students are strategically seated in their table groups and partners. They are heterogeneously grouped according to academic performance, gender (when possible considering the uneven split of boys/girls), race, and social awareness/comfort. Students who tend to be a distraction to the class are seated with model students in order to keep themselves and the rest of the class on-task.
Organized
● This lesson connects to previous lessons because it follows consecutively the history of California, which is the focus of history in the 4th grade. It is a unit that follows the unit on Native Americans and Missions (when California was in possession of Spain and Mexico). Now, California is in possession of the United States.
● We will create a KWL chart and introduce the essential questions so that students will be constantly held accountable to address how the lesson connects to the KWL chart and the Essential Questions.
● This lesson ends with students taking their notes so that the next lesson can begin with students sharing and comparing the notes that they took.
Day 2: Who Came? How?
Where? What? Why?
● Subject and Topic: Social Studies, Gold Rush: Who came? How did people come to California for the Gold Rush?
● Student Learning Goals:
○ Students will name the different routes used by travelers to come to California for the gold rush.
○ Students will understand the hardships harsh conditions of travel routes imposed on the forty-niners.
○ Students will research and identify the ethnic groups of people who came to California for gold. **(Will need Chromebooks or Computer Lab for this activity)**
● Standards: (Social Studies)
○ 4.3 Students explain the economic, social, and political life in California from the establishment of the Bear Flag Republic through the Mexican-American War, the Gold Rush, and the granting of statehood.
■ Compare how and why people traveled to California and the routes they traveled (e.g., James Beckwourth, John Bidwell, John C. Fremont, Pio Pico).
(Visual Art)
● 3.0 HISTORICAL AND CULTURAL CONTEXT
○ Understanding the Historical Contributions and Cultural Dimensions of the Visual Arts: Students analyze the role and development of the visual arts in past and present cultures throughout the world, noting human diversity as it relates to the visual arts and artists.
○ Role and Development of the Visual Arts
■ 3.1 Describe how art plays a role in reflecting life (e.g., in photography, quilts, architecture).
Hook
● Students will respond to the following prompt in a five minute quickwrite: Pick any of the human characters in the photo. Pretend you are one of them and write what that character might be thinking on this journey to California for the Gold Rush. Be prepared to explain your answer using evidence from the painting (5 minutes)
Explore & Experience
● I will show the various routes people used to get to California using this interactive map and the following image:
● Students will receive a map without the routes and must draw the routes onto their map and glue into their Social Studies Notebooks.
● I will review with students the dangers and struggles faced by many who traveled to California and refer back to the “Overland” piece of art used in the Hook Section (10-15 minutes).