Unit Planning Matrix – Example 1 (U.S. History)

Big Ideas / Skills and Standards / Student and Family Knowledge / Assessment (Formative and Summative) / Instructional Strategies or Practices / Resources and Materials
What does it take for a nation to recover from a Civil War, and to prevent a future Civil War?
Did Reconstruction ever have a chance to succeed?
Who blew the nation’s Reconstruction efforts—the north or the south?
Why are civil rights and political power necessary for all citizens in a democratic republic?
Can diversity exist without racism or prejudice?
Were African Americans better off because of Reconstruction?
Who is responsible for repairing, or reconstructing, the social, economic, and political systems of the losing side in a War? What about a Civil War? Why?
How would life be different today if the south was not restored to the Union?
THEMES:
Diversity
Oppression
Freedom
Civil Rights
Prejudice & Racism
Political Power
Social Change
Authority & Control / CONTENT STANDARD 11.1.4 Examine the effects of the Civil War and Reconstruction
TSWBAT:
Classify the problems that faced the nation and the south at the end of the Civil War in terms of political, economic, or social.
Evaluate Congress’s goals for Reconstruction and their results (reunify the nation, rebuild the south, elevate the status of African Americans).
Compare and contrast the role of the federal government before and after Reconstruction.
Trace events throughout US history that affected citizenship and suffrage for African Americans; build a historical background for understanding the social change that Reconstruction brought.
Analyze views of how to effect political and social change for African Americans.
Compare and contrast the conditions for African Americans before and after the passage of the Reconstruction Amendments.
Assess the problems that freedmen faced during Reconstruction and whether their freedom was a reality or merely existed on paper.
Develop a hypothesis for why Reconstruction failed to elevate the status of African Americans in terms of citizenship, civil rights, and political power. / KWL charts about Reconstruction to diagnose what students already know about Reconstruction (prior knowledge), and what they want to know
Activity where students contemplate the problems facing the Confederate states at the end of the Civil War. This targets a student’s family knowledge of the after- effects of war, especially if his or her family has experienced or participated in the horrors of war firsthand.
Group activity where students formulate their own plans for Reconstruction as if they were members of the US Gov’t. This activity forces students to rely on problem solving skills in a collaborative effort, and begin to think about their own personal values related to themes of authority and control, diversity and racism, and social change and civil rights.
The following two activities tap into students’ family knowledge of racism and/or civil rights. Some students may have relatives who experienced or were impacted by these events firsthand:
(1) Timeline activity to tap into students’ prior knowledge of major events throughout US history that impacted citizenship and suffrage rights for African Americans.
(2) Poster and presentation activity that asks students to consider themselves as targets of racism and prejudice as well as economic dependency. For some students, this may be a current reality. These students may offer important stories of resiliency and survival. / Formative:
Pop quiz 1: What problems faced the Confederate states at the end of the Civil War? This checks for retention of info from last class; used as an opener.
Pop quiz 2: What were the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments? These are the fundamental laws behind all Reconstruction policy.
Products of activities: timelines, posters, presentation, graphic organizers, student plans for Reconstruction, list of Confederate problems, T-charts
Quick-write 1: Did Reconstruction ever have a real chance for success?
This checks to see if students are beginning to form connections between instruction, standards, and bid ideas.
Quick-write 2: Why are civil rights & political power necessary for all citizens in a democratic republic?
Informal question and answer periods, or class discussions accompanying mini-lectures throughout unit.
Summative:
Exam: 5 short response questions and 1 essay. Why was Reconstruction a failure? Use what you have learned about relevant historical events to support your arguments.
KWL: students self-assess what they have learned. / Lesson one:
(1) KWL charts.
(2) Activity where students list the problems facing the Confederate states at the end of the Civil War and prior to Reconstruction.
(3) Group activity
where students formulate their own plans for Reconstruction as if they were members of the US Gov’t. These plans will be compared with actual Reconstruction policy as it is covered later in the unit.
Lesson two:
(1) Pop quiz #1.
(2) Mini-lecture on Reconstruction policy.
(3) Students complete graphic organizers on the goals, methods, and results of Reconstruction policy.
Lesson three:
(1) Pop quiz #2.
(2) Students create a timeline tracing significant historical events that impacted citizenship and suffrage rights for African Americans.
(3) Class discussion on the major events included on student timelines.
Lesson four:
(1) Poster and presentation activity on the events that led to the failure of Reconstruction to elevate the status of African Americans in terms of citizenship, civil rights, and political power. Each group will be assigned a historical event and asked to illustrate the significance of that event on a poster, and to teach that event to the class in the form of a group presentation.
(2) Class question and answer period to clarify or review information and concepts.
(3) Quick-write #1.
Lesson five:
(1) Mini-lecture on the end of Reconstruction.
(2) Students will create a T-chart with Congress’s goals for Reconstruction on the left, and why those goals were or were not achieved on the right.
(3) Quick-write #2.
Lesson six:
EXAM / Overhead & Transparencies
U.S. History Textbooks
Primary Documents: writings from Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois, two African American scholars and early civil rights advocates. These writings will be assigned for homework before lesson four.
Notebook Paper &
Writing Utensils
Butcher Paper &
Markers
Guiding questions for the group activity in lesson one. These guiding questions will help students generate several goals for their own Reconstruction plans, and develop methods for achieving these goals.
Study guide for final summative exam. This will contain several study questions for the essay portion as well as a comprehensive list of the historical figures or events that may end up on the short response section of the exam.

1

Unit Planning Matrix Example 1 (U.S. History)

Rationale

According to Wiggins, there are specific components fundamental to high-quality essential questions, which serve as overarching themes to a unit of curriculum. Searching for the big ideas within my U.S. history unit covering the Reconstruction period following the Civil War, I was able to formulate a list of what I felt were the main themes: social change, diversity, oppression, freedom, civil rights, prejudice and racism, authority and control, and political power. From this list, I devised eight essential questions that I feel embrace the crux of Wiggins’ criteria because they appeal to higher-order thinking, provoke and sustain human interest, and have no one obvious right answer.

While the significance of my essential questions can be found in the period of Reconstruction, it is also evident in other areas of life. For adolescents struggling with identity development and forming a sense of belonging, learning about the nature of the world they live in can be a necessary precursor to figuring out how and where they fit in. Issues related to race, authority, and civil rights are still relevant to this struggle today. In addition, these issues force us to confront and contemplate tough questions that concern the purposes of racism and prejudice, methods for enacting social change, and the federal government’s role in setting the agenda for American society—all of which have roots in the Reconstruction period of U.S. history. Moreover, Reconstruction asks students to consider a very important but often overlooked aspect of history—the aftermath of war. Currently, we are witnessing the aftermath of the war in Iraq and realizing that this period might be, in many respects, more crucial the actual war itself. This idea naturally raises the essential question of what happens when an effort to rebuild the social, economic, and political systems of a territory in the aftermath of a war fails to accomplish one or more of its goals. Thus, my essential questions sustain interest and provoke further thought because they are controversial, they connect to current events, they concern issues relevant to teenage identity development, and at the same time, they go to the heart of the discipline of history.

Beverly Falk argues that effective standards can be used to judge performance, design assessment tools, and design curriculum, but that standards are only effective when they encourage students to pose and solve problems that deal with issues of significance. Unfortunately, standards-based reform measures often fall victim to narrowing curriculum and reducing instruction to test prepping. In my unit planning matrix, I tried to develop standards that adhere to the California content standards, but also provided multiple opportunities for students to use higher-order thinking, solve problems, or apply their knowledge to real-world situations. I feel that this approach coincides with Scott Thompson’s call for an authentic standards-based reform that focuses on high-quality teaching and learning, not on test scores.

There are eight explicitly stated skills and standards listed on my unit planning matrix. Seven out of the eight utilize what Howard Bloom has described as higher-order thinking skills, falling under the categories of evaluation, synthesis, or analysis. One standard, for example, asks students to trace the major events throughout U.S. history that have affected citizenship and suffrage for African Americans, and build a historical background for the social change caused by Reconstruction. In other words, this standard asks students to create a new understanding—one that can be demonstrated both orally and in writing—through a synthesis of previous historical events.

The one standard that falls short of the higher-thinking label is the standard that asks students to classify the problems that faced the nation and the south at the end of the Civil War in terms of political, economic, or social problems. Although this is an application-based standard according to Bloom’s Taxonomy, I believe it is necessary because students need to learn about the problems that faced the nation after the Civil War before they can begin to evaluate Congress’s plans to address these problems. Furthermore, this standard links to the essential question that asks who should be responsible for repairing the social, political, and economic systems of the losing side in a war. The fact that a northern dominated Congress had absolute control over Reconstruction was very controversial and raised concerns about the effectiveness of the government’s system of checks and balances.

The skills and standards on my unit planning matrix link to the essential questions because they provide real life information and historical examples that embody, or offer perspectives on larger themes. For example, one essential question asks if Reconstruction ever had a chance for success. To answer this question, a student must confront the long history of racism and prejudice toward African Americans; the problems that faced the nation, the south, and freedmen during Reconstruction; and whether Congress’s plan for Reconstruction proposed viable solutions to these problems. These standards also connect with the essential question that asks whether diversity can exist apart from racism and prejudice. America has always been a land of diverse peoples, and unfortunately, it has also been plagued by a history of racism and prejudice. Students are asked to contemplate if the two are necessarily linked, and of course, what can be done to promote the former while reducing the latter.

My standards rank high in utility, durability, and transferability because they connect so well with larger themes. Learning about history in general is vital for living life in the present. It enables us to learn from past mistakes, draw inspiration from historical figures who lived extraordinary lives or rose to meet extraordinary challenges, and speculate on the nature of human behavior. The learning gained by mastering these standards will be lifelong for those who share an interest in U.S. history, civil rights, or African American history. The impact of Reconstruction may not have been fully realized until the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, but the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments have enormous implications for life today in such areas as education, politics, and economics. The 14th Amendment is especially important because it hooks present day minorities and women into history. This helps promote the learning of the history of minority groups and women as well as historical events like the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s that were influenced by the Reconstruction period of the late 1860s and early 1870s.

One of the main goals of my unit is to provide students with contexts that make use of the resources and funds of knowledge inherent in their families and communities. There are several activities I will use to draw on the ideas, interests, and experiences of my students to connect them to the big ideas of my unit as well as real-world experiences.

I will first diagnose what my students know about Reconstruction, and what they would like to know about it with KWL charts. This allows students to exert some control over their education and helps develop a sense of personal investment in their learning. Moreover, it allows me as a teacher to adapt and adjust my curriculum to meet the needs and desires of the students, thereby becoming more efficient and effective as an educator.

Another activity I will utilize on the first instructional day in my unit is one that asks students to contemplate the problems facing the Confederate states at the end of the Civil War. This activity can target a student’s family knowledge of the after-effects of war, especially if his or her family has experienced or participated in the horrors of war firsthand.

A third activity in my unit calls for students to, in groups, formulate their own plans for Reconstruction as if they were members of the U.S. Government. The student plans are then compared with Congress’s plan for Reconstruction as more is learned about it later in the unit. This activity forces students to rely on problem solving skills in a collaborative effort, and begin to think about their own personal values related to themes of authority and control, diversity and racism, and social change and civil rights—after all, the social, political, and economic systems of the south were in disarray, the nation was split in two, and no one knew exactly what would become of the recently emancipated slaves.

The following two activities tap into students’ family knowledge of racism and/or civil rights. The first is an activity where students create a timeline tracing major events throughout U.S. history that impacted citizenship and suffrage rights for African Americans. Some students may have relatives who experienced or were impacted by these historical events firsthand. For most students, prior knowledge of U.S. history—the Three-Fifths Compromise, the Dred Scott Decision, the Missouri Compromise, etc.—will be brought to the forefront and reexamined under new light.

The second activity is a group exercise where students create a poster illustrating one of several historical events that served to counteract the goals of Reconstruction and perpetuate the oppression of African Americans. Students must then present their completed posters to the class, and teach the class about their event. This activity asks students to consider themselves as the targets of racism and prejudice as well as economic dependency. For some students, this may be a current reality. These students may offer important stories of resiliency and survival. The ultimate goal for every activity is to have the students make connections to their reality or experience.

The formative assessments for my unit planning matrix are designed to assess what students know and can do, diagnose what students already know, identify student misconceptions, and assist me with the development or modification of curriculum. For the most part, I want to use my formative assessments to promote student learning and retention, and help my students master the skills and standards of my unit.

I use two pop quizzes in my unit to check for understanding and retention of the problems that faced the Confederate states at the end of the Civil War, and the nature of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments. This information provides the background necessary to master the standards that call for higher-order thought processes. The pop quizzes also provide a sense of direction for students by communicating what they will need to know to master the skills and standards of the unit. These pop quizzes are used as openers to stimulate student prior knowledge of content covered in previous lessons, and are returned to the students after they are corrected to help students prepare for the summative exam.