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Unit of Study #26
Unit Components
School District:Custer
Unit of Study Title:Civil War: Who Was Involved and Why
Grade Level:3-5
Time Frame:4 - 5 weeks
Key Words:cotton gin, Underground Railroad, overseer, free state, slave state, Confederacy. border state, Emancipation Proclamation, Gettysburg Address
 
Unit Designer:Bette Wilkinson
Unit Designer E-mail:Bette.Wilkinson@k12.sd.us
Date Added:6/13/2002 11:24:23 AM
Date Last Revised:6/26/2002 9:17:41 AM
 
Topic Area:Social Science
 
Peer Reviewer:Judy Baldwin
Peer Reviewer E-mail:Judy.Baldwin@k12.sd.us

Brief Summary of Unit: This unit is on the background to the Civil War and the Civil War itself. The background will cover the differences between the North and South, Africans in slavery and freedom, facing this national problem, and making decisions. The Civil War will cover people, battles, and the Union victory.
Students will Understand: Students will understand that the Civil War was not only fought on the issue of slavery. They will also understand the political and power struggles between the North and South.

SD Content Standards
Link to Standards #1
Goal:

Social Science
Students will understand the interrelationships of people, places, and the environment.
Indicator:Analyze the relationships among the natural environments, the movements of peoples, and the development of societies.
Benchmark(s):b. describe ways humans are impacted by the natural environment.
c. analyze how past trends in human migration nationwide have impacted communities.
Other Content Standards:SD Content Standard
Students will understand the emergence and development of civilizations and cultures over time and place.
Indicator 1: Analyze the chronology of various historical eras to determine connections and cause/effect relationships.
Indicator 2: Evaluate the influence of varying values and philosophies on the development of civilizations and cultures.
Benchmarks: a. compare and contrast various characteristics, which distinguish specific time periods in history.
b. examine major historical events in relation to a fixed point of time.
c. explain various cause and effect relationships.

Other Components
Essential Questions to Guide this Unit and Focus Teaching and Learning: What caused people in the North and the South to disagree during the middle 1800s?
How did the invention of the cotton gin affect the North and South?
In what ways did enslaved people protest against being held in slavery?
What ways did Northerners and Southerners try to settle their disagreements during the early 1800s?
What difficult decisions did Americans make in 1860 and 1861?
Why was it difficult for many Americans to choose sides during the Civil War?
In what ways did individual Americans make a difference during the war?
Key Knowledge and Skills Students will Acquire: Students will know the reasons for the Civil War and some of the key people involved. Students will be able to identify Union and Confederate states.
Assessment Plan: Assessment tools include: Workbook pages from Harcourt Brace, worksheet on the slang terms used by the people of that era and then write a letter as a person in the Civil War relating their experience using some of those slang terms, an advertisement explaining the affects of the cotton gin on the buying and selling of cotton, a list of the differences between the North and South, chart explaining the difficult decision that people had in choosing sides in the war, speech written from different viewpoints on the Emancipation Proclamation, and the final activity will be making trading cards: one on a person and one on a battle or situation of the war.
Learning Activities: The students will be able to see the reasons the Civil War was fought other than the issue of slavery. They also will know and be able to discuss the key events of the Civil War dealing with people and events. The students will be doing individual work and work in groups: the North and South and then groups within the large group of North and South.
Notes:This unit was based around the Social Studies text, Harcourt Brace, so many parts of it would be hard for anyone to use that is not using this series. However, the sites used and many of the projects the students do would be easy to do in any classroom. I used, Doug Salhi, my TTL teacher's trading card idea, and I used bits and pieces from the web using the Civil War home-page.
Internet Resource Link: slang worksheet; http://genie.esu10.k12.ne.us/~dmahalek/Slang.html Civil War home-page; http://sunsite.utk.edu/civil-war/ To see if you had relatives in the war; http://www.itd.nps.gov/cwss/

Adapted from the the work of Jay McTighe and Grant Wiggins. Understanding by
Design. Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. Alexandria, VA. 1998.

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